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GNU is Not Unix Programming IT Technology

Convincing Your Superiors to GPL the Code? 139

Posted by Cliff from the why-not? dept.
jakobgrimstveit asks: "At work I've been developing an intranet/extranet portal framework in PHP based on many other peoples work, including quite a few PEAR modules. I've always wanted to release the coding framework as GPL and publish it on SourceForge, and my boss has - impressively enough - not been too negative about this. This has been going around in the organization for quite a while now, and finally the reply from the company's president was (not surprisingly): 'Why should we do so?' I now have the task of writing a document listing the main reasons for GPLing the code, and this is where I turn to the highly competent Slashdot crowd: How do I convince my bosses to GPL the code I've written? I assume many other developers have the same problems trying to convince their bosses to open up their code."
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Convincing Your Superiors to GPL the Code? More

Convincing Your Superiors to GPL the Code?

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  • hahahaha (Score:5, Funny)

    by heinousjay ( 683506 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @06:58PM (#13334658) Journal
    the highly competent Slashdot crowd

    Oh, sure, them. We'll just wait for them to get here...

  • Meh (Score:5, Insightful)

    by interiot ( 50685 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @07:04PM (#13334704) Homepage
    You must work in a different corporate america than I do. My biggest hope is that my company doesn't enforce their "all your copyright are belong to us" policy, wherein every little unix script I write, no matter how small, and even if nobody at the company will ever make money off of it or even use it, can't be taken with me to my next job.

    In Fortune-100-America, everything possible must be stamped with a (c) or (tm) or patent#. Advancement up the technical ladder is difficult without getting a few patents for the company.

    I think people here would have a heart attack if they knew I ever even thought about GPL'ing code, as that's almost tantamount to selling trade secrets.

    • Just to clear up the wrong assumption here: I'm not working in corporate America, though my company has a few offices there. We're located in sunny Norway (it's funny, laugh).

      In Norway, the basic rules in IT is that whatever I code, whatever I construct while working is their property, and is not to be carried with me over to a new employer. And that is not a problem for me.
    • Contrast that to the small company I worked for, and my boss actually ASKED ME if we should open source it. It's all about perspective.

    • Re:Meh (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ivan256 ( 17499 ) *
      My biggest hope is that my company doesn't enforce their "all your copyright are belong to us" policy.

      In the past when I've worked for companies with overly broad copyright assignment clauses in their contract boilerplate, I've had them reword it to allow me to maintain copyrights on code that could be considered general purpose. The wording generally goes something like "... with the exception of code that implements functionality basic to the day to day tasks of software development," but sometimes is "

      • Re:Meh (Score:2)

        by ErikZ ( 55491 )

        "Either way, it can't hurt to ask. Worst case scenario, they say no. Same goes for when you're discussing salary."

        Actually, the worst case scenerio is that they say "I'll get back to you on that". Then they go to their managers, who talk to the laywers, who discuss things with the manager you'll be working under, the the higher-ups get involved, meetings will be made. Research will be done, and four weeks later, they come back to you with a "Ok, we're making progress on that contract thing. Once we've writ

    • In Fortune-100-America, everything possible must be stamped with a (c) or (tm) or patent#. Advancement up the technical ladder is difficult without getting a few patents for the company.

      As someone who had four patents pending at one of my former places of work, and who was canned anyways after his project was cancelled, don't count on it being a huge amount of help. Being a corporate suck-up usually counts for more than real technical prowess.

      Yaz.

    • Re:Meh (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MrResistor ( 120588 ) <peterahoff.gmail@com> on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @12:29AM (#13336586) Homepage
      Well, yeah, that's because Corporate America is run by MBAs who could care less about actually running a successful, efficient company, and really only implement policies aimed at getting them the cost-reduction bonuses specified in their contract, and then move on before anyone has a chance to realize how badly their cuts have screwed the company.

      The upside is that they generally have no idea what their employees are actually doing, so it's pretty unlikely that one of those clauses will actually get enforced.

      Still, shame on you for signing that contract. You should have negotiated.
    • ...wherein every little unix script I write, no matter how small, and even if nobody at the company will ever make money off of it or even use it, can't be taken with me to my next job.

      I once saw the source code to the "yes" script on a commercial Unix. One half line of code, three screenfuls of nasty legalize about unpublished code.
    • > In Fortune-100-America, everything possible must be stamped with a (c) or (tm) or patent#.

