[ Thanks to An Anonymous Reader for
this link. ]
“Projects do not thrive when there are ambivalences and
ambiguities around the ownership of the code that makes up the
project, as can be seen from the fallout among the various projects
that Oracle inherited through its purchase of Sun Microsystems.“The problem is not restricted to ownership of the code per se,
but manifests itself in a lack of transparency around the future
direction and licensing of the code. Devices such as dual
licensing, copyright assignment and Community Licence Agreements
(CLAs) can have unintended consequences; they can strip away the
clarity of a project’s purpose and act as a disincentive to the
sense of community that is the lifeblood of an open source
project.“The latest manifestation of this phenomenon is the claim by
Monty Widenius that Oracle is moving MySQL, which has been
available for many years under a dual licence, to an “open core”
model of development. “