Who actually holds the copyrights in an open sourced project licensed under LGPL? In this case, JasperSoft claims that lead developer, Teodor Danciu, was the primary motivation behind Jasper Reports and is the primary holder of the copyrights of the entire source code base. Several other developers who actively participated in the project apparently signed over their copyright privileges to JasperSoft. Primary developer Danciu now works for JasperSoft. But did they purchase the rights of all contributors?

Does the community that helped test and guide the product own a portion of the intellectual property? They probably don’t. They do, however, have the right to continue to evolve the current version of the source code published under the terms of the license agreement.

JasperSoft recently announced that they will incorporate the Jasper Reports code base into a commercially available product that will be sold at a yet to be determined price. The source code will be available for developers but will be protected by a commercial license.

Since the key developers have left the open source project will the noncommercial version of Jasper Reports evolve? Will a new group of developers step up and take free Jasper to the next level? Will another company take the open code base and compete with JasperSoft? One can only hope.

The proponents of open source should be concerned. A free, open sourced project developed by a community with feedback from a large user community has been taken commercial. The intellectual capital of the community was mined with the promise that the source code and the project would remain free. The evolution of the source code is in jeopardy and thousands of users of Jasper Reports worldwide are left asking the question: “what’s next?”.

The commercialization of Jasper Reports may be an isolated instance of a small open source project going private or it might be a trend that ultimately stifles the evolution of open source development. Which product is next?