GPL Violation - Open source model not so easy and friendly than it sounds ?

There has been a serie of e-mails on the Open ERP partner list about some potential violations of the GPL by some companies. In clear somebody are suspects a company to distribute extensions and modified versions of the Open ERP code without contributing their code etc

I don't want to start a flame war, nor did I contacted the accusator nor the suspected violator. Yet the subject is not so easy as one think:

- Software as a service issue and the so called AGPL license interpretation.
- Difficulty of having evidences of the violation.
- Parties. Only the copyrighter and the violator can truly manage this aspect of things.
- The obligation of providing sources and not restricting rights does not oblige to contribute back via for example launchpad or sourceforge...(GPL vs AGPL again).
- Finally don't forget that normally, by principles you should presume that the so called violator is in fact innocent...

Posted on the list the following article is nice is and truly good reading http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2009/11/08/gpl-enforcement.html.

Having said that, Open Source is a cool concept but it is not always so easy to make business with the concept. The GPL license is great for its viral aspects but it makes difficult for companies to invest up-front in development. When investing time and effort (thus money) they can have the legitimate fear of being abused by free riders.

A consequence is then that Tiny and partners immediate interest is to develop only when contracted to do so.

I am not saying nobody invest in the code (Tiny does a lot, a few big partners too), but the fact is: everybody must find a way or another to get paid.

This create two stress points in the economic model (I am talking here of a GPL commercial open-source model):

 - customer find sometimes hard to finance what they consider a 'base functionality'. I will come back on that one later.


- the editor and the partners may stand as competitors. This is implicit in the Open ERP business model presentation and people should think (at least a bit) about it before becoming partner.