REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Nov. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Funambol, the leading provider of mobile 2.0 messaging software powered by open source, today announced it has adopted GNU AGPLv3. This makes Funambol the first major commercial open source software company to adopt the license that was just released by the Free Software Foundation. Funambol adopted AGPLv3 because the company views it as a major open source license of the future. AGPLv3 requires that people who modify the source code for software that runs over a network (e.g. the Internet) to make the source code available. As Software As A Service (SAAS) is becoming the predominant form of computing for many applications, including Funambol's open source mobile email & PIM sync solution, it was only appropriate that Funambol immediately embraced AGPLv3 upon its release.
"Funambol blazed the trail for a long time for an open source license that was similar to AGPLv3. Today is one of the most gratifying of my career," said Fabrizio Capobianco, Funambol CEO. "It's great to see the release of a major new license that is sure to be adopted by open source projects that run over the Internet."
With the emergence of the SAAS deployment model, Funambol has been at the forefront of an industry discussion about the need for an open source license that addressed the 'ASP loophole'. Last year, Funambol pioneered the Honest Public License that essentially had the same provisions as AGPLv3 that closed the ASP loophole. The ASP loophole refers to service providers that circumvented the code sharing provision of GPLv2 via a technicality of distributing software over a network instead of a disk or CD. Funambol said it would adopt AGPLv3 as soon as it became official as it had no desire to create another open source license variation. The company only wanted a license that allowed open source to thrive in the world of SAAS.
Funambol is adopting AGPLv3 for its open source code in its general availability release of Funambol v6.5, due within 30 days. For more information, see http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/agpl-3.0.html.
About Funambol
Funambol provides mobile 2.0 messaging software that is powered by open source. The company is the leading provider of open source push email and PIM synchronization solutions for the mass market. Funambol's open source software has been downloaded more than 1,500,000 times by a global network of 10,000 developers in 200 countries. The commercial version of Funambol's software has been deployed at service providers, mobile operators, portals, Global 1000 businesses, hardware OEMs/ODMs and ISVs including customers such as 1&1, Earthlink and Computer Associates. Funambol is headquartered in Redwood City, California with an R&D center in Italy. See http://www.funambol.com/.
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