Medsphere sues company's co-founders (Modern Healthcare) [LWN.net]

Medsphere sues company's co-founders (Modern Healthcare)

Posted Aug 24, 2006 23:36 UTC (Thu) by ossguru (guest, #40126)
In reply to: Medsphere sues company's co-founders (Modern Healthcare) by Bravo
Parent article: Medsphere sues company's co-founders (Modern Healthcare)

"Bravo" seems to be an enemy of Steve's rather than someone who knows anything about the
business of open source software.

There are plenty of companies that release source code to the world because it helps them make
money. This may include pre-empting rivals from establishing standards, or fueling adoption, or
trying to get others to support your technology. Or it just may be simple teaseware.

So MySQL AB has raised $39 million from very smart VCs with such a business model. Sleepycat
sold itself to Oracle for more than $50 million.

As for Medsphere, OpenVista is an enhanced version of the VA's VistA (or "wrapper" as Bravo puts
it). VistA is in the public domain and will remain that way forever. So is the incremental value of
what Steve "gave away" really $50 million? Did he try to hide it from the board (of which he was a
member) or his investors? Or is this just an example of new management coming up with an excuse
to force out and discredit the company's founders? (Cf. John Sculley and Steve Jobs).

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