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Google+Open Source | ZDNet.com – Should we fight the proprietary open source power?:
Mr. Buzzword for February appears to be proprietary open source.
This is an open source project which is owned or controlled by one company. Even though it may have a GPL license, you have no more power over it than a single voter in a political system.
The definition has changed since I first wrote the Open Source Incline back in 2006. It’s now a development model, not a licensing model.
But the intent is still the same, and the impact similar, as Savio Rodrigues notes. In the proprietary model your own features and bug fixes may be ignored by the project’s owner — so what’s the use?
Hmm. I’ll have to give this some thought.
I'm currently a graduate student of the history of law and technology at the University of California, San Diego. I also provide law and technology consulting services.
Additionally, I'm a non-practicing lawyer and former developer/sysadmin at a biotech non-profit. For more about me and my work, see 
