[TAG] [lg-announce] Linux Gazette #140 is out!

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Ben Okopnik (ben at linuxgazette.net):

> July 2007 (#140):
> 
>   * Mailbag
>   * Talkback
>   * NewsBytes, by Howard Dyckoff

There was something I annotated at the time of my svn checkin of
lg_bytes -- but just realised I should have ALSO put into the STATUS
notes.  (I'll bet in retrospect that nobody pays attention to svn
checkin comments.)

Howard had:

  Red Hat Adds Business Solutions to Open Source RHX

  RHX launch partners include Alfresco, CentricCRM, Compiere,
  EnterpriseDB, Groundwork, Jaspersoft, Jive, MySQL, Pentaho, Scalix,
  SugarCRM, Zenoss, Zimbra, and Zmanda.



Problem:  A bunch of those are JUST NOT OPEN SOURCE.  Zimbra, SugarCRM,
Compiere, Groundwork, and Scalix are classic "badgeware", which is under
MPL-variant software with some restrictions -- while with CentricCRM,
there's not even any room for controversy, since _their_ licence doesn't
even permit code redistribution.  Jive Software (which I'd not heard of,
before) turns out to be equally bad.

I have brought this matter, several times, to Red Hat's attention, and
the presence of actively misleading wording on the Red Hat Exchange
site, such as this at the top of
http://rhx.redhat.com/rhx/support/article/DOC-1285:  

  Red Hat Exchange helps you compare, buy, and manage open source
  business applications. All in one place and backed by the open source
  leader. We've collaborated with our open source software partners to
  validate that RHX applications run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and are
  delivered through the Red Hat Network. At RHX, Red Hat provides
  customers with a single point of contact for support.

There has been no response and no correction of this error, but the very
bottom of that page now has this "FAQ" item:

  Are you only accepting open source ISVs into RHX?

  The initial set of participating ISVs all have an open source focus. We
  realize that there is debate about which companies are truly open
  source. To make it transparent to users, RHX includes information about
  each ISV's license approach. Longer term, we may introduce proprietary
  applications that are friendly with open source applications.

That is, of course, anything but a straight answer.  First, it's
nonsense to speak of _companies_ being open source or not -- and the
above paragraph in general ducks the question.  The issue is whether
software is.  Second, even if there were debate about the badgeware
offerings allegedly being open source, there could be absolutely none
about Jive Software's Clearspace or CentricCRM 4.1, which are
unambiguously proprietary.

I'm surprised that this Red Hat's deceptive characterisation got past
Howard without comment, given that the matter's been extensively covered
in recent _Linux Gazette_ issues.



At the time I noticed this error, it was late at night and I delayed
dealing with the matter because I needed to chase down which of the
named offerings were under which licence, and I hadn't done so when I
suddenly started helping run the Westercon (which is still ongoing).

Any chance you'd like to append a footnote and republish?