Funambol’s CEO Sees AGPL as Essential for FOSS in Cloud Computing’s Future

“”If we want open source to thrive in the future,” Capobianco
warns, “We need to make sure it applies in software as a service.
You need a license that preserves copyleft in the cloud world.”

“Capobianco’s conclusion is the result of 15 years’ experience
with FOSS. His first encounters with the community occurred when he
was a graduate student at the University of Pavia in Italy. There
he met Alessandro Rubini, the writer of the Linux mouse driver and
the co-author of Linux Device Drivers. “I observed him working on
Linux, and the work he did with the community,” Capobianco recalls.
“People worldwide were helping him with the device driver and doing
testing. And I loved the idea of open source and community.”

“When Capobianco graduated and began his career as what he calls
“a serial entrepreneur,” he took his interest in FOSS with him. At
companies like Internet Graffiti, the first Italian Web company,
and Stigma Online, an information portal with major Italian
customers, he used FOSS to build the company’s back ends. And even
during a stint at Reuters, which employed no FOSS, he was still
using Solaris, GNU/Linux’s cousin in the family of Unix operating
systems.”

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