If Jolla goes bankrupt, please create a Kickstarter to open source the OS

asked 2015-11-21 16:17:11 +0200

00prometheus gravatar image

updated 2015-11-22 15:50:18 +0200

It seems that Jolla is in financial trouble, and if so there is a risk that Sailfish OS gets purchased by a party that has no interest in the open source community. If it gets to the point where Jolla enter bankruptcy, the company will be forcefully taken out of the management's hands and placed in the hands of a liquidator. The liquidator's job is law-bound, and completely mechanical: To get as much money out of the assets as possible to pay the debtors. Such a liquidator legally has no leeway for any other values than the financial ones, such as protecting open source.

At that point the open source community might loose our favourite phone OS for ever, unless we are able to outbid any other buyer. I believe we might be able to do that, for example via a Kickstarter campaign, and perhaps support from FOSS companies, but it will require co-ordination and preparation. Preparation needs to be done before bankruptcy occurs, since it takes time. It also needs to be done via the forums that Jolla users frequent, i.e. together.jolla.com, and those forums might well be closed by a liquidator to save money.

Please note that Jolla still has many options left to get out of trouble, and certainly isn't in bankruptcy yet! This request is merely in preparation for the worst. If Jolla management see that we are getting to the point where bankruptcy is the likely outcome, please give the community a chance to save the core value: The Sailfish OS itself!

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Comments

15

I really hope they open source as much as they can, before it even goes this far.

shfit ( 2015-11-21 17:50:45 +0200 )edit
2

Yep, same here. I hope they will switch to FLOSS as Netscape did decades ago. IMHO there is no need to 'convince' them with a funding. If they quit, they might understand that it makes sense to release their work. If not, no money can help them to get to this point...

dulog ( 2015-11-21 18:30:03 +0200 )edit
1

@dulog The point of this post is that there is no convincing to be done if they go bankrupt. At that point a liquidator is appointed by the courts, and the liquidator's job is completely defined by law. The liquidator would be fined or at the least loose their job if having given away assets were discovered! However, convincing with money is exactly what can be done. It is the liquidator's job to sell assets to the highest bidder.

00prometheus ( 2015-11-22 15:33:43 +0200 )edit

I suspect that the investors would run away with the money generated by any such kickstarter campaign!

sifartech ( 2015-11-22 15:57:25 +0200 )edit
2

Nope, can't happen. The idea is to raise money to buy out the OS from the liquidator (if it comes to that). The investors will never see a dime of the money; they can't since the liquidator is in full control of the assets. In fact, that is always one of the first things a liquidator does when taking control: Making sure that previous owners have no access at all to any of the assets.

00prometheus ( 2015-11-22 17:40:46 +0200 )edit