Re: Problem with InstallShield (Was Re: [Bug 629] Changed - Problemwith InstallShield: ole:CoTreatAsClass(stub), ole:CoGetClassObject)

On Wed, 8 May 2002 18:29, Roland wrote:

> At 07:15 PM 5/7/02 -0500, [email protected] wrote:
>
> >Now, this license debate issue went on for several months before
> >coming to the vote. And I have to say, in all respect to Gav, Ove and
> >everyone at TG (great work on the actual code)... during this period
> >of debate there was no real sign of goodwill from 'that side' of the
> >fence.
>
> Hello,
> although I was against the LGPL fork for a long time, I'm not longer
> sure that it was a bad thing after all. I now recognize the flaw of
> the X11 license. Companies like Transgaming think in economic terms
> and will try to charge for every codepiece before contributing(even if
> they don't charge money but other code pieces). Not that this is
> fundamentally bad, I think you have the right to charge for your work.

Other companies will think in economic terms and realize it is cheaper
to contribute than to run a second fork of the code that is far out of
sync.  For example, think about BSDi, Apple and IBM.

They may still keep pieces to themselves, but they do contribute some
code.  The code they do not contribute will eventually be written by
someone else if they are interested.

> But as Alexandre wrote, working on a community project is not about
> economics, its about having fun and developing together for ALL to
> benefit from it...

If this is the case, someone making a proprietary version does not
affect a developer from "having fun and developing together".  If it is
"ALL", then explicitly excluding a type of development is contradictory.

> And when someone trys to make money out of it, the whole thing is
> endangered...

FreeBSD did not suffer from BSDi.  In fact, it benefited from the
company.  This is not always the case, but I still have not seen a
company having a negative affect on an open source project with regards
to code.

Actually, what Transgaming is doing is quite similar to SoftUpdates for
FreeBSD.  It started out as proprietary but was later released under the
BSD license.  I believe much of the SMP code came from BSDi.

> Probably Transgaming gave the main arguments for switching to LGPL.
> Here we see again that in the long run it pays off to be generous.
> Share your goods instead of holding them back...

or else we will use a license to force you?  Not exactly a good means to
sharing.  If people wanted others to share with them, coercement does
not provide a good example.  People might as well complain about them
"blackmailing".

> Just my 0.5$

I'll call.  :)

> PS: Another problem of the X11 license is, that it allows "embrace and
> extend" strategies.

This is only a concern with a company that can actually afford to run a
separate fork by themselves.  I believe Transgaming unable to do this
even if they wanted to.

Sean
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