Is Cittio ripping off the OpenNMS community?

There are a lot of allegations flying around relative to Cittio's (allegedly improper) use of the OpenNMS code without contributing code back, in apparent violation of the GPL. The best post on the subject is this one, in my opinion.

It reminds us of a few things:

1. We don't actually know how Cittio is using OpenNMS, in part because Cittio is keeping the whole thing under wraps and has been very sneaky about it.
2. Regardless of #1, Cittio would have to be clever indeed to have found a way to bury GPL code in their proprietary product without giving a single line of code back to the OpenNMS project.
3. No matter #2, Cittio's stripmining of the OpenNMS community is in poor form.
4. Irrespective of #3, Cittio apparently doesn't let its customers know that it is shipping them GPL code. I bet those customers would like to know this and, as a lawyer, I'd strongly suggest that Cittio has a duty to inform its customers of this fact.

Ultimately, as Tarus Balog (founder of OpenNMS) notes, open source is a matter of trust. Cittio has demonstrated that it knows little about open source and deserves precious little trust.

Cittio is a parasite. Tarus wrote to me:

When you work your [butt] off to build something special such as OpenNMS, it's hard to watch someone come and steal it and no one really give a damn. Even though when we add latency measurement support, a release later Cittio adds latency measurement support (Watchtower 2.4). We add SNMPv3 support, Cittio adds SNMPv3 support (version 3.1). Heck, we can only collect on one community string per IP, and so can Cittio. The list goes on.

I'm aware of other companies - open source and otherwise - who scab off open source in this way. They claim to be open-source citizens but they are more like open-source traitors.

I have no problem with commercial entities using open source without paying for it, but they should participate in the relevant communities from which they gather code. This means giving back code.

Do I think Cittio is stealing from the OpenNMS community? It's still hard to determine if they are actually in non-compliance with the GPL. They may well have found a way to abide by the GPL's letter. As for the spirit of the GPL, they have clearly trashed it.

[Sortova]

Wow, thanks for the support Matt. I want to point out that when I wrote that to you I didn't intend for it to get published - it was the end of a very long day and I was a bit frustrated (thanks for removing the more expletive laden parts). I want to stress that we don't have any proof that Cittio is violating the letter of the GPL and I did write to Jamie Lerner offering him the chance to explain. Some may ask why I didn't do that in the first place, but as a search on my blog will reveal we went through something like this in September of 2005 with Cittio and I was not sure we'd get complete answers without a more public take on the situation. Thanks again.

[jlerner01]

Hi Matt - allow me to set the record straight on this as I've done with Tarus.

1) CITTIO makes use of more than 35 open source components in its NMS offering.
2) We fully disclose information on the open source components we use on our website at: http://www.cittio.com/technology/open-source.html
3) Our contracts make it clear open source code is delivered with our offerings and customers have the right to gain access, copy, modify and redistribute this free software
4) When customers have asked for this code, we have provided it to them

We don't hide the fact we distribute GPL code with our offering - do a google search or follow the link above. The members of slashdot did this and it is clear we are not hiding this.

Has CITTIO contributed back as much as it should? We can do better. We will be posting our contributions to sourceforge. While we have kept a separation between GPL code and our code, as you state, we need to contribute back .

We can do better - and we will.

Jamie Lerner - CITTIO

[sidboyce]

Looking forward to CITTIO keeping their word on contributing back, welcomed. Very encouraging reply from them.

[tomas.gavinho]

I have read over and over again, about how comercial offerings make money with the effort of the community. Ripping off, or not, it is a fact of life, parasites will allways be there, ask any biologist, they have known that for quite a while now.
It ain´t a perfect world, but if you ask a biologist, they can assure you that parasites have their pro´s. Even our own body would not be able to digest food as efficiently as it does were it not for all the bacteria that lives in our intestines.
I ain´t saying that parasites are allways good, they can grow untill killing the host, in this case, the OpenNMS community, but instead of whining, there should be a simbiosis. And amount of code contribution should not be the sole factor, documentation, marketing, core code functionality, among other factors should also be considered, and taken into account.

Tomas Gaviño

[enovikoff]

It looks like it's a moot point. Cittio is being dissolved.