Feel the love!
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Just this week, a major commercially oriented open source product moved to GPL v3. SugarCRM announced that the Sugar Community Edition 5.0 will be available under v3.
Congrats to SugarCRM. It's the right move, the right time, and I can attest that decisions like this are difficult, time-consuming, and actually, not a lot of fun.
Licensing is the bane of existence for most commercial companies. Open source licensing doubly so. Licensing is still a black art, and the circumstances are the driving factor, e.g. what is the desired outcome?
I'm not a fan of vanity licensing. Here at Adobe, we're working to move everything to a recognized open source license, as it makes sense.
However, I'm a bit bugged by the number of folks on the web that are claiming that the GPL v3 is the solution to every problem. In many ways the GPL v3 is an improvement over the former incarnation of GPL. It clarifies a lot of formerly ambiguous material, and so far, makes lawyers a bit more comfortable. But it is not the only right answer, nor is it always the best answer.
For Sugar, and their existing business model, GPL v3 helps protect their unique value propositions while keeping the advantages of an open source development. The team at Sugar understands the diligence and governance issues that GPL carries with it, and are well positioned to walk the tightrope GPL can bring. GPL may actually be the best choice for a hosted and services oriented model, but not necessarily the best for client products with nested capabilities.
Interestingly enough, for a large corporation with lots of software (and intermixed licensed components, etc) GPL can be a nightmare. In many regards an even more open license works for certain things, e.g. BSD.
The difference may come down to your definition of open and free.
I applaud FSF telling me I can be free. I find it more philosophically challenging to be told how to be free. I want doors that open, not doors that are free.
So, explore an open door today.
And let Sugar know that you approve.
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