Open Sources | Rodrigues & Urlocker » Nagios founder Ethan Galstad on staying independent

March 03, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Nagios founder Ethan Galstad on staying independent

TAGS: Applications, Economics, Open Source

Nagios founder Ethan Galstad wrote an excellent response to my post Is selling your open source project the ticket to freedom?

I have pasted the full text below. Thanks Ethan, feel free to hit us up on this stuff whenever you have an opinion.

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Its true that joining with a company to commercialize Nagios *could* be beneficial to future development, but I'd be willing to bet that in 99% of all such scenarios there would be more problems than anything created by such a move.

Why? Simple. Corporations have a duty to return a profit to their shareholders. In fact, courts have ruled that a corporation's job is to generate profits as best it can. Sounds reasonable right? This seemingly innocuous fact means that a corporation has to make decisions that are often in the best interest of its investors/shareholders, rather than a greater good.

Now bring Open Source software into the mix... The ideals of OSS are about openness and freedom - stuff for the greater good. How can corporate interests reasonably nurture such ideals? How can you be assurred that the corporation won't be pressured by its board of directors and/or investors to change the way things are done and subvert the greater good that the OSS project originally served? After all, they need to make a profit. Sadly, investors often care more about their share of the profits than they do with the company's commodities or the effect those commodities have on the environment, economy, consumers, etc. - in short, the greater good. I'd be willing to bet that sooner or later the company's desire to increase their profits would undermine the original ideals of the OSS project before it was commercialized.

So what happens if the actions of the corporation don't sit well with the original developers of the OSS project? They can always leave the company, fork the code, and continue on with their own project, right? Assuming the developer didn't sign a non-compete clause in their contract with the corporation and they aren't using any of the proprietary technology from the corporation in their new OSS project, things should be fine. Right? Sure, the developer could fork the code and create a new OSS project, but now they're back to square one - without funding.

Even worse, they've probably lost their brand recognition (other than their own name), because the name of the OSS project is likely now a part of the corporation's IP portfolio. Suppose Reebok were to buy a controlling interest in Nike and force their own agenda. Suppose the original Nike founders get fed up with the new regime and leave to start a new company. After all, they know how to make shoes and apparel. The real question is, who's going to buy their stuff? The Nike brand is worth more that the shoes and apparel Nike sells. Likewise, the brand name recognition that OSS projects have is better than the commodities they provide. Its tougher to build a brand name that people will recognize than it is to rewrite your project code from scratch.

Suppose the original developers are okay with the direction of the OSS project under the umbrella of the corporation, but - for whatever reason - the user base isn't. Can't the community fork the code and create a new project? Sure. But maintaining a project that you inherit from someone else is a lot tougher than maintaining your own. And you have to have people in the community who are willing to develop and support the project *long-term*. And guess what? Those new project developers are now in the same boat as the original developers of the OSS project that was acquired. If the new spinoff project is successful, some company out there will want to acquire it. 'Round and 'round we go...

So can corporate interests ever harmonize with the interests of OSS? Sure. In a scenario where all of the investors are looking out for a greater good - not just their ROI. Sadly, that's a pretty rare scenario these days. You'd be more likely to find that kind of environment in a small, privately held corporation than you would in a public one with a large investor base. But it is possible.

Don't get me wrong - I do believe that OSS projects need financial backing to succeed in the long term. However, you don't need to commercialize your OSS project or adopt one of the popular Open Source business models to succeed in generating funding. I'm not talking about generating millions so you can retire to a tropical island at the age of 35. I'm talking about generating enough income to sustain the OSS project and its ideals, so that it can continue to flourish, unencumbered from potential conflicts of interest. Take the Nagios project as an example. I'm working with companies that provide solutions that *complement* Nagios, but don't directly compete with it. I believe those types of partnerships are beneficial to everyone involved: the project, the partner companies, and the user base. This type of partnership model, which allows an OSS project to grow and flourish, isn't really mentioned in the Open Source business models that are out there. I'm sure that the Nagios project isn't unique in being able to use this type of model. If I can manage to do it with Nagios, others can do it with their projects. If any OSS project developers have their doubts, I'd welcome the challenge to show them otherwise.

-- Ethan Galstad, Nagios Developer (www.nagios.org)

Posted by Dave Rosenberg on March 3, 2006 07:29 PM

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