The Growl Crisis

This is a work-related problem that illustrates that some of the things that have to do with my work with Macs (iMacs, Mac Pros, MacBooks, Mac OS X and related software) are largely out of my control.

While I was working on a brand-new iMac with Mac OS X Lion, I had noticed that the notification utility Growl, a useful open-source program, has gone proprietary as of version 1.3, and is now available only at the Mac App Store. ➤ Version 1.2.2 still works on Lion — the reported HardwareGrowl bug is irrelevant, as the iMacs and Mac Pros do not use wireless networking — so I need not abandon it just yet. But it had started an argument among Slashdotters (They are not going closed source, they just haven't packaged it up yet and released it.  The fact remains that if a binary is available, and corresponding sources are not, it is closed source. It might be open source again, maybe even soon, but it's not open source today.). It looked like if this self-created crisis of the Growl project were not resolved, I may have to abandon Growl on the Macs.

The Growl saga continued with the project director of Growl defending himself, how the Growl project was being handled, and how the project was working with its own version control system (VCS). ➤ The director also claimed that the guy who forked Growl was a bastisch.

The problem? The forker was not a bastisch, as I found on listening to an interview with him, and had every reason to fork Growl ➤ (and be angry at the way the project was handling it). Also, it has become evident that the Growl project people do not know how to handle their own VCS. Or, and this is worse, the project has been jumping from one VCS to another, as admitted by the director himself (We've been using different vcs's for 8 years or so). In any case, there was no explanation for charging for Growl 1.3 on the Mac App Store; nor is there any reason for the lies the director told (he claims only the forker was banned, whereas the forker's interviewer was banned as well); nor was there a reason for the bad publicity that the Growl project had willfully brought on themselves.

It is a bad thing to find yourself with negative publicity on Slashdot and the other hacker sites. But when you are an open-source project with negative publicity on Slashdot, you make the hacking community avoid you like a scaly disease. Volunteers will no longer to write code for you, nor to test your code, nor to spread the word about the project. As an open-source project, you're screwed.

Meantime, for you Mac users out there, avoid Growl 1.3. If you are using Growl 1.2.1, stick with it. For you Lion folks, the fixed Growl 1.2.2 version can be found here. ➤

Meanwhile, I posted the following on Slashdot:

The Free Software Foundation let their code by free-as-in-beer, but charged for the media to transport the code and for the printed documentation for the code. It was only fair, as this was a way to keep the foundation self-sufficient. So the problem is not, in itself, open-source not equal to free-as-in-gratis.

The point is not that the Growl project is charging for its software, but that the project is not making its code available for patches or for improvements by other programmers, which is the whole idea of open-source. The Growl project, starting with 1.3, are not doing that. And they made the problem worse by refusing to admit that there is a problem.

I have listened to the forker on the interview; he sounds like a rational fellow, and he did believe that he had a reasonable grievance. Frankly, I cannot see any problem that the Growl project had with him (or with the others they cut off and then claimed did not exist), unless they have become blind from their own hubris.

The real problem is that the Growl project may never have been open-source in the first place. The project misrepresented themselves in their license (enclosed below), which looked like it was GPL but in face was not. The least that the Growl project can do now is to admit openly that they are going closed-source, pull out of Google forums, and let their volunteers choose to go elsewhere.

Growl License

Copyright (c) The Growl Project, 2004-2011
All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

  1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
  2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
  3. Neither the name of Growl nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.