"We did not change horses in mid-stream," says Lutris CEO in an exclusive interview with JDJ.

Is the writing on the wall for Open Source? This is an i-technology tale involving Sun's J2EE specifications, a well-respected Californian software company, and the inflamed passions of the international OSS (open source software) community.

(October 24, 2001) - The OSS community has been up in arms all month at two decisions by Santa Cruz, California-based Lutris Technologies to close-source two Java apps which rightly or wrongly they feel owe their successful development at least in part to the talents, freely contributed, of open source developers.

The first involved an embedded Java database called InstantDB. This was developed by a company called ICS until Lutris, in April 2000, bought the assets of that company, including InstantDB. Recognizing its popularity within the OSS community, Lutris expressed for a year a desire to open-source the code for InstantDB, but it has never happened.

The second involves the enterprise edition of the popular Java application server, Enhydra, which was released as open source by Lutris in January 1999.

Enhydra Enterprise was also intended by Lutris to be open-sourced, until very recently when licensing problems-to be compliant with the J2EE specification, all J2EE app servers have to be aligned with the terms of the Sun Community Source License (SCSL)-caused an about-face. Lutris management has decided, with regret, that it is no longer possible to continue its Enhydra Enterprise project as an open source endeavor while at the same time remaining in compliance with the SCSL.

It is at this point that the OSS community has erupted.

Accusing Lutris Technologies of "betraying" OSS developers over Enhydra Enterprise, one prominent voice, George C. Hawkins, has even gone so far as to put up a Web site devoted exclusively to recounting recent developments. And he has quickly found support from other prominent activists, including Terry Steichen and the original creator of InstantDB, Peter Hearty.

Lutris maintains that, faced with the choice of having licensed versus unlicensed product, they have chosen licensed. But the OSS community is baying for blood. Hawkins goes as far as to say that in his view "companies like Lutris who take advantage of the open source community must be named and shamed and shouldn't be allowed to damage people's confidence in and support for open source development."

The question, clearly, is whether any software company can in reality sustain itself as a profitable, expanding (software producing rather than consulting/support) operation by developing/selling a commercial version of software that is also available for free.

Lutris's decision/s imply that the answer to this question is "No". JDJ invites the input of readers. Feedback can be posted right here (see form below).

Is the writing on the wall for OS? Full text of JDJ'S exclusive interview with President & CEO of Lutris Technologies, Yancy Lind.

JDJ: In hindsight, do you now regret ever embarking upon the goal of developing an "Enhydra Open Source Java/XML Application Server"?

LIND: Enhydra is an extremely successful open source Java application server. After years of development and use by Lutris and our many customers, Enhydra was released as open source in January 1999. Enhydra was the very first application server provided as open source. There have been over 850,000 distributions of Enhydra to date and it continues to enjoy a large and active community. Lutris is proud of its heritage in open source and its on-going sponsorship of Enhydra and Enhydra.org.

Enhydra Enterprise was an honest attempt to replicate this success with a J2EE platform. We attempted for over a year to create a project that would be both open source and meet all licensing obligations. Faced with the choice of having licensed versus unlicensed product we chose licensed. Hindsight is golden and perhaps we should not have started Enhydra Enterprise, but we have operated with sincere intentions and do not regret our efforts.

JDJ: Is it fair, what open-source developers are saying, that the close-sourcing of the future development of InstantDB was merely a precursor to the larger decision to close-source Enhydra Enterprise, and was intended to "road test" the consequences of switching the points on the open source community?

LIND: This is a misleading and unfair characterization. InstantDB was never an open source project. There have never been any open source developers working on it. InstantDB has always been a closed source product.

InstantDB was initially developed by a gifted engineer named Peter Hearty and his small company called ICS. In the fall of 1999 Lutris purchased the assets of ICS, primarily InstantDB. At the time we anticipated "open sourcing" InstantDB in the future and made a statement to that effect, but the code was never released.

Over the course of time many companies change decisions and Lutris is no different. In the spring of this year we announced that in fact that we would not release InstantDB to the open source community after all.

While we did make a change in business plans, this was not the "unethical" act that a few vocal individuals have accused us of. This was not a "taking" or a "close sourcing" of a previously open source project. InstantDB was never an open source product. We understand that some are disappointed in our decision, but disagreeing with a decision does not make it wrong, it merely means we have different points of view.

