[wplug] GNU GPL License

[Yaakov Nemoy]

2009/10/14 Bruno Pierri Galvao <vendicate at gmail.com>:
> I am still uncertain on the whole situation. If I have all my code
> contributions open source then how can I develop a multimillion dollar
> business when anyone could take the code and set up the exact same
> business in minutes? Open source sounds nice but is it the best
> approach for my situation?

Because they are doing business with *you*. You hire skilled customer
service professionals, your contracts are easy to parse and people are
comfortable signing them, you provide everything at the right prices,
you do the best market research, you optimise your books the best, you
have the business clout to land those nice big contracts you need to
pay the bills and then also those smaller lucrative ones that let you
eat steak. Then you're in the media because your trademark represents
a certain brand value that can't be faked, and because you're doing
Open Source correctly, people perceive your enterprise as a company
that is sticking to core values which presents long term
sustainability. Even if the other guy has the same software that you
do, they trust you to work with it better because it's your core
competency.

Here's a comparison: Anyone can buy a printing press and start doing
business cards and stationary, even for extremely cheap prices. When
you pick a printer to do your work on a regular basis, or you pick a
print broker, the printer or the print broker constantly has his / her
eye on being regularly good, fast, efficient, responsive, and
providing good customer service. You know that you can switch any time
you want to another printer, almost everyone can work with the same
materials, but you pick a printer that provides consistent quality
service. You develop a working relationship with the printer because
it benefits you both in the long term. Sometimes that slightly cheaper
commodity printer isn't always the best option, even if it costs you a
bit more. This is even in a market that is heavily commoditised
because in some ways it's so open.

-Yaakov

>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Oct 14, 2009, at 1:54 PM, Tom Grove <tom.grove at nepinc.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Oct 14, 2009, at 1:03 PM, Bruno Pierri Galvao wrote:
>>
>>> Point well taken. I was using eBay as an example. The idea is to
>>> develop a business-to-business marketplace such as alibaba.com but
>>> with added functionality. We thought it was going to take us much
>>> longer because we were going to code the b2b marketplace from
>>> scratch but on Sept. 30, 2009 the first open source b2b marketplace
>>> was launched (phpb2b). We did not want to reinvent the wheel so we
>>> plan on using this open source b2b marketplace.
>>>
>>> So based on these discussions you guys think that there are no
>>> problems in keeping the add-ons open source? This software is
>>> responsible for millions of dollars of transactions between reliable
>>> businesses. Security is a must. That means, if one of the bug
>>> contributors decides to exploit a bug they found then we are in big
>>> trouble.
>>>
>>> -bruno
>>>
>>
>> There is no inherent security when using closed-source code.  Let's
>> use the iPhone as an example.  Recently Apple has fixed a security
>> hole that was used by the iPhone Dev Team to jailbreak phones.  As
>> some of you may know the iPhone has been jailbreakable for quite some
>> time, meaning that this exploit has been a problem since then.  The
>> iPhone OS is closed.
>>
>> I'm not advocating opening up the iPhone software, however, one could
>> make the argument that if it were open sourced the exploit could have
>> been patched quicker.  There more eyes that you have on code the more
>> eyes you have to pickup on mistakes.  It's similar to a continuously
>> running code review.
>>
>> As another example you can take phpb2b.  By you alone downloading and
>> coding against it the developers have another set of eyes looking at
>> their code, making it better, more efficient, and more secure.  Yes,
>> there are some people out there looking to exploit holes in your code
>> but they will be there whether or not you close your source.  The
>> problem lies with the fact that if you close your source you will have
>> no one but yourself helping to fix those exploits.
>>
>> Just something to think about.
>>
>> Tom
>>
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