      Fortune-100-America includes a few small corporations (E.G. IBM) that find it useful to contribute to open source. They don't do it because they "feel like giving away their property". They do it because they figured out it would produce more money for them.

      So the first thing one should tell one's boss is "See, it's good for IBM!".

      The point is not that if it's good for IBM it must be good for you. The point is tha
    • My biggest hope is that my company doesn't enforce their "all your copyright are belong to us" policy ...

      That's nice but irrelevant. GPL doesn't invalidate a copyright, it relies on a copyright holder to offer the source as GPL. Whether that is a person or a company does not matter.

      ... wherein every little unix script I write, no matter how small, and even if nobody at the company will ever make money off of it or even use it, can't be taken with me to my next job.

      If you don't like the company own
      • Different programmers have different jobs.

        Your logic works great if you work for software company X and are writing code that they sell.

        It even works if you work for company Y and you are writing code at their request to be used by people in company Y.

        But when instead (like me), you work for company Z that pays you to do job A, and to od that you need to write scripts, then that company has NO business taking the scripts that you wrote. They did not tell you "make this scripts" to do your job. They di

    • Engineers at my grade are required to file for 2 "company patents" per year as part of our yearly performance review. Not to get promoted, just to get an average rating.

      US patents are not for us to pursue, that's a legal/business decision. We must simply supply the material, and the suits figure out where it goes. No one on /. would be shocked by the sheer crap that gets sent on.

      It also says in our company code of conduct and in our IP accountability training, that we are not allowed to modify GPL code with

  • Who, us? (Score:3, Funny)

    by elemental23 ( 322479 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @07:05PM (#13334707) Homepage Journal
    highly competent Slashdot crowd

    It's funny, laugh!

  • Sources of advice (Score:3, Funny)

    by NitsujTPU ( 19263 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @07:05PM (#13334713)
    I now have the task of writing a document listing the main reasons for GPLing the code, and this is where I turn to the highly competent Slashdot crowd

    Well, that was your first mistake.

  • Tell them your reasons (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Finuvir ( 596566 ) <rparle.soylentred@net> on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @07:06PM (#13334716) Homepage
    If you've wanted to GPL it since the beginning you must surely have some good reason for wanting that, right? Just tell them that reason, focusing on the business benefits. If there are no business benefits and you want to open-source it for idealogical reasons then you might need some help. Find business reasons (by looking at other business-led open-source projects, preferably similar to yours) or give up.
    • Sure. I have many reasons for publishing the sourcecode, but couldn't write them all up in the post. Here's a few reasons:

      * Other people can gain knowledge from my code
      * I can gain knowledge by other people commenting/submitting patches to my code
      * Security vulnerabilities will be found under peer review
      * I will get Good Karma [tm].

      But me wanting to publish the code is not reason good enough for a boss, of course. He needs to see what he (as in "the company") can gain from this, so I'd like to get as much i

      • Re:Tell them your reasons (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Marxist Hacker 42 ( 638312 ) * <seebert42@gmail.com> on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @07:29PM (#13334897) Homepage Journal
        It's that second one that will convince your boss- but it needs rewording. Plugging into the Dogbert Buzzword Generator for a second, try:

        "I wish to maximize my productivity by leveraging the efforts of the Open Source Development Community, thus getting us development resources at no extra cost to the company."

      • Sure. I have many reasons for publishing the sourcecode, but couldn't write them all up in the post. Here's a few reasons:

        * Other people can gain knowledge from my code

        If they use it, if they bother to understand it.

        * I can gain knowledge by other people commenting/submitting patches to my code

        That's a pretty theory - the reality is that few OSS/GPL projects ever get any code back.

        * Security vulnerabilities will be found under peer review

        In theory. Again, reality shows that they are found not by peer

        • Actually I've contributed to several small oss projects and been a developer in several more. I've found you usually get code back.. just not significant code. More people submit bug reports and little things that you didn't see that are just as valuable as the code itself though.
      • Sounds good, but we need to expand on that a little bit, and focus in on the company's benefits....
        • 1 and 4 become: "Good PR". Copyrights remain with the company and all notices indicate that the company was willing to make this software available to the public. As the code improves the company gets the primary PR benefit.
        • 2: Patches to the code come back to the company. This increases the value and stability of the code faster than if only maintained by you(r group).
        • 3 is a subset of 2 but good to break o
      • A company exists to make a profit. If you really want to convince them, you need to show how GPL'ing the code will lead to $$$$.