JDJ: Would you on behalf of Lutris care to make any comment on Peter Hearty's public statement that he "joined Lutris solely because they promised me that they intended to make InstantDB Open Source"? LIND: Peter Hearty is an outstanding engineer who is universally respected within and outside of Lutris. Lutris briefly employed him after we purchased the assets of his company, ICS. During the course of this purchase we did discuss the option to open source InstantDB at some point in the future. The timing of this was to be determined after the purchase and would be based on meeting various business objectives. I believe that these discussions played a role in his decision. I think it is also fair to say that the financial transaction of which he was the beneficiary also played a role in his decision to sell InstantDB to Lutris.

JDJ: Since JBoss, for example, is reassuring its users that it is possible for open-sourcing and Sun to co-exist in a commercially successful way, does Lutris stand by its contention that it is not possible for Lutris to negotiate a license for J2EE from Sun without close-sourcing Enhydra?

LIND: The J2EE specification is governed by the Sun Community Source License ("SCSL"). This license can be found at www.sun.com/software/communitysource/overview.html. This is a long and complicated document, but it contains two sections of particular note to the open source community.

Attachment D states:

Distribution of Source Code. Source Code of Compliant Covered Code may be distributed only to another Licensee of the same Technology.

Attachment C states:

2.1 Compatibility. All Covered Code must be Compliant Covered Code prior to any Internal Deployment Use or Commercial Use, whether originating with You or acquired from a third party. Successful compatibility testing must be completed in accordance with the TCK License. If You make any further Modifications to any Covered Code previously determined to be Compliant Covered Code, you must ensure that it continues to be Compliant Covered Code.

A little explanation is required. "Covered Code" is any code that implements the J2EE specification. "Compliant Covered Code" is code that has passed the J2EE certification tests (the TCK, or test compatibility kit). What these two clauses state is that source code may only be shared with other SCSL licensees, that J2EE code must be compliant to be deployed, and that if you ever make a change to the code it must be re-tested before being deployed. Note that you only obtain access to the TCK after you sign SCSL.

Clearly, this is not compatible with the notion of open source. Others in the open source community may choose to ignore the licensing restrictions around J2EE, that is their choice. We respect that choice and wish them success.

In order to meet the needs of our partners, customers, and selected fellow developers (who are SCSL licensees and therefore able to share code with us), as well as respect the desires of the authors of J2EE, we chose to abide by the license. Wishing to have a valid license to create and deploy J2EE product, Lutris had no choice but to cease hosting the Enhydra Enterprise open source project.

Lutris is now working on a "customer source" J2EE product called Lutris EAS. This product is covered by SCSL. Its source code will be made available to Lutris EAS customers under terms that adhere to SCSL. Developers will be able to use EAS source code to develop, debug, and deploy applications that run on the Lutris EAS platform. It's not open source, but has many of the advantages and is SCSL compliant.

Regardless of this particular decision, we at Lutris continue to be members of the open source community. We continue to support other open source projects at Enhydra.org such as Enhydra, EnhydraME, Zeus, Barracuda, XMLC, etc.

JDJ: Can you steer the community of JDJ readers toward other examples of initiatives like InstantDB and Enhydra that have changed horses in midstream, by way of illustrating that sometimes business realities and developer idealism can prove incompatible despite the best intentions?

LIND: InstantDB did not change horses "mid-stream". We changed our minds before we ever entered the stream. InstantDB has always been closed source. No one was ever given the source code. Companies do make course corrections and Lutris is no different. This is more like a company announcing that it intends to enter a market and then deciding to not enter that market after all - before the market was ever entered. As we have stated in the past, we are sorry that this decision is disappointing to some people in the open source community and we encourage them to look into one of the many other high-quality open source databases that already exist.

Enhydra has been open source since 1999 and will continue to be so.

Enhydra Enterprise was pulled from the Enhydra.org site due to licensing restrictions. While there are examples of open source projects being abandoned, cancelled, or taken closed source, we know of no other open source project that has run into similar licensing issues. We would expect, however, that any attempt to create an open source project that infringes on another company's intellectual property has the potential to run into similar issues. The lesson we learned from this is to work on open source projects that are derived from our own intellectual property or are based on open standards.

JDJ References

Sun Community Source License www.sun.com/software/communitysource/overview.html

"How Lutris betrayed the Open Source Community" http://instantdb.tripod.com/

Lutris Enhydra Journal http://www.lutris.com/journal/

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