Recipients: opensource@netgear.com, legal@netgear.com, sales@netgear.com, Ralph Böhme <rb@netafp.com>, support@netgear.com, netatalk-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, license-violation@gnu.org

Subject: Re: Open Letter to the Netatalk Community

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Ralph,

I have changed my mind, I don't want a support contract because I have now been distributed your binaries.

Netgear Reps & Ralph,

I have come in to possession of netatalk 2.2 binaries as distributed by netgear in the readynas x86 4.2.18 update. Please provide me the sources.

I demand that you release the GPL code you are holding hostage.

(Please see: http://pastebin.com/jzXWdCzJ for origination of this thread.)

On Jul 21, 2011, at 4:07 PM, Douglas Huff wrote:

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>>Ok, so, what are my payment options for a 20 user support contract? (I only have 2 users but that is your smallest option.) I can't wait weeks/months to have functioning backups. If I'm doing the conversion correctly it's $860 USD, yes?
>>
>>I more than meet your technical requirements of being able to provide my own second level support: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=69353266&locale=en_US&trk=tab_pro
>>
>>On Jul 21, 2011, at 1:33 AM, Ralph Böhme wrote:
>>
>>Douglas,
>>
>>let me start this reply with a big *sigh*. Fortunately I haven't only received largish complaints like yours (and others), others, including Netatalk project members (inactive for long time), understand my move and wished me success.
>>
>>This is an effort to establish a sustainable infrastructure in order to ensure Netatalk doesn't end where it once ended in 2005 where all serious developers left. It was 2005 when Netatalk version 2.0.3 was released. In the following years there was one french dev who did a few minor commits but basically development grinded to a halt.
>>
>>It was 2009 (!), four years later, when Frank started contributing code to the project and he's been the contributor of 98% of the code since then. 2.0.4 was then released in 2009 four years after the prior version. Frank implemented DHX2 authentication module (in 2009, now mandatory for Lion), ACL support, Extended Attribute support, AFP 3.3 support and much, much more in the time. Without Frank's achievements Netatalk would be an unusable rotten piece of gargabe, not usable with modern OS X clients. Now, Frank is still the only serious dev working on the code.
>>
>>We're now at a point, either those who benefit from the project ensure the development can continue or we move on, in which case you'll have rotten code again in a few years. I don't know why so few developers contribute to this project, probably due do it's nature of briding the FOS world with the closed, commercial world of Apple, so in case you may think others devs would start working on it I'm pretty sure that wouldn't happen.
>>
>>Ok, now I've gone into great length covering some history and stuff, I'll now reply to some of your writeup inline.
>>
>>Subject: Re: Open Letter to the Netatalk Community
>>
>>Seriously?
>>
>>So you posted an inflammatory article in January because vendors with their own
>>support/technical resources aren't paying for your support services while you
>>offer no other services. [1]
>>
>>I can assure you, these vendors have no support/technical resources capable of fixing anything serious.
>>
>>You're surprised that they continued not purchasing your services. [2]
>>
>>No, I wasn't suprised, that was as expected.
>>
>>You're mad said vendors are making money off of open source software that, for
>>the most part, you did not write.
>>
>>I'm mad for other reasons. We're just trying to have NAS OEMs see the whole picture. Many other corporations have realized that they must ensure that projects they depend upon and make money from are funded and well being one way or the other.
>>
>>The same software that has enabled you to make any money through this endeavor
>>at all. Thanks to previous contributors' licensing choice.
>>
>>So; now, you're withholding a working version, with additions you did write
>>with the help of community testers[3][4] and feedback[5], ...
>>
>>We've developed, tested and enhanced the current working version spending weeks of our time (that's what I get paid for) working on customer bug reports. Community contributes about 2% to this.
>>
>>⦠for the OS X 10.7 launch
>>in what I can only assume is an attempt to alienate your end users in addition
>>to the vendors you are upset with.
>>
>>Classy. Real classy.
>>
>>Your behaviour is unprofessional and unbecoming. You complain that vendors are
>>not paying you for your efforts, which you chose to make, while not even
>>providing end users and community members a means of donating, monitarily, to
>>your efforts. In fact you go so far as to explicitly discourage people, on your
>>product description page, from purchasing your services and then have the gall
>>to whine that they don't.
>>
>>It's bad enough Apple has killed unofficial nfs support for time machine by
>>adding an AFP specific ioctl call before starting a backup. Especially
>>considering that all their extensions to AFP since 1.x have done almost nothing
>>but implement guaranteed behavior of the NFS protocol which has had multiple
>>working implementations for greater than twenty years. Not to mention that they
>>now have a functional NFSv4 implementation and they've fixed kerberos where you
>>could feasibly get it to mount data channel encrypted NFS through system
>>daemons and then explicitly broke one of the main reason you'd want either.
>>
>>Your actions are no better. In fact: they're worse. You're holding code, that
>>you have no right to, hostage because your business model has turned out to not
>>be profitable.
>>
>>We're complying with the GPL.
>>
>>RedHat learned this lesson 10 years ago. You can not subsist on
>>support contracts alone. Welcome to the cruel, harsh, real world.
>>
>>They've learned other lessons as well, the one that is relevant for us here is that they learned to pay (or hire) developers working on relevant projects.
>>
>>Preventing exactly what you have done is why the license was changed to the GPL
>>in the first place. It is; in fact, the entire reason the GPL exists. Your
>>responses to others' reactions tends to indicate that you don't care[6].
>>
>>I'm sorry that you are not currently able to make your living doing what you
>>love to do, I truly am, neither can I. I understand this can be frustrating and
>>demoralizing. Your actions are counter productive and are just ensuring that
>>advocates for open software will think twice before contributing to your work
>>in the future.
>>
>>To be clear: I, as often as time and funds allow, donate to open projects I use
>>either through code[7][8] and testing[8] (where I am capable and there is a need) or
>>monetarily[9][10]. Whether you eventually release this code or not I now can not see
>>myself giving you any type of support. I'm sure I am not alone in this.
>>
>>Probably. But please there have been opposite receptions as well, see some recent post on the Netatalk mailing lists.
>>
>>I make no money off your work nor have I, to my knowledge, in the past. I am
>>just an end user. I don't purchase products from the people you're mad at. I
>>wouldn't even be looking into the project you've taken over if Apple had not
>>intentionally broken NFS support.
>>
>>This entire situation is mind boggling.
>>
>>You have not the slightest idea how mind boggling this situation really is for me. Luckily, probably in a few weeks/months this will all be sorted out.
>>
>>There are so many corellary projects
>>that do not take this extortion route and continue to operate just
>>fine[11][12][13][14].
>>
>>Bad examples to make your point. All these projects are funded by large corporations, hiring developers (Samba: IBM, Cisco, RedHat; Linux: IBM, Cisco, RedHat, â¦; GCC: IBM, Cisco, RedHat, ...) or working with third parties (eg SerNet and Samba).
>>
>>Regards,
>>Ralph
>>
>>- --
>>We've done our best, but if it breaks, the code is free, both halves are yours.
>>If you need a supported and longterm reliable product, we invite you to work with us.
>>
>>Ralph Böhme <rb@netafp.com>
>>Netatalk Developer | Support | Services
>>Phone: +49-40-2294-8534
>>http://www.netafp.com/
>>
>>
>>- --
>>Douglas Huff
>>
>>
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- --
Douglas Huff


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