        Anyway, here are some likely responses you will get. Up to you to decide how you will handle them.

        * Other people can gain knowledge from my code

        "Irrelevant to the company."

        * I can gain knowledge by other people commenting/submitting patches to my code

        "We didn't hire these people or evaluate their qualifications and references; we have no reason to trust them. How

    • Re:Tell them your reasons (Score:5, Insightful)

      by XO ( 250276 ) <blade,eric&gmail,com> on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @07:50PM (#13335044) Homepage Journal
      Yes, agreed.

      Exactly why IS it that you want to GPL the code?

      Will ANYONE benefit by having it GPL?

      Difficult to present a sales pitch only knowing what we want to achieve, and not having any inkling of the steps inbetween.
      • Difficult to present a sales pitch only knowing what we want to achieve, and not having any inkling of the steps inbetween.

        You must be new here. Everyone knows the step before "Profit!" is:

        (2) ...

      • Tax write off? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by vwjeff ( 709903 )
        This is just a thought.

        I'm not a tax law expert but could a "code donation" be considered a charitable donation. Figure out how long you worked on the project and determine the monetary value.

        Tell them that using GPL code reduces their costs because you do not need to "reinvent the wheel" every time you work on a project.

        Technically you don't need to release any changes or additions you made to GPL'ed code if you keep the project in house. If your employer does allow you to release the code, you can alway

  • good luck (Score:5, Informative)

    by quewhatque ( 806311 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @07:07PM (#13334726)
    you might think it's a good deed for society, donated quality code to the public, but what would a business care about good deeds. they are doing business, which into itself stifles good competition, creating a better market, which does benefit society.

    the only way you can convince him is to state the advatages it gives your company, and not what it gives society.
    1. other people can fix your bugs and security holes for you
    2. other people can add features for you
    3. no need to pay for beta testers

    tell him you can still maintain your rights of it in that you still have the final say in what gets merged into the source code, and that code vandalism wont happen (people putting in their own backdoors)(as if anyone can immediately donate code and have it show up).

    do tell him that one negative of it is your competitors could also use your code, you wouldnt want to get fired for not telling him that someday.

    • Re:good luck (Score:5, Interesting)

      by chris_mahan ( 256577 ) <chris.mahan@gmail.com> on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @07:20PM (#13334821) Homepage
      There is an advantage to your competition using your code, especially if a lot of the competition is using your code. You will be seen as the de-facto standard settig body for the software, and that will attract good-will in the industry, allowing you to potentially hire their finest and brightest.

      Also, bear in mind that this will give you an insight of how they run their business.

      Finally, you could then turn around and sell them "SuperSoftware Enterprise Edition", since they alreay know and use and love SuperSoftware Standard.

      Ultimately, though, your boss does not care unless the business makes moeny off it before year's end.

      Remeber Google: If you want to build an $80B company in 6 years: Use linux and develop your own software.
    • Tell the boss you couldn't possibly have done it without him; that he should take the credit for this bold and heroic act of selflessness. Make sure his name is all over it.

      Believe it or not this type approach has worked for me in the past.

    • Relicensing (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Dioscorea ( 821163 )
      Another potential positive aspect is relicensing. Some companies are so GPL-phobic that they will pay to have you (or your company) give them a one-off, non-exclusive waiver, so they can use your code without the (perceived) GPL albatross hanging round their necks. I've worked on open source projects (e.g. HMMER [wustl.edu]) that have made money this way.
      • Well, WashU does love money.... </running joke>

  • step by step argument (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rnd() ( 118781 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @07:14PM (#13334785) Homepage
    Here is the argument:
    • GPLing the code may have the effect of creating a community of people to enhance and debug the code.
    • If it's not a product that provides significant competitive advantage to your company, there is no harm in spreading it around in exchange for the benefit in the first bullet point.
    • There may be some positive PR associated with the company "founding" an open source project. Who knows, there may even be some way to consider it a charitable donation and write it off of the company's taxes.
    • Most importantly, there are a variety of Open Source licenses, so if your president balks at the GPL, consider the LGPL or one of the variety of others. They provide many of the benefits of the GPL but allow the boss to feel a bit more in control. You can always move to full GPL next year once his/her comfort level has increased.

