David links to a posting he forwarded from the Kowari developers list (original post here) from Amit Kapoor about the future of Kowari: "The Topaz Foundation (http://www.topazproject.org) is very pleased to forward the email, from Michael H. Wallach (Senior Counsel, Northrop Grumman) to Richard Fontana...We trust that this letter will end any confusion with respect to the future status of Kowari, which has been secured, and that the community will now be able to focus on making Kowari one of the most vibrant open source projects."
"Northrop Grumman respects the rights that users of open source Kowari software receive under the MPL. Northrop Grumman intends that open source Kowari software, licensed under the MPL, is and will remain free, open source software.
Moreover, Northrop Grumman has no objection to the continued appropriate use of the "Kowari" name by developers participating in the Kowari open source project."
Showing posts with label northrop grumman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label northrop grumman. Show all posts
Friday, July 07, 2006
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Northrop Grumman Killing Kowari?
Resignation from Kowari due to Northrop Grumman Letter "It is with sincere regret that I resigned as an administrator and developer of the Kowari Metastore."
"Northrop Grumman's position seems to be that they "purchased all rights associated with the Kowari software", a position not reconcilable with their continued release of the software under the Mozilla Public License, version 1.1."
So it would seem that Northrop, for whatever reason, dislikes Kowari's existence.
To get David and then Tucana (whose IP was eventually sold to Northrop) to start and continue with an open source version of TKS (the closed source version of the RDF database) was my little hobby horse (I fought fairly long and hard you could say). The idea was to get the Semantic Web bootstrapped and to create a value network around Semantic Web technology (I got this originally from "A critical look at object-orientation"). It is deeply disappointing for me to see it (the value network and Kowari) threatened in this way.
Like any OS project it is the ecosystem that is built around Kowari that makes it work. With so many contributions, just how much of the total code does Northrop actually own the copyright to? By accepting changes it isn't following the dual licencing model used by the owners of Berkley DB. To me Kowari was always using open source as a development and distribution model. Already, we have some contributors threatening to pull out their code (more at, "Disturbing News From Kowari").
Having administrators leave due to Northrop's actions is a good way to kill the project. Hopefully, Northrop's bullying will get a lot of interest - it's good to see, for instance, that this has been picked by aggregators like Topix's Aerospace and Defense.
The other posting David W linked to: Is Northrup Grumman Smushing Kowari?, "But I’d like to know what the status of Kowari is going to be, open source or not, because there are clients for whom Kowari might be the right choice, and we won’t bet on a dog that Northrup Grumman seems determined to publicly beat to death.
Relying on Kowari is now not prudent, given our obligation to do our best for our clients; but it’s also bad for Semantic Web uptake in the US federal government, and that’s something Northrup Grumman should think very carefully about."
Update: Paul and Andrae have also added their thoughts.
Update 2: David has published the letter from Northrop's lawyers. Danny posts, "...clearly if the current Kowari is MPL’d they can’t stop other developers working on the system."
"Northrop Grumman's position seems to be that they "purchased all rights associated with the Kowari software", a position not reconcilable with their continued release of the software under the Mozilla Public License, version 1.1."
So it would seem that Northrop, for whatever reason, dislikes Kowari's existence.
To get David and then Tucana (whose IP was eventually sold to Northrop) to start and continue with an open source version of TKS (the closed source version of the RDF database) was my little hobby horse (I fought fairly long and hard you could say). The idea was to get the Semantic Web bootstrapped and to create a value network around Semantic Web technology (I got this originally from "A critical look at object-orientation"). It is deeply disappointing for me to see it (the value network and Kowari) threatened in this way.
Like any OS project it is the ecosystem that is built around Kowari that makes it work. With so many contributions, just how much of the total code does Northrop actually own the copyright to? By accepting changes it isn't following the dual licencing model used by the owners of Berkley DB. To me Kowari was always using open source as a development and distribution model. Already, we have some contributors threatening to pull out their code (more at, "Disturbing News From Kowari").
Having administrators leave due to Northrop's actions is a good way to kill the project. Hopefully, Northrop's bullying will get a lot of interest - it's good to see, for instance, that this has been picked by aggregators like Topix's Aerospace and Defense.
The other posting David W linked to: Is Northrup Grumman Smushing Kowari?, "But I’d like to know what the status of Kowari is going to be, open source or not, because there are clients for whom Kowari might be the right choice, and we won’t bet on a dog that Northrup Grumman seems determined to publicly beat to death.
Relying on Kowari is now not prudent, given our obligation to do our best for our clients; but it’s also bad for Semantic Web uptake in the US federal government, and that’s something Northrup Grumman should think very carefully about."
Update: Paul and Andrae have also added their thoughts.
Update 2: David has published the letter from Northrop's lawyers. Danny posts, "...clearly if the current Kowari is MPL’d they can’t stop other developers working on the system."
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Northrop Buys Tucana and Continues Kowari
Northrop Grumman Buys the Tucana Knowledge Server "Stunningly for a company their size, Northrop has not only agreed to support Kowari but rushed to do so. I certainly didn't expect a US federal systems integrator to "get" Open Source Software, but times have clearly changed. Their senior managers have made a legitimate effort to figure out the licensing and how to make it work within their business model. I have confidence that we can figure out a way to make it work for both the Kowari community and Northrop Grumman."
A Grumman employee? Or a Thoughtworker with inside knowledge? Building an Agile Enterprise "I have confidence that we can figure out a way to make it work for both the Kowari community and Northrop Grumman."
Update: Paul's doing the handover
A Grumman employee? Or a Thoughtworker with inside knowledge? Building an Agile Enterprise "I have confidence that we can figure out a way to make it work for both the Kowari community and Northrop Grumman."
Update: Paul's doing the handover
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