I am inclined to agree with Michael on this.
The timing of this offer is very interesting. Roundcube is very close to an excellent beta 2 and full release cannot be more than six months away.
@mail is doing this on purely commercial grounds (nothing wrong with that) but it would be sad to see such a good Open Source project disappear as it surely would.
However, I would like to understand what would happen to the source code if Thomas should decide to sell. Who actually owns the code given that at least a dozen people have contributed?
Is it the case that the code will remain open even after he sells it and therefore couldn't anyone else start a new project from what exists already?
Whatever Thomas does that is his decision and we should all congratulate him on creating an outstanding webmail client and wish him well.
-----Original Message----- From: Michael Bueker [mailto:m.bueker@berlin.de] Sent: 26 July 2006 11:23 To: Thomas Bruederli Cc: dev@lists.roundcube.net; Uwe@mtu.homelinux.net; Schaefer@mtu.homelinux.net Subject: Re: Fwd: Roundcube merger - Ideas from atmail
On Wed, 26 Jul 2006 09:49:34 +0200, "Thomas Bruederli" roundcube@gmail.com wrote:
Hi everybody,
Just wanted to forward a mail I've got yesterday and would like to
hear your opinions about this topic. Either this could make RoundCube
grow faster or atmail just wants to get rid of some (more and more
serious) competition.
I am totally opposed to this idea.
First of all, it would damage roundcube's reputation insofar as there will always be the "better" commercial version of <whatever rounbcude+atmail would be called>. I am sure this would make less people want to even try roundcube. And frankly, I would prefer a smaller, less functional but totally free application over the open source branch of something commercial any day.
Secondly, they are proposing to buy roundcube out, and if I understood correctly, they want to buy the license. That would not only mean that they'll use all of roundcube's features in their commercial product (which I'd simply oppose because the work wasn't meant to be aiding their profit), but also that they could un-open source the open source tree any day.
Thirdly, they want to buy roundcube out. While that may be nice in terms of their business world, I think it's totally inappropriate, because it would be impossible to evenly distribute the money among everyone who's contributed to roundcube during its development.
Call me an FOSS radical, but this offer violates my principles. Not that I have a lot to say, being new here, but still. I'd very much like roundcube to stay completely free as in speech.
Cheers,
mtu
On Jul 26, 2006, at 6:44 AM, WOODS John wrote:
I am inclined to agree with Michael on this.
The timing of this offer is very interesting. Roundcube is very
close to an excellent beta 2 and full release cannot be more than six months away.
Indeed.
@mail is doing this on purely commercial grounds (nothing wrong with that) but it would be sad to see such a good Open Source project disappear as it surely would.
I got a chuckle out of this search.
http://www.google.com/custom?q=%22we+use+atmail%22
However, I would like to understand what would happen to the source
code if Thomas should decide to sell. Who actually owns the code given that at least a dozen people have contributed?Is it the case that the code will remain open even after he sells
it and therefore couldn't anyone else start a new project from what exists already?
The code is licensed under the GPL.
Whatever Thomas does that is his decision and we should all
congratulate him on creating an outstanding webmail client and wish him well.
Agreed. But everyone keep your SVN sync running in the background,
just in case. ;-)
-- Jason Dixon DixonGroup Consulting http://www.dixongroup.net
WOODS John wrote:
I am inclined to agree with Michael on this.
The timing of this offer is very interesting. Roundcube is very close to an excellent beta 2 and full release cannot be more than six months away.
@mail is doing this on purely commercial grounds (nothing wrong with that) but it would be sad to see such a good Open Source project disappear as it surely would.
However, I would like to understand what would happen to the source code if Thomas should decide to sell. Who actually owns the code given that at least a dozen people have contributed?
Is it the case that the code will remain open even after he sells it and therefore couldn't anyone else start a new project from what exists already?
The existing GPL'd code remains under GPL - this cannot be removed, and so a new Open Source project could be forked under a new name (assuming the RoundCube name was part of the purchase).
-
Blane Bramble -
Jason Dixon -
WOODS John