    • Re:step by step argument (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      • Never suggest that others are more competent than you.
      • It might provide advantage to the competition.
      • The kind of people who don't know why they should GPL a product don't care what the kind who do know think.
      • The fact that there is a dizzying array of licenses to choose from is not going to make management's decisions any easier.
      • wrong:

        No suggestion was made that others weree more competent, just that the combined effort of many would be more productive than one person alone.

        If it provides advantages to the competition, then the president should probably not go along with it if he wants to keep his job. QED.

        I don't know what you mean by "the kind of people"... This guy clearly wants to GPL the software but the decision isn't in his hands. He's trying to persuade someone else, hence the need for an argument.

        The variety of licenses

        • I don't know what you mean by "the kind of people"... This guy clearly wants to GPL the software but the decision isn't in his hands. He's trying to persuade someone else, hence the need for an argument.

          Thanks for spelling it out for me. English is not my native language, and some essence may have been lost in the mental translation. This is exactly what I want to achieve. And if I get enough constructive feedback I will group the arguments together and feed them back to the community. Keep the good tips

    • I think it's to most places benefit to put stuff under the GPL unless there's a specific reason not to. One worry in GPLing your code is a competitor commercializing your code in a way that you can't work with. The GPL is one of the better licenses for making sure that can't happen.

      • You may be right about this... but showing the boss the "top 5" varieties of licenses with the various nuances highlighted would create the impression of more control over the terms, and make the boss feel comfortable that a variety of terms are embraced by the OSS community, and this would make the boss more likely to comply.
    • Most importantly, there are a variety of Open Source licenses, so if your president balks at the GPL, consider the LGPL or one of the variety of others. They provide many of the benefits of the GPL but allow the boss to feel a bit more in control.

      Correct me if I'm wrong, but the LGPL actually will make the boss feel less "in control" because it will allow competitors to use your code without releasing their changes to the GPL. It's probably got less of a chance of succeeding in the poster's situation than
    • ``...if your president balks at the GPL, consider the LGPL...''

      I can't imagine why the boss of the company releasing the beast would prefer to use a license other than the GPL. The GPL's viral nature ensures that nobody else can incorporate the software into a product of theirs, without GPL'ing that product, too.

      At the same time, your company still can use the software in non-GPL'ed products, because they are the copyright holder. When you have contributors assign copyright to you (like the FSF does), you r
      • Well, in some instances the boss might want to reserve the right to sell the code to another company for a closed source product.
        • ``Well, in some instances the boss might want to reserve the right to sell the code to another company for a closed source product.''

          Which they _have_. That's exactly what I was trying to clarify. Since they are the copyright holder, it's perfectly alright for them to license it as GPL, and at the same time sell it under a proprietary license. For example, Trolltech does this with Qt.

          The only complication is if third parties contribute patches without assigning copyright to the boss. If these patches are ac
          • My post misattribued more control to the LGPL, then, but I think the gist is true that showing the boss the variety of OSS licenses and explaining the differences would make him/her feel empowered.

  • support (Score:3, Insightful)

    by file cabinet ( 773149 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @07:21PM (#13334824) Journal
    sell the support. that's what the linux folks do (RH, SuSE, etc.)

  • Some ideas (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @07:21PM (#13334826) Homepage
    • Free development of new features, some of which you might not otherwise have thought of yourselves if you can get a development community started.
    • Free beta testing across a broader range of users and operating environments which should identify and enable the fixing of bugs far sooner.
    • Free positive P.R. for your company, especially if things really take off.
    • Free advertising for your company as well if you brand the package with your company logo and colours by default. Lots of people don't bother taking that kind of stuff out if it's not too obtrusive.
    There's far more things that can be free than just "beer", and it's libre too, so you can even have some free Karma.

    Realistically though some of that is going to need kickstarting which will require some small financial and time outlay. Things like provisioning the initial website and forums for your applications users to bounce ideas and code back and forth. Some man hours, probably yours, to apply patches and integrate new features until such time as you hopefully have an active enough community to let others external to the company help maintain the code on their own time and dime. Be realistic and give them some negatives too, albeit with a positive spin, to show that you've thought things through and demonstrate that the benefits outweigh the expense.

    Oh, and if you do eventually get the product GPL'd, submit the news to Slashdot as a "Slashback"; that should give your fledgling userbase and development community a running start!

  • I'll tell you what you should write: code.

    Seriously, if you want to convince anyone of the 'superiority' of open source versus hidden source code, then simply write some glue code of your own which does something special.

