From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Mar 15 16:21:28 2003 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E34B837B401 for ; Sat, 15 Mar 2003 16:21:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from net.wau.nl (NET.WAU.NL [137.224.10.12]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0408C43FB1 for ; Sat, 15 Mar 2003 16:21:25 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from FST777@phreaker.net) Received: from asser079.athome239.wau.nl (asser079.athome239.wau.nl [137.224.239.79]) by net.WAU.NL (PMDF V5.2-32 #38746) with ESMTP id <0HBT00H6VFNMOC@net.WAU.NL> for freebsd-chat@freebsd.org; Sun, 16 Mar 2003 01:21:23 +0100 (MET) Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2003 01:21:05 +0100 (CET) From: "Frans-Jan v. Steenbeek" Subject: Re: When does it make sense for a company to open-source its code? To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Cc: jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org Reply-To: FST777@phreaker.net Message-id: <0HBT00H6WFNMOC@net.WAU.NL> MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Spruce 0.6.5 for X11 w/smtpio 0.7.9 Content-type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org one thing is that a huge part of the testing / bug-reporting, porting and enhancing can be done for free. Another thing is that people get to know the name of the company easier. Just to name a few. Expecially if the involved company makes its internal-used software Open Source and some expensive "sale-ware" binary. All the advantages will point to the fact that behind every Open Source software-project a huge supporting community stands. That is always a nice idea for a company. On Sat, 15 Mar 2003, Jonathon McKitrick wrote: > Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2003 22:58:44 +0000 > To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org > From: Jonathon McKitrick > Subject: When does it make sense for a company to open-source its code? > > > Hi all, > > I'm hoping I could get some input on a question. > > We have heard a lot of very good reasons why it makes sense to use open > source projects in a commercial setting, and even hiring a developer to > customize it for us. In this case the changes are often given back to > the > parent project, when practical and possible. > > However, here is a different situation, and I would like your thoughts. > > The company I work at designs scientific instruments controlled from a > host > PC. That PC has to run Windows right now. However, I am being asked to > look into porting at least some of the software, possibly just the > hardware > control components, to Linux/Unix. One of our divisions that makes an > entirely different type of hardware currently sells workstations with > Linux-based software that is binary only. If I were to port any of our > software to *nix, I would make sure FreeBSD would be supported, of > course. > > Just by way of an overview, the software is basically composed of > components > that communicate to the instruments via serial/GPIB/USB/IP, 'engines' > that > tie the components into sequential steps to make experiments, and a UI to > make it all easy to use. > > What might be some guidelines to follow to decide what should be made > open > source (BSD license) and what should be binary-only? Could we > practically > do both? If binary-only is becoming widely unacceptable, what else could > be > done to protect our intellectual property? > > NOTE: Please CC me, as I am not currently subscribed. Thanks. > > jm > -- > My other computer is your windows box. > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message