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SugarCRM Gets a True Open Source Visionary in Larry Augustin

Posted by Scott_Ruecker on · 7 comments
OStatic; By John Mark Walker 		Mail this story
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I was pleasantly surprised to read that Larry Augustin had been named SugarCRM's full-time CEO. After spending much of the last decade as an investor and board member extraordinaire for many (most?) companies grouped in the commercial open source category, it is good to see Larry back in the CEO saddle. This is a vindication of sorts for Larry and his vision of an open source future. After years of attempting to explain just how ubiquitous open source was going to be, he can now take the reigns of a company at a time when most customers and vendors take as a given that a substantial portion of any solution will consist of open source code. This was not always the case, especially when Larry was still CEO of VA Linux Systems, at the time the premier vendor for servers running Linux.

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Comments (7)

Sander_Marechal ·
I just hope that Larry will be opening up the SugarCRM development model. At the moment it is as closed as can be, which isn't healthy for SugarCRM MHO.
dinotrac ·
As closed as closed can be?

Something must have changed. Last I looked, APIs were well defined and a fair amount of open development was taking place.
Sander_Marechal ·
@Dino: Open development? Nope. There's a ton of development going in with add-ons, extensions and custom modules, but the core SugarCRM app is developed behind closed doors. No developers mailinglist. No code repositories. No peer review. Nothing. Only the occasional beta and RC release, but even Microsoft makes those :-)

I recently wrote an article on it: http://www.jejik.com/articles/2009/10/open_core_the_worst_of...
dinotrac ·
Sander -

While I agree with your assessment, and absolutely agree with your assessment of the source code (why is there so much really bad PHP code out there?), the fact is that the core does get released under GPL. It can be seen, it can be modified, it can be added to.

Not free? Sure. Closed as closed can be? Only in the sense that they don't seem to be seeking outside help. Other projects have come pretty close to that, even when they did make code repositories public. How many non-Sun (Oracle, I guess) OpenOffice developers have there ever been? How about the early days of Mozilla?

For that matter, the BSDs employ a fairly closed development model, but produce wide-open software.







tuxchick ·
Isn't that just a different kind of closed? When the core dev team doesn't accept outside contributions, then your options are make changes to please yourself, or fork it to release those changes and accept outside contributions. Which is still more choices than you get with a closed proprietary app, but seems to be missing the point somewhat.
dinotrac ·
tc -

More like a different degree of closed, but still ahead of truly closed software.
Sander_Marechal ·
Quoting:Closed as closed can be? Only in the sense that they don't seem to be seeking outside help.


Read my first post again. I was talking about the development model, not about source code licenses.

Quoting:How many non-Sun (Oracle, I guess) OpenOffice developers have there ever been?


Quite a few actually, although most contribute around the edges, not the core. OOo isn't an easy codebase to get started with :-)

But the point is, outside developers can contribute. With SugarCRM they cannot. I really hope Larry can change that.

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