    That is to say, position yourself with GPL/OSS code in such a way that you prove that the open stratification of code, abstract on whatever levels you choose, is worth the effort. Write an app using GPL'ed API's that nobody else could've written, quite so quickly, if a deep and sudden unde
    • Well, that's a pretty darn good reason why most gpl developers fail miserably in the commercial software world....

    • What the hell are you talking about? The question isn't "Hey, can you motivate me to write some useful open-source code?" He already has code that he'd like to GPL. How can he convince his boss that this is a good idea?

      That is to say, position yourself with GPL/OSS code in such a way that you prove that the open stratification of code, abstract on whatever levels you choose, is worth the effort. Write an app using GPL'ed API's that nobody else could've written, quite so quickly, if a deep and sudden und

  • My boss was pretty cool about it (Score:4, Informative)

    by vsync64 ( 155958 ) <vsync@quadium.net> on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @07:32PM (#13334912) Homepage
    He even let me set up a Web site [celebrityresorts.com] to host some projects that we've made from scratch (more on the way) as well as just submitting patches to existing software. As far as convincing, it wasn't hard:
    • He already knows a little bit about open source (although he did complain about how TightVNC "ripped off" VNC), and said that he's seen firsthand that good software can come out of that process
    • Fixes and enhancements for things we use internally
    • A chance that if I get hit by a bus, someone else out there has already used the code and can be hired to help
    • Recruiting tool to technology people; shows some of our techniques, style, discipline
    • Increases our perception as a participant in the community, thereby making people friendlier when we ask for help, enhancements, etc.

  • The real question (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Zphbeeblbrox ( 816582 ) <zaphar@gmail.com> on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @07:32PM (#13334915) Homepage
    The real question here is why did you wan't to GPL the code if you didn't already see tangible benefits to doing so. Don't get me wrong I love Open Source. I use it all the time in my job and at home. But if you don't already have tangible benefits in mind toward opens-ourcing the code then why did you want to open-source it in the first place.

    Or were you asking for benefits your companies exec's would understand? That may be a trifle more difficult to expound upon since we don't even know what your company does.
    • The reasons for me wanting to GPL it was answered here [slashdot.org].

      And yes, what I need is good boss-convincing arguments besides what I've already outlined.

      My company does not sell any IT products (we're in the shipping business).
      • Does your code give your company a competitive advantage over the competition? In other words: is it something that could (directly or indirectly) convince a potential client to choose your company over the competition?

        If so, then it will probably be hard to convince your CEO to open up the code. He will be worried about your competitors using your code against you. Rightly so, if you ask me. That's not to say that GPL'ing is necessarily a bad idea, just that's it's something that should be considered very
  • It sounds like you wanted to GPL the code for ideological purposes. If that's the case, there are plenty of GPL zealots around here who will show up sooner or later.


    I think it would be more productive if you would share a practical reason for GPL'ing the code, if you had one.

  • It's all upside (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bwt ( 68845 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @07:55PM (#13335077)
    First off, there's no downside:
    - It costs nothing
    - It risks nothing, as there is no marketability
    - The licence clearly states no warantee, no support

    It's "fair" and good for "the community"
    - You use open source, so you should "give back"
    - Others may benefit from it, appreciate you
    - If everyone takes cost free steps for mutual benefit, everyone will be better off

    The upside is all positive:
    - You may get help finding & fixing bugs
    - You may get help enhancing it

    It highlights publicly good work that your company has done
    - Releasing code is comparable to publishing in a trade journal, and is valuable for the same reasons
    - Associates your company, department, and you specifically with an area of expertise
    - May place your company in higher esteem among the IT community, which helps hiring
    - Generally, networking with others with similar business problems is good experience

    • Thank you very much. This is a great start! This will be very nice to include.

      What licence do you have on these ideas? :-)
    • I'm not at all convinced by your claim about lack of downsides.

      It clearly does cost something: the poster's time in tidying up the code, packaging it, releasing it, maintaining the web server or whatever he uses to distribute it. It may well also cost his time in answering emails, reviewing code submissions, merging in patches or maintaining a version control system, making future releases. (Of course, I'm assuming his time is worth something to his company...!) The web server or whatever may also cost

    • - It risks nothing, as there is no marketability

      You risk any competitive advantage the code gives you. This is a _huge_ issue to consider if the company is a market leader or experiencing strong growth due to the things its in-house software can do.

      If some company is kicking arse and taking names in its market segment because of the advantages provided by in-house software, quite possibly one of the *dumbest* things that company could do would be to release that software to the world.

