In addition to agreeing with what Aaron and Matt wrote, I can also add
Zend as a very successful model to consider in my opinion. In this case,
if IceBreak is PHP, then S & M is Zend offering the same kinds of
maintenance support, services and products, closed source enterprise
level extensions, etc.
I pay a decent sum to Zend for an annual subscription where I download
a supported compiled build with accessory products, such as Zend's IDE,
and I'm sure most companies likewise will want both the open source and
the business level production support for IceBreak.
There are several licenses of the Apache variety, using one of them
being critical to adoption in the business world as mentioned before,
and even being redistributed with proprietary extensions is a good thing
as long as the open source base source code is distributed with original
licensing annotations from S & M and source code changes made available
to you, which AFAIK all these licenses require, but not sure of the
detailed differences among them (Apache, BSD, Mozilla, MIT, LGPL, etc.)
I especially think as with Zend's PHP, as the product becomes a
critical function of a business running on iseries, there will be a
greater demand for enterprise IceBreak products and expertise in high
performance, multiple system architectures, failover, etc.
Your consideration of this is appreciated, Niels.
rd
Niels Liisberg wrote:
Hi Aaron and Ralph;
> >You have my attention. What's the reality of it happening though,
and what type of open source license would it be?
I just had a meeting with the board of directors here this morning. At
first they could not se any idea in "opening" IceBreak but at second
thoughts they found that it might not be a bad idea.
We were discussing a constellation like GNU-GPL
(
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/licenses.html) or LGPL.
However, it requires that we can come up with another way to drive our
revenue. If you have any suggestions we will appreciate it.
Best regards
Niels Liisberg
IceBreak Chief SW Architect
System & Metode Technologies
Håndværkersvinget 8, DK-2970 Hørsholm
Phone: +45 70 20 36 10
Fax: +45 70 20 30 11
Direct: +45 45 177 055
Mobile: +45 31 158 861
E-mail: nli@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Web: www.system-method.com and www.Icebreak.org
midrange.com
