Opentape: Not Quite Open Source

by Mike Gunderloy - Aug. 26, 2008Comments (4) | Trackback URL

As reported on our parent blog GigaOM, there's a new piece of software out there trying to fill the niche recently occupied by Muxtape. Muxtape, as you may know, is a music sharing and mixing site that's apparently been shut down by the RIAA. Now there's Opentape, which bills itself as "a free, open-source package that lets you make and host your own mixtapes on the web." But is it?

If you download and unzip the Opentape source, you'll find a mix of PHP, JavaScript, and CSS. Two things that you won't find are a readme file or any sort of license notice. So, though the code may now be in the public domain, it's not really open source: your own rights to redistribute this code are, at best, murky.

Looking further into the individual files reveals something else. The Opentape distribution includes pieces of getID3(), MooTools, and SWFObject, none of which is accompanied by the required license agreement. The source files are not obfuscated, so it's easy to tell where they come from - perhaps neglecting to include the licenses is merely an oversight. It's an especially odd one in the light of the fact that all three packages are licensed under BSD or MIT licenses, so the Opentape authors are free to use the code - if they give proper credit.

Opentape appears, in its current state, to offer an especially stark example of the connection between copyrights and open source. At least one developer who can't be bothered about music copyrights can't be bothered about software copyrights either. It doesn't seem that this is a good way to call for support from the open source community.


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4 Comments
 

Great - now you can have several watchdogs coming after you!

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I think Opentape is great. Its a simple tool that is VERY useful and can have a variety of applications. The developer has done what he wanted - built and released a quality application with the sourcecode for anyone to re-use. Now, if he isn't inclined to worry about the proper legalities, someone else who does care (and knows enough about it) and actually sees potential in this product should do the needful and re-publish Opentape with the appropriate licenses - potentially even under a different name...or am I being overly simplistic and naive about the RIAA legal minefield?

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I had thought about that -- the fact that there wasn't a GPL or CC license on the code. The whole thing reminded me of my days in New York when ripping off HTML source code to teach yourself the art of layout was common practice.

No one outside of IT really knew much about Linux, much less idolized Richard Stallman. It was more the kind of liberal "borrowing" that had long existed in the design, advertising and fashion worlds. No ideology behind it, it was just convenient and accepted as the price of doing business.

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Mike,  You are correct that these software licensing questions have not yet been addressed by us. We've been focused on releasing the first version of the tools and did not give it proper attention.

Just emailed you about this - would love your help here.

-ot

0 Votes
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