Re: The FreeRDP fork

Hi,

Here is another now happy RDP user. with emphasis on user.
To compare rdesktop and FreeRDP i think is like comparing NT4 with
Win7 (Guess which is which).
rdesktop to start with was good, but nothing happen.

I have not tried rdesktop for a while but it seams that to be able to
even use it somewhat you need to heavily patch it yourself?

I must say that I'm not to found of the license change in FreeRDP, but
if you look on what currently happens... (this is based on my limited
license knowledge)
GPL rdesktop is used commercial, source code is available, and nothing
or very little gets back in to the project (nothing gets out).
Apache (to be) FreeRDP can be used commercially, some source if not
most will still get back to the project, and we get loads out.
I'd pick FreeRDP any time.
Also as said earlier Things happen on one of the mailing lists, while
the other one is .... well dead.

I think FreeRDP in the future will win a greater user base, and
developer base partly because of this. (if nothing does a U turn now
in rdesktop)

In this thread I have seen a few people that "wants" FreeRDP but "no
one" that "wants" rdesktop, and this is on rdesktop mailing list, i
think that says something.


Peter, I like Cendios announcement and work on TigerVNC i hope it
moves forward, i also like Cendios initial support for rdesktop.
And i hope both as a fellow swede and OSS user that Cendio can see
that FreeRDP is currently great and support it in the future.

Regards
Christian Nilsson



On Tue, Mar 15, 2011 at 9:10 AM, Peter Åstrand <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, 15 Mar 2011, Marc-André Moreau wrote:
>
>> May I insist on the fact that "open source" concerns much more than just
>> source code? The "community" aspect of it is as
>> important as the source code, if not more. Open source goes nowhere
>> without a