Is the foxmarks addon source open?

I switched from del.icio.us to Foxmarks for precisely two reasons: the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) version of the del.icio.us extension didn't integrate well with Firefox and its bookmarks, and the newer version which integrates somewhat better doesn't use a FOSS license. Foxmarks, at the time, claimed to release their extension under the Apache license.

Now I find that Foxmarks has quietly gone proprietary without making that clear. I found Foxmarks quite useful, and thus it annoys me greatly that I suddenly need to find a new bookmarks synchronization extension.

The Free and Open Source Software model works well for the browser that made Foxmarks successful. Why can't it work for you too? What would you lose by releasing Foxmarks under a FOSS license as you once did?

Sincerely,
A former and hopefully future Foxmarks user

I use firefox for net banking, I would never trust foxmarks unless it is open sourced as it is able to collect my account and password

I use firefox for net banking, I would never trust foxmarks unless it is open sourced as it is able to collect my account and password

Same here. I had almost talked myself into using the password synchronization, and now I feel glad that I didn't.

@Eric:

Glad to hear a response from Foxmarks, thanks!

You asked "which part of an open source policy do you feel is missing from Foxmarks". Let me give you a list of some of the things that I can't do with Foxmarks, but that I *can* do with all open source software, including Firefox itself:

* Improve the software, and pass those improvements on to others or back to Foxmarks. Not a hypothetical: I work as a professional software developer, and I spend 100% of my work time on open source software, as well as a significant fraction of my own free time. In the case of Foxmarks, I know of plenty of things I'd love to work on. For instance, optionally using the same encryption used for password sync to encrypt bookmarks (trading away server-side browsing via my.foxmarks.com for improved security), improving the support for using your own WebDAV server so that it supports all the same features, supporting synchronization of selected cookies, supporting synchronization of the list of installed extensions, and various other features.

* Submit patches together with bug reports. Many of the bug reports I submit to various software packages come with patches attached, so that the authors of that software just need to apply the patch to fix the bug, rather than doing the work themselves.

* Package the software for Linux distributions such as Debian. This would allow me to manage Foxmarks just like I manage the other thousand packages that make up my system: automatically pulling it in on any new system I install, and automatically updating it at the same time I update the other thousand packages on my system.

* Continue using the software if the company behind it disappears. If Foxmarks, the company, disappeared tomorrow, the Foxmarks software would die with it. Nobody else can distribute it, and nobody else can maintain it. With open source software, I know that even if the person or company maintaining a piece of software disappears, someone else can keep it alive.

Now, I have a question for you: what would you lose by making Foxmarks open source? For instance, by putting it under the same license as Firefox itself? As you said, anyone can already see the source code of the client, so you don't have any secrets to protect there. Foxmarks at one point used an open source license, and then stopped doing so. Obviously, Foxmarks must have had some reason for doing so; please tell us, so we can help address your concerns.

And by the way, while I used Foxmarks I recommended it to around a dozen other people, most of whom ended up using it. Now I really regret those recommendations, and I certainly can't in good conscience recommend it to anyone else. So please keep in mind that the people you'd make happy by making Foxmarks open source often represent your more technical users, who make a lot of technology recommendations to others. Whatever bookmark synchronizer I end up using, whether Weave, Chipmark, or some hypothetical future version of Foxmarks under an open source license, I *will* end up recommending it to many people.

Note that my concerns revolve entirely around the Foxmarks client; it doesn't bother me at all that Foxmarks doesn't release the source code to their server any more than it bothers me that Google doesn't release the source code to their search engine. Foxmarks does far better than most in that department: as you said, I can always run my own server, though I'd lose some features by doing so as the Foxmarks client requires the Foxmarks server for some features.

(Also, a minor clarification: "copyrighted by Foxmarks" doesn't mean "not open source", as almost all open source software still has copyright retained by its author(s).)

Sincerely,
A former Foxmarks user, who now has some hope that Foxmarks might listen.

a full server API would be handy and a (easy) way to tell foxmarks to sync to that server as it does to the foxmarks.com server (not to a online file as it does now).
that way you can completely control where your bookmarks are stored and how (encrypted or not)

some functions callable from other add-ons (sync now, change some settings,... (ok these can be bypassed through the about:config and simulating the hotkey))

off topic: I wonder what functions change the bookmarks in FF (test if the page is bookmarked, change the directory of the bookmark, deleting, adding and altering it) and if they can be called from greasemonkey scripts

Yes, this question is really important. It prevent to include foxmark into Linux distribution, because we don't know if foxmarks is published under an OSI license. Please clarify on which terms and condition you want your copyright be applied to.

Any update on this? Eric mentioned that this might turn into some internal discussion.

I have to say that it's really disappointing to see that a year has gone by without another post following up on this very reasonable question. It seems sad that this organization once embraced the principles behind open source software and now seems to be irrationally clinging to a restricted model without addressing the highly rational arguments put forward. I truly appreciate the candor with which Eric has responded and his attitude is admirable, but 12 months of silence on a fundamentally important topic with no resolution is not an ideal company perspective for Xmarks to be projecting...