[REBOL] Re: Yes, REBOL/Core is still free
From: chris:starforge at: 22-May-2001 20:36
#22-May-01# Message from *Holger Kruse*:
Hi Holger,
> The study is a success, and development on the full application starts. As
> much code from the original prototype as possible is supposed to be
> reused, because the tight time frame for a 1.0 release only allows for
> "adding new features", not for "reengineering the whole product". This
> means some of the "free stuff" now requires redistribution licensing. At
> that time the legal department realizes that, unfortunately, some of the
> "free stuff" is under GPL (not LGPL), so it cannot be included in a
> closed-source application. Open-source is not an option, so this means
> some of the "free stuff" has to be removed, parts of the application have
> to be rewritten, some of the features in the "free stuff" have to be
> spec'ed out and then reimplemented under white room conditions, by a
> separate engineering time, the release date is pushed back, customers
> switch to a competitor's product. The company loses millions.
> Sound familar ? Did this happen in your company, too ? :-) These kinds of
> things have been very common in the last few years.
Just a point, I don't want to flare up a GPL war on here similar to the one
on MooBunny at present but this is FUD. There is nothing in the GPL which
states "you may not contact the author to negotiate special terms", there is
nothing in the GPL which says "the author may not exempt selected bodies
from the GPL at his discretion". If a company uses GPL code in a prototype
and then reimplements it in the production code then they are causing their
own problem. Perhaps they should actually consider contacting the author of
the modules to negotiate a commercial exemption? Perhaps they should have
realised what would happen in the first place? Sure, OSS nuts will refuse,
but there's no harm in asking is there? Some authors will be quite willing
to allow commercial use provided they get royalties or a lump sum. Slating
the GPLed code simply because you can't stick it in a commercial app and
forget about the guys who wrote it (like M$ and their TCP stack) is not what
I'd expect from a responsible company.
But perhaps you are aiming this more at the people who said things along the
lines of "how can I convince them to use REBOL when there are free
alternatives like Perl or Python"? If so, you haven't answered the
question. Simply using Perl does not force you to open source your scripts,
only the FUDmongers claim otherwise, often because they have a vested
interest in scaring everyone off these alternatives. If you use a bunch
of GPL perl scripts in your app, then things are different, but just using
Perl has no more effect than using gcc to compile your C++ classes.
Besides, I think this is a long way from the "free" that most people here
understood - free as in no charge, free with no "except for..". The free
which was prominent on your website until recently. Most people here aren't
complaining about the fact that this has changed so much as the fact that
we weren't even told about the changes! We didn't even get a warning. PR
gaff or whatever, this does not instil trust in the developers who you need
to keep to stop REBOL slipping into obscurity. We may only be your users,
but we are users who can just throw in the towel and go elsewhere if we
want. There's nothing keeping peole here except their appeciation of the
language, an appreciation many are willing to pay hansomly for. But by the
same token, p**sing people off will not win you friends.
> I feel very strongly about this and could go on and on forever, having witnessed how,
> e.g., large portions of the Amiga commercial software market along with many useful
> applications were literally destroyed by the effects of GPL on the platform, and
Ok, you've lost me there. I've never heard of any Amiga commercial software
marking being "destroyed by the effects of GPL software." I can count the
number of major GPLed Amiga apps on one hand. I've heard of the commercial
market being destroyed by lying, incompetent parent company owners who change
their minds every 3 months and go bust every 18, by exponentially falling
userbase figures and by the utter lack of decent commercial software (a few
outstanding cases exempted) but GPL software has never really come top of
my "nailing the Amiga coffin lid shut" list.
Chris
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