Re: Dovecot Oy merger with Open-Xchange AG
To Timo and the Dovecot guys - congratulations! I'm sure this merger with OpenXchange is going to provide you with a lot of resources and opportunities.
As a longtime user of dovecot, I do have a few concerns. I wonder if you can answer some questions for me.
You say that OpenXchange really likes open source and shares your plans for the future. Is this a commitment that future versions core dovecot product will remain free and truly open source?
According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-Xchange#Licensing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-Xchange#Licensing) , OpenXchange's backend is GPL'd, but the front-end is not - it's released under "Creative Common's Share Alike, Non Commercial, Attribution". The article points out: "The restriction to Non Commercial in the Creative Commons license for the Frontend restricts re-distribution to third parties, i.e. hosted deployments for third parties. However, since the front-end license prohibits commercial re-distribution, the software is neither free software nor open source software since the definitions of both require such re-distribution to be permitted"
Do you expect that dovecot is moving in that direction?
Here's why I'm asking: As a hosted email provider, I've long used dovecot, and been quite happy with it. But I have some concerns, as is common when any popular open source project gets acquired by a commercial entitiy.
The current dovecot license is a mixture of the MIT and LGPL licenses. Will this remain? Or is dovecot going to go the way of OpenXchange licensing?
What about other pieces of the dovecot ecosystem, such as the Object Storage plugin - will that remain closed source and proprietary? Or will you follow the lead of companies like RedHat and be truly open source?
Is there a possibility that future versions of dovecot that contain what we might consider core features will be available only in the commercial version of the product?
If I base a part of my business on a piece of software I've been running for the last 10 years, am I going to find myself in trouble in a year or two, when some new version of dovecot comes out with changes that I need, and I have to move to a commercial product, which I may or may not be able to afford?
I'd love to hear that you're going to be following a model like RedHat did when they acquired GlusterFS and created the RedHat Storage Server. Gluster development is still going strong, and still completely open source. But they make money from people like me who know that by buying a contract, we can get the kind of support we need for such a critical part of our infrastructure.
Again, congratulations and, as always, thanks for all the hard work creating dovecot in the first place.
Patrick
On 23 Mar 2015, at 19:41, Patrick Coffin patrick@coffininc.com wrote:
To Timo and the Dovecot guys - congratulations! I'm sure this merger with OpenXchange is going to provide you with a lot of resources and opportunities.
As a longtime user of dovecot, I do have a few concerns. I wonder if you can answer some questions for me.
I could probably give better answers after talking to other people, but for now:
You say that OpenXchange really likes open source and shares your plans for the future. Is this a commitment that future versions core dovecot product will remain free and truly open source?
I haven't heard anyone at OX asking us to close down anything or change any licenses.
The current dovecot license is a mixture of the MIT and LGPL licenses. Will this remain? Or is dovecot going to go the way of OpenXchange licensing?
It would be difficult to change Dovecot license at this point since there are so many outside contributions owning copyrights.
What about other pieces of the dovecot ecosystem, such as the Object Storage plugin - will that remain closed source and proprietary? Or will you follow the lead of companies like RedHat and be truly open source?
Is there a possibility that future versions of dovecot that contain what we might consider core features will be available only in the commercial version of the product?
If I base a part of my business on a piece of software I've been running for the last 10 years, am I going to find myself in trouble in a year or two, when some new version of dovecot comes out with changes that I need, and I have to move to a commercial product, which I may or may not be able to afford?
What you have now won't be taken away. IMAP hasn't changed much for a long time, so I think it's unlikely that a new version would have something that you really can't live without.
BTW. PowerDNS also announced their merger with Open-Xchange today. I think that should also be reassuring that there is now another open source project that is happy about their OX-merger. http://blog.powerdns.com/2015/03/24/powerdns-and-open-xchange-agree-to-merge...
On 3/25/15, Timo Sirainen tss@iki.fi wrote:
On 23 Mar 2015, at 19:41, Patrick Coffin patrick@coffininc.com wrote:
To Timo and the Dovecot guys - congratulations! I'm sure this merger with OpenXchange is going to provide you with a lot of resources and opportunities.
As a longtime user of dovecot, I do have a few concerns. I wonder if you can answer some questions for me.
I could probably give better answers after talking to other people, but for now:
So you no longer have the final say with dovecot.
What you have now won't be taken away. IMAP hasn't changed much for a long time, so I think it's unlikely that a new version would have something that you really can't live without.
So there *is* a chance it will be commercialised
On 03/25/15 08:46, Peter Chiochetti wrote:
Am 25.03.2015 um 13:23 schrieb Nick Edwards:
So there *is* a chance it will be commercialised
Hasn't it been commercial for a long time?
When was the last time you paid for Dovecot? The base product is open source and free for anyone to use.
-- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
Brad Smith skrev den 2015-03-25 16:58:
On 03/25/15 08:46, Peter Chiochetti wrote:
Am 25.03.2015 um 13:23 schrieb Nick Edwards:
So there *is* a chance it will be commercialised Hasn't it been commercial for a long time? When was the last time you paid for Dovecot? The base product is open source and free for anyone to use.
only paid here by compileing time, still have dovecot v1 working, so open source it not complete free, as long it compiles fine i am happy
Am 25.03.2015 um 18:03 schrieb Benny Pedersen:
Brad Smith skrev den 2015-03-25 16:58:
On 03/25/15 08:46, Peter Chiochetti wrote:
Am 25.03.2015 um 13:23 schrieb Nick Edwards:
So there *is* a chance it will be commercialised Hasn't it been commercial for a long time? When was the last time you paid for Dovecot? The base product is open source and free for anyone to use.
only paid here by compileing time, still have dovecot v1 working, so open source it not complete free, as long it compiles fine i am happy
that you compile at your own and that you still use dovecot 1.x is *your own* decision and si opensource *is complete free*
with your argumentation making a shit would also not be completly free because you need to pinch ass bakes.....
Am 25.03.2015 um 18:28 schrieb Benny Pedersen:
Reindl Harald skrev den 2015-03-25 18:08:
with your argumentation making a shit would also not be completly free because you need to pinch ass bakes.....
and you write this on public walls?
DON'T QUOTE OUT OF CONTEXT BOY, YOU HAVE MISSED YOUR "only paid here by compileing time"
On 03/25/15 13:03, Benny Pedersen wrote:
Brad Smith skrev den 2015-03-25 16:58:
On 03/25/15 08:46, Peter Chiochetti wrote:
Am 25.03.2015 um 13:23 schrieb Nick Edwards:
So there *is* a chance it will be commercialised Hasn't it been commercial for a long time? When was the last time you paid for Dovecot? The base product is open source and free for anyone to use.
only paid here by compileing time, still have dovecot v1 working, so open source it not complete free, as long it compiles fine i am happy
Not making any sense.
-- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
Brad Smith skrev den 2015-03-25 20:20:
only paid here by compileing time, still have dovecot v1 working, so open source it not complete free, as long it compiles fine i am happy
Not making any sense.
punktum ?
if i really need to install precompiled problems i could aswell install windows 10, and be happy, its just not opensource when the sources is not shown, where is the source codes for android ?, its based on linux with is opensource, but where is the source for android ?
got my point ?
i just say that opensource brands is not really opensource if one install it precompiled, punktum as you write it
Am 25.03.2015 um 20:34 schrieb Benny Pedersen:
Brad Smith skrev den 2015-03-25 20:20:
only paid here by compileing time, still have dovecot v1 working, so open source it not complete free, as long it compiles fine i am happy
Not making any sense.
punktum ?
"only paid here by compileing time" is nonsense
if i really need to install precompiled problems i could aswell install windows 10, and be happy, its just not opensource when the sources is not shown
foolish trolling - the source needs to be available or does your self compiled binary show you his source at startup?
you can download the source from Redhat, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Debian and so it is shown - you just need to look at it - well, but you don't understand it anyways, no difference to your way of download, unpack and compile a source you don#t understand
where is the source codes for android ?
available or where do alternate ROM providers take it
its based on linux with is opensource, but where is the source for android?
https://source.android.com/source/downloading.html
got my point ?
as in 98% of your posts you have no point
i just say that opensource brands is not really opensource if one install it precompiled, punktum as you write it
bullshit - there is no difference between install the binary a distribution build from the source tarball than download the tarball and call make scripts until you want change some default flags
On 03/25/15 15:34, Benny Pedersen wrote:
Brad Smith skrev den 2015-03-25 20:20:
only paid here by compileing time, still have dovecot v1 working, so open source it not complete free, as long it compiles fine i am happy
Not making any sense.
punktum ?
if i really need to install precompiled problems i could aswell install windows 10, and be happy, its just not opensource when the sources is not shown, where is the source codes for android ?, its based on linux with is opensource, but where is the source for android ?
got my point ?
i just say that opensource brands is not really opensource if one install it precompiled, punktum as you write it
*shakes head* So many flaws with that logic.
-- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
Am 25.03.2015 um 16:58 schrieb Brad Smith:
On 03/25/15 08:46, Peter Chiochetti wrote:
Am 25.03.2015 um 13:23 schrieb Nick Edwards:
So there *is* a chance it will be commercialised
Hasn't it been commercial for a long time?
When was the last time you paid for Dovecot? The base product is open source and free for anyone to use
and why people don't shut up until a single sign that this would ever change happened? is redhat a commercial company - yes it is - is the software available as open source and for free - yes it is
a lot of responses in that thread are just whining for fun
participants (7)
-
Benny Pedersen
-
Brad Smith
-
Nick Edwards
-
Patrick Coffin
-
Peter Chiochetti
-
Reindl Harald
-
Timo Sirainen