Author: JT Smith
In a post to the Free Software business mailing list, Red Hat CEO Michael Tiemann says: “Cygnus was acquired by Red Hat in Jan 2000, and we opened Source Navigator (the
proprietary component of Code Fusion) in July. Why so long? Like many other
proprietary packages, the code was just *too* ugly to show in its raw form. SN
started as proprietary software, and was acquired in a cash transaction by
Cygnus around 1997.””Looking towards the future, there are some proprietary technologies out there
that may ultimately be relevant to Red Hat’s open source strategy. If we
decide to acquire them (for time-to-market or any other reason /except/ to have
specifically a proprietary revenue stream), and then open them up over time (to
get rid of ugliness, ensure that we achieve some level of first-mover
advantage, etc), are we still a legitimate FSB, or not? Put another way, if
the grand plan of any proprietary SW acquisition is to expand the universe of
open source with a fully open source solution, what is the status of the code
while it’s still in the womb?”
proprietary component of Code Fusion) in July. Why so long? Like many other
proprietary packages, the code was just *too* ugly to show in its raw form. SN
started as proprietary software, and was acquired in a cash transaction by
Cygnus around 1997.””Looking towards the future, there are some proprietary technologies out there
that may ultimately be relevant to Red Hat’s open source strategy. If we
decide to acquire them (for time-to-market or any other reason /except/ to have
specifically a proprietary revenue stream), and then open them up over time (to
get rid of ugliness, ensure that we achieve some level of first-mover
advantage, etc), are we still a legitimate FSB, or not? Put another way, if
the grand plan of any proprietary SW acquisition is to expand the universe of
open source with a fully open source solution, what is the status of the code
while it’s still in the womb?”
Category:
- Open Source
