Negotiations Fail In Open-Source Copyright DisputeNegotiations Fail In Open-Source Copyright Dispute

The Mambo-Furthermore open-source fray took a turn for the worse Wednesday, as mediation efforts collapsed and both sides threatened to take legal action.

Earlier this week, John Weathersby, executive director of the non-profit Open Source Software Institute, said he agreed to serve as a neutral intermediary and to lead negotiations between the two firms. According to Weathersby, however, "one of the parties" rejected the mediation offer. "As a result, OSSI will have to completely recuse itself completely" from further participation in the affair, he said.

The dispute started when Furthermore president Brian Connolly said he hired two open-source programmers to create parts of the Furthermore service, a Web publishing tool designed for online newspapers and based on the Mambo open-source content management system. When the project was finished, "code was taken without our permission by a lead member of the Mambo Development Team and put into Mambo's core program," Connolly said.

Mambo is distributed under the GNU General Public License, which according to Miro executives trumps Connolly's claims. "The developer has stated that there was no assignment of copyright and Connolly has yet to produce evidence to the contrary," said Miro CEO Peter Lamont in a statement released earlier this week. "The issue of the GPL is simple and well documented. Mambo is released under the GPL and alterations to part of Mambo's functionality do not alter its license."

Connolly's assertions also sparked a strongly worded rebuttal from one of the programmers Connolly allegedly contracted with, Emir Sakic. In his statement, Sakic details the work he did for Connolly but says that "there was no copyright agreement or contract signed." Connolly disputes Sakic's version of events, calling Sakic's copyright statement "false and misleading."

Connolly says Furthermore will hire legal counsel and begin issuing cease-and-desist letters to Mambo users within the next several weeks. "Mambo hasn't come to the table, and it's clear they're not going to come," Connolly said. "They acknowledged that there is an argument over the use of the code, but they refuse to take responsibility. Instead, they're placing that burden on the end users."

Miro International, an Australian firm that holds the copyright to Mambo, has announced that it, too, will hire legal counsel and request a restraining order against Connolly, whom Miro accuses in a separate statement of issuing "threats" and "personal abuse" towards the Mambo development team.

Weathersby declined to comment on the specifics of the case but said the conflict reflects a bigger problem within the open-source community. "Situations like this are always going to come up, but they don't have to get blown out of proportion," he said. "I want to find ways to learn from this and to prevent it from happening again."

According to Weathersby, a formal system involving mediation boards and binding arbitration could play a major role in settling disputes between open-source software companies before they grow out of control. "Once everybody agrees to take the emotion out of these [disputes] and put down their guns, you can have a workable situation," he said.