Comments on: Corporate lobbying against free software http://www.alexhudson.com/2009/10/30/corporate-lobbying-against-free-software/ Just another WordPress weblog Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:12:39 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: D http://www.alexhudson.com/2009/10/30/corporate-lobbying-against-free-software/comment-page-1/#comment-281 D Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:26:16 +0000 http://www.alexhudson.com/blog/?p=235#comment-281 Just a quick clarification to the last comment... It wasn't until the company was sold to Vista Equity Partners (http://is.gd/4K5ad) that development on Horizon 8.0 was abandoned (http://is.gd/4K5kx) in favour of the legacy Unicorn product (which was itself rebranded as "Symphony"). The previous owners (Seaport Capital) and management board (under Patrick Sommers) were committed to the on-going development of Horizon. From memory, the development of Horizon 8.0 utilised a sizeable amount of Open Source code (e.g. Lucene). It's also worth noting that the most recent International Survey of Library Automation indicated that Horizon customers were (if you ignore exsiting OS ILS users) the most likely to "consider implementing an open source ILS" (http://is.gd/4K5wM). Indeed, this may have been a driver for Abram deciding to release a FUD document, as the loss of a sizeable number of Horizon sites would have a major impact on the profitability of his company. Just a quick clarification to the last comment…

It wasn’t until the company was sold to Vista Equity Partners (http://is.gd/4K5ad) that development on Horizon 8.0 was abandoned (http://is.gd/4K5kx) in favour of the legacy Unicorn product (which was itself rebranded as “Symphony”).

The previous owners (Seaport Capital) and management board (under Patrick Sommers) were committed to the on-going development of Horizon. From memory, the development of Horizon 8.0 utilised a sizeable amount of Open Source code (e.g. Lucene).

It’s also worth noting that the most recent International Survey of Library Automation indicated that Horizon customers were (if you ignore exsiting OS ILS users) the most likely to “consider implementing an open source ILS” (http://is.gd/4K5wM). Indeed, this may have been a driver for Abram deciding to release a FUD document, as the loss of a sizeable number of Horizon sites would have a major impact on the profitability of his company.

]]> By: K.Mann http://www.alexhudson.com/2009/10/30/corporate-lobbying-against-free-software/comment-page-1/#comment-277 K.Mann Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:20:37 +0000 http://www.alexhudson.com/blog/?p=235#comment-277 1. Abram is wrong about DOD and Open Source. See : http://www.dwheeler.com/blog/2009/10/27/#dod-oss-2009 2. I noticed in his document, he makes a number of claims with not one single reference to back them up. And this was sent to librarians? Know thy customer... 3. He criticizes OSS as risky, etc... I'm sure former Dynix customers would argue signing on for Horizon just before the Sirsi takeover turned out to be even riskier... When the vendor decides to drop a product; or is swallowed up by a larger corporation, and the product is discontinued in a transparent effort to drive new sales, the true beauty of OSS shines through. 1. Abram is wrong about DOD and Open Source. See :
http://www.dwheeler.com/blog/2009/10/27/#dod-oss-2009

2. I noticed in his document, he makes a number of claims with not one single reference to back them up. And this was sent to librarians? Know thy customer…

3. He criticizes OSS as risky, etc… I’m sure former Dynix customers would argue signing on for Horizon just before the Sirsi takeover turned out to be even riskier…

When the vendor decides to drop a product; or is swallowed up by a larger corporation, and the product is discontinued in a transparent effort to drive new sales, the true beauty of OSS shines through.

]]> By: Pete N http://www.alexhudson.com/2009/10/30/corporate-lobbying-against-free-software/comment-page-1/#comment-276 Pete N Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:09:33 +0000 http://www.alexhudson.com/blog/?p=235#comment-276 Well maybe if they were to open their software up for examination to weed out the doubtless backdoors ect they have built into the Closed source rubbish then we may just be able to consider their whitterings for use as toilet paper OR is it that the opensource software is so far superiour to the closed source offerings that they have got to use FUD to try and keep their Corporate necks off the chopping block where's the axe I'll beat the axe man have em off while they still in the boardroom all in a nice neat row . This world is ruled by too many Corporate Businesses the numbers need to take a BIG dive Pete . Well maybe if they were to open their software up for examination to weed out the doubtless backdoors ect they have built into the Closed source rubbish then we may just be able to consider their whitterings for use as toilet paper OR is it that the opensource software is so far superiour to the closed source offerings that they have got to use FUD to try and keep their Corporate necks off the chopping block where’s the axe I’ll beat the axe man have em off while they still in the boardroom all in a nice neat row .

This world is ruled by too many Corporate Businesses the numbers need to take a BIG dive

Pete .

]]> By: Alex Hudson: Corporate lobbying against free software | TuxWire : The Linux Blog http://www.alexhudson.com/2009/10/30/corporate-lobbying-against-free-software/comment-page-1/#comment-264 Alex Hudson: Corporate lobbying against free software | TuxWire : The Linux Blog Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:03:56 +0000 http://www.alexhudson.com/blog/?p=235#comment-264 [...] more here:  Alex Hudson: Corporate lobbying against free software Share and [...] [...] more here:  Alex Hudson: Corporate lobbying against free software Share and [...]

]]>