Microsoft Project replacement tops 500,000 downloads (UPDATED)

While perhaps no indication of what these companies are buying, it's still interesting to discover that Bank of America, Hewlett-Packard, General Electric, IBM, Siemens, Toshiba, Honeywell, and Nortel have downloaded and installed Projity's OpenProj, an open-source replacement for Microsoft Project.

They're not alone. As Projity CEO Marc O'Brien recently told Linux.com's Tina Gasperson, 500,000 individuals have downloaded OpenProj to date.

Perhaps most intriguing in all of this is that Projity knows which companies have downloaded and installed its software, since it can't get that information from Sourceforge, from which individuals download the software. (It could, of course, be the case that each of the companies noted above is a paying customer, but since several of these are unlikely to serve as public references....) I'm guessing that Projity has some sort of a "call home" feature in its project, or perhaps a simple web bug that registers with Projity each time a page is refreshed.

If the latter, it becomes doubly interesting when you consider Projity's license: CPAL. In this case, CPAL might prohibit users from removing the very web bug that Projity uses to track their use of the software.

Marc or someone else care to comment on how the tracking is managed? I'm sure a range of open-source companies would love to learn who is using their software, provided it doesn't abrogate a user's control of their privacy.

UPDATE: Marc O'Brien, CEO of Projity, emailed me to clarify the privacy issues I raised above:

I was disappointed you choose to raise issues that are erroneous and really counter productive for the open source success of OpenProj. ALL companies mentioned and all companies that we know are using OpenProj and Project-ON-Demand have provided us with their contact information. We do not know of ANY company using OpenProj or Project-ON-Demand who has not proactively given us their contact information.

Thanks for the clarification, Marc, and congratulations on getting these exceptional customers. That says a great deal about the quality of the software.

[nekosej]

When you first run OpenProj, you are asked to voluntarily provide an email address to receive the OpenProj newsletter. That's how we have an idea who is using the product. I'm afraid it's not so intriguing after all...

Howard Katz
CTO Projity Inc.

[Matt Asay]

This is true *if* when they give you that email address they also tell you it's OK to publicly disclose them as a user of the software. There's a difference between me giving you my email address, and me telling you that you can tell others I'm using the software. If you get this approval in the sign-up screen, then that is a fantastic PR/marketing move, one that others should emulate (I mean that sincerely).

[sjsilverman]

It's sad that sensationalist, idle, and incorrect speculation can be passed off as journalism (or whatever this blog is supposed to contain) these days. I would have hoped that CNET had higher standards. Wouldn't it have made sense to contact Projity for a comment before publishing the innuendo, rather than publishing first, then allowing them to respond?

[akiba_freak]

It's a blog. It's meant to be opinionated. Otherwise, it would be just another bland news site. Also, Matt quickly rectified the misunderstanding. You should appreciate the publicity of landing in an open source news site with high traffic.

Chris Wang (Akiba)
Freaklabs Open Source Zigbee