

What happens to data when a Web start-up dies? - jasonlbaptiste
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10238404-2.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Webware

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aristus
This is quite rich coming from CNet, which intentionally destroyed the largest
cache of legal online music.

[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/15/hungover_cnet_wakes_...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/15/hungover_cnet_wakes_up_next/)

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dsingleton
"Pogoplug has put the source code for its servers in escrow. If the company
goes bankrupt, the terms of the escrow dictate that the code be released to
SourceForge as an open-source library."

This I like. It wouldn't fly for all companies, especially as you get larger
(or get bought), but it's a really nice simple idea. I'd imagine it creates an
awful lot of trust between the company and the users, which is always a good
thing.

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anigbrowl
It's a very ethical stance. Terms like this could also act as a poison pill in
the event of an acquisition where the buying company only wanted to kill off a
rival technology - a kind of 'use it or lose it' provision.

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wheels
The other thing that I see as problematic there is that it aligns your best
paying customers with your failure.

This is one of those things that I've thought through a little bit. What seems
like it might set up the right chain of motivations is to have the code in
escrow where it can be licensed for a pre-negotiated fee and after _n_ -years
would become open source.

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stanleydrew
This doesn't exactly explain what happens to users actual data when a startup
dies though. I know in the case of Pogoplug no user data is actually stored,
but in many cases there will be huge databases of user data that need to be
destroyed. A more appropriate title would be "What happens to code when a web
start-up dies?"

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josefresco
Pogoplug's PR firm doing a good job of spinning an interesting startup angle
into an article that got picked up by CNET.

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Alcides
It goes to web start-ups heaven.

