A tale of two dead companies [LWN.net]

Once upon a time, there was a software firm named AppForge, Inc. This company sold development tools for mobile platforms, allowing others to create applications which would run on a number of different devices. These were all proprietary tools for proprietary systems, and so wouldn't normally be of interest on LWN. What has happened with AppForge turns out to be worth a look, however.

It seems that AppForge went bankrupt back in March. So there will be no support for AppForge's products going into the future. But, as it turns out, it's worse than that:

Crossfire licensing typically works by validating a serial number against AppForge's server before installation on any new device. Since AppForge went dark, end users have been unable to provision new devices with software that they thought they owned.

It does not take much searching to find forums full of AppForge customers looking for ways to activate the product licenses they had already bought and paid for. In the mean time, their businesses have come to a halt because a core component of their products has suddenly been pulled out from underneath them.

Adding the usual sanctimonious LWN sermon on the risks of using proprietary software seems superfluous here.

More recently, Progeny Linux Systems ceased operations. This company, which had based its hopes on a specialized, configurable version of the Debian distribution aimed at appliance vendors, had been quiet for some time. Founder Ian Murdock headed off to greener pastures (first the Free Standards Group, then Sun) a while back. Press releases and other communications had dried up. The last repository update posted to the mailing lists happened in October, 2006. The DCC Alliance, a Progeny-led effort to create a standard distribution based on Debian, has had no news to offer since 2005. Now the company's web site states that Progeny ceased operations on April 30.

Progeny seems to have lost out in the market to others with more interesting offerings. Ubuntu declined to join the DCC Alliance for what looks like a clear business reason: Ubuntu is becoming the standardized, cleaned-up version of Debian that DCC wanted to be, and with predictable releases as a bonus. Companies like rPath appear to be finding more success at signing up customers in the appliance market. With no wind in its sails, Progeny was unable to bring in the revenue to keep going.

Progeny's customers, too, will lose the support offered by the company. There will be no distribution upgrades, no security fixes, and nobody to answer questions. This loss will clearly be a concern for any affected customers, but those customers are in a very different position from those who were dependent on AppForge tools. Since they were using a free platform, nothing prevents Progeny's customers from continuing to ship their products. These customers can also readily find companies (or consultants) who can continue to support the Progeny platform, should they need that support. The cost may be unwelcome, but the core truth remains: any Progeny customer which has a need to keep the Progeny platform secure or fix bugs in it will be able to do so.

The nature of the technology market is such that the failure of product lines and entire companies is not an uncommon event. When one company depends on another company's products, the risk of this sort of failure must be kept in mind. That risk is far lower, however, when companies base their products on free software.

(Thanks to Scott Preece for bringing the AppForge situation to our awareness).

to post comments

A tale of two dead companies

Posted May 3, 2007 5:53 UTC (Thu) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] (1 responses)

Insterestingly enough, one of the products of Progeny was providing paid upgrades for some products RedHat had no longer supported (RedHat 9, for instance).

Will someone else now provide paid updates for the discontinued Progeny distributions?

A tale of two dead companies

Posted May 3, 2007 7:41 UTC (Thu) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

And IIRC Progeny played shamelessly on FUD about Fedora being dead on arrival. Also harnessed Debianists all too happy to have their PHBs switch to a Debian derivative (even then Debian itself was no option).

A few years past Fedora is alive and kicking, Centos is a big success and rpm development has resumed.

Seems good products work better than buzz after all (no one will say Fedora communication efforts have been outstanding to date, and they certainly pale before what other big distributions do)

A tale of two dead companies

Posted May 3, 2007 7:01 UTC (Thu) by ebirdie (guest, #512) [Link]

IT has had this "buy from market leaders, because they stay in business and as a sign of their superiority has market leadership" since ages.

Another clause has been "there isn't one, whose been fired because buying IBM".

But yes, proprietary vendors are shooting on their foot, when they have implemented more and more those product activation and registration services. Those services are a headache already without them being out of business. At least we did choose other product over another because of the hassles in activation and registration.

A tale of two dead companies

Posted May 3, 2007 20:03 UTC (Thu) by ddaa (guest, #5338) [Link] (1 responses)

> Adding the usual sanctimonious LWN sermon on the risks of using proprietary software seems superfluous here.

I might have a twisted sense of humour. But oh gawd, that did make me laugh hard. And again. And again.

My inner free software bigot calls that poetic justice. I should feel sorry for the poor customers, I know I should.

A tale of two dead companies

Posted May 4, 2007 4:09 UTC (Fri) by roelofs (guest, #2599) [Link]

My inner free software bigot calls that poetic justice. I should feel sorry for the poor customers, I know I should.

"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward," to quote an old Net colleague.

Sorry, I know that's a bit harsh, but... Honestly, you tell 'em and tell 'em and tell 'em, and they just don't listen (and/or don't believe). It's hard to feel much sympathy, sometimes. :-(

Greg