  • What's the problem? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by hahafaha ( 844574 )
    You could turn to our good friend GNU Emacs for help. Just type in C-h-C-p. Or, if that doesn't work here are some reasons to use the GPL:
    • It's risk free
    • It allows competent people who do not have the opportunity to work for your boss to help your company along
    • It opens the software to a broader scope of people

  • I agree... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by joto ( 134244 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @08:45PM (#13335459)
    ...with your boss.

    If you can't find a coherent argument for why it's in your companys interest to release the source code under the GPL, then there is probably little reason to do it...

    Then again, unless your company is in the business of selling "intranet/extranet portal framework"s then it shouldn't hurt much.

    Apart from GNU ideology, the decision boils down to:

    • Will it create good relations to someone the company cares about?
    • Is the source code embarassing to show to others?
    • Will the company actually benefit from other users sending patches? (and no, this isn't as clearcut as open source ideologes claim, see the question below...)
    • Will this take significant amounts of your time that would be better spent doing other things that benefit the company more?

    If you can find reasonable answers to those questions, a reasonable boss will make a reasonable decision :-)

    • Those are good questions. I'd add:
      • Will it help your company attract excellent developers? (This is a specialization of your "Will it create create good relations to someone the company cares about?") Arguably, yes - people like to work places they know OSS is respected and where they know interesting work is being done.
      • Will it improve the quality of your code? Patches are one way. Pride is another - people polish stuff much more if other people will see it.

  • Another Route (Score:2, Insightful)

    by pete-classic ( 75983 )
    If the company doesn't feel okay about GPLing this piece of software, but doesn't really care about hanging on to it you might be able to talk them into simply disclaiming copyrights over it. One imagines that copyrights would then devolve to you, and you could GPL it.

    Outside of that check out ESR's [catb.org] various works for "business minded" reasons to go "open source". He has particularly compelling arguments for just the sort of thing you've written.

    -Peter
  • "If you GPL the code, you are no longer at my (the sole developer's) mercy - even if I quit, you can be reasonably sure that the code will continue to be maintained and improved".

    Sure, no guarantees, but that applies to anything in the world today (including job security :).
  • If you can't list reasons for yourself, having us come up with them for you is indicative that it's not such a hot idea.

    So start by explaining what you want out of this, why you think GPL will be good for what you are doing.
  • 1) Assume, you're not as bright as you think you are
    The security architecture flaws in the code will be revealed, exploits developed that with your self ingratiating credits attributing your handiwork to your company by way of email addresses with the companies domain and along with the unwitting conspirators names and emails who helped with the code all of which are very easy to track down using Google.

    GPL Lesson 1
    Do not attribute the code so that it can be linked back to the associates or persons or compa
    • All I can say is, "Huh?" And further, "Huh?"

      Note to moderators: If it takes three readings of each paragraph to figure out what the hell a poster is talking about, it's probably not worth modding up. I know there's this tendency to think that, if a post is more than three paragraphs long, the poster should be rewarded for all his hard work. But fight it.

      If I understand your arguments correctly, you're basically saying the following:

      1) Security through obscurity is a great defense. Don't even bot
  • Have your company lawyer read it, then.
    And then think again if it's whaat you want.
    Maybe BSD is better for your and your company's future goals (which neithe you now your company may not know today!).

      - Hubert

  • Never tried, but (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dtfinch ( 661405 ) * on Tuesday August 16, 2005 @11:21PM (#13336294) Journal
    Ask "Is keeping this closed going to make us money?"

    If it won't, and it's something that others (not your competitors) may find useful, then you may as well GPL it, to let others discover the bugs before you do.

  • how about these (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tom7 ( 102298 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @01:31AM (#13336819) Homepage Journal
    Here are some easy bullet-points:

    builds goodwill of a community (that may be your customers (?))

    can result in free development work by hobbyists that use your code

    allows you to legally make use of the vast library of other GPL code out there

    a free alternative may supplant proprietary solutions of your competitors (see IBM's various contributions..); best if you have no commercial plans for your product

    open source is a cool buzzword to have attached to your product and company at little cost

    Of course, if you can sell him on FSF dogma, then there are loads of philosophical advantages, too.

    • Don't use the word "hobbyists". Say that the code will be reviewed by "other IT professionals".

      Now, his code can already take advantage of any amount of GPL'ed code that he would like. It's only a legal issue when his company goes to sell the code. So I would refrain from using point #3.

      Here is the overall argument I would use: "Mister boss, sir? We use a great deal of GPL'ed code here at XYZ Corp. If it weren't for open source, some of that code might have cost us thousands of dollars in licensing
      • Now, his code can already take advantage of any amount of GPL'ed code that he would like. It's only a legal issue when his company goes to sell the code. So I would refrain from using point #3.

        Well, not just sell, but distribute. If this program isn't just for internal use--like if they are installing it at customer's sites as part of some service contract, perhaps, then they need to abide by the terms of the GPL if there is GPL code in there. He wasn't really clear about how they're using it.

        But yes, I am
  • You need to put it in terms familiar to board members. There's no point trying to sell them some hippie "it's the moral thing to do, man!" ideal.
    • It reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO) by getting other people to add features for free!
    • It means people will work on the project for free, without falling foul of any of those annoying anti-slavery laws
    • People around the world will be fixing bugs and adding new ideas for free
    • The code will be maintaned for the company, for free.
    • Source code audits will

    • None of this things you've listed are even remotely guaranteed to occur. At best, they're optimistic assumptions.

      If that doesn't work, you could point out that it won't cost them anything to GPL the code, but they stand to gain a lot.

      Ot could cost them their competitive advantage in the market place. What sane businessman would give that up ?

  • Reasons (Score:5, Informative)

    by Julian Morrison ( 5575 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @02:33AM (#13337008)
    1) Savings on coder time, extra bugs fixed - in each case by external devs your company doesn't have to pay. Downside: unless your project becomes well-known, this may never actually happen, or not enough to pay for itself.

    2) Code stability. You can sell services or derived products to third parties and tell them that the product is safe against your company going bust because the code is public. Downside: you then have to do the harder work of convincing the buyer not to "cut out the middleman" and implement a homebrew with the published GPL code. GPL code cannot be your only source of value!

    3) Compatibility with 3rd party extensions. If you GPL, you get a license to merge in anything else GPL'd and thereby add maximum features for minimum effort. Downside: if you muddy up who has the copyright, you may not be able to un-GPL it (nor sell special-case licenses to users who'd prefer closed source)

    4) Why not? If it's not a "strategic" asset but only an in-house tool for a secondary task, GPLing can't hurt. Downside: publishing code and dealing with bug-reports and user gripes can eat expensive dev time. If the business case is that marginal you may be forced to "publish and abandon".

    You do realise that it will often NOT make sense to open-source the code? In particular, a "strategic" app, or one that implies sensitive info through its design, or one that presents a public face you don't want to be hackable. Or simply if your boss thinks "I can't spare dev time for this nonsense". Businesses aren't charities (unless you're tax deductible).

  • What can happen to a new OSS project? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mwvdlee ( 775178 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @03:45AM (#13337213) Homepage
    1. Code is released under GPL, nobody cares, code is never updated and might as well never have been released.
    2. Code is released under GPL, code is pillaged and partially moved to other systems leaving the original code obsolete and inferior.
    3. Code is released under GPL and takes off as a succesful project.

    Option 3 is least uncommon by far.

    Unless you have good reason to think your system will be sufficiently popular to actually gather a community (remember; there is no OSS community; only individual OSS developers), you'll have a hard time making a business case.
  • My experience of corporate culture is that emotive arguments dont work but financial ones do. So dont sell them the free speech, sell them the free beer side of the argument.

    I appreciate this goes against the whole spirit of something like the GPL but if you have to tell a few white lies to get something to happen then the important thing is that it gets to happen.

    I'd sell it on the "Any holes will be fixed and new features will be created completely free of cost to you by a vibrant community that will

  • Highlights a weakness in GPL (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pfafrich ( 647460 ) <rich AT singsurf DOT org> on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @06:00AM (#13337523) Homepage
    The viral nature of GPL may actually work gainst the goals of creating a global commons of reusable code.

    Consider this senario: you want to convice your boss to open source. To do you could first show him all the other open source code which is available to use. Without the viral clause this would work fine, your boss would see all this code, use bits of it and a year down the line might actually consider contributing some of their own code.

    The viral clause means this senario won't happen. Your boss will read the GPL and notice that by linking in that code they will need to also release their code under GPL. For an open source newbie this is not something he'll be willing to do. The consequence of this is that the boss will instantly dismiss the ideas of open source and never get to see the advantage. In essence the viral clause creates a block to acceptance.

    To get around this block, hunt out LGPL code or the other open source licences which do not restrict the freedom to distrubute products incorperating open source code under their chosen licence.

    Alternativly consider becoming a contractor. The rules of engagment of different here. As a contractor you have more freedom to develop your own code base. Employers pay you for the knowledge (and code) you have built up over the years and be more understanding of your need to continue building that.

    p.s. Yes I know viral probably not the best term to use here (see slashdot passim), just can't think of a better term.

  • Ask him... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by seanellis ( 302682 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @07:31AM (#13337802) Homepage Journal
    That's what I did.

    One of my team wrote a little interface wrapper between Ant (build system) and AlienBrain (source code management software), because he couldn't find one anywhere else.

    I argued that, without the FOSS nature of Ant, we had saved money and it was therefore our duty to contribute.

    The main stumbling block was that I had to show that this wouldn't materially advantage our competitors.

    The final version is at http://sourceforge.net/projects/antab/ [sourceforge.net] in case anyone wants to look at it.

  • My personal Method (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MrCopilot ( 871878 )
    #1 Use GPL code & librarys to do rapid development.
    It costs the company nothing & you get a near complete app which needs further development.#2

    Impress him with the features and ease of use/cost.

    #4 Explain that it must be rewritten at a significant toolkit/developer cost
    or
    for nothing, we can release it under the terms of the GPL.

    His next question is what are our requirements under the GPL? Every CD ships with the source code, keep copyrights & GPL notices, done. In my case, He agree

  • Raising all boats (Score:2, Interesting)

    by rfisher ( 6491 )
    Simple. Infrastructure code is not a competitive advantage. If we don't GPL it, our others will simply build effectively the same infrastructure on their own.

    If we GPL it, though, other people will adopt it instead of writing their own. We then reap the benefits of their improvements to the infrastructure.

    And just to be clear: We aren't GPLing our code that makes us unique & that is our real value.

    Not to mention the goodwill GPLing the code will generate for the company. Or possibly good press. Or the k

  • Credibility (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The only real advantage the higher-ups would consider is whether people who use the program would be people who are interested in whatever products your company sells. Open Sourcing a program is a good way to get your name out to people who may not have heard of your company's name (and make sure to put the name in the program to keep them happy, and the 2.0 release to say bad things about them because you got fired last week). The only problem is if your company doesn't have anything would be of special a

  • seek first to understand (Score:3, Interesting)

    by the-build-chicken ( 644253 ) on Wednesday August 17, 2005 @04:34PM (#13342407)
    You're going to sde a lot posts about "show him the business reasons" and "make a business case for it" and "find a company that's currenlty benefiting from open source and share that"...and they're all great reasons if you want to spend the next 2 years convincing him (in which time your framework will be out of date and worthless).

    Or you could take a couple of steps back and think a bit about human nature. Most people (99.9999%..ok, I can't back up those stats) will take 2 years to make a logical decision and 2 minutes to make an emotional one (yes, even CEOs)...and what's the biggest emotional motivator? Fear!

    "Hey bob, did you hear company X (where X is a random competitor) is open sourcing their framework?"

    Now forget all about it, go have a coffee, when you come back to the office you will miraculously have one of upper management not only giving you permission, but actively directing and tasking you on his/her new "open source vision"...which he/she will sell as their idea, which is a double bonus, because if anything goes wrong it's not you in the firing line, however if it all goes right then people know who wrote the code :)

    Niccolo would be proud :)
  • Explicitedly ask:

    "What benefit would we get from NOT GPLing this code".

    1) Our competitors will not use it. Hm. Is this code REALLY that fantastic that competitors would WANT to reuse it? Yes I know, we all like to think we are coding Gods and that all should bow down to own superior code. But truthfully, the competitor will instead say "I have no need for that/already got one."

    2) Other people will not be forced to pay us to use our code. Were they going to anyway? Ask to see profit projections

    • "What benefit would we get from NOT GPLing this code".

      That's basically a limited analysis. What you forget is that any piece of code can immediatly improved on and suddenly generate a small profit stream. As soon as it is released, the cahnges are easily made withoit help from the company, this sealing off that source of potential revenue.

      While there are ways around this problem, they generally require planning beforehand (e.g. source release scheduling).

      Besides - a lot of people haven't read the GPL fu

  • When I went from MIT to another employer, I succeeded at being able to GPL code I wrote here using my essay about Solving the Buy vs Build Dilemma [mit.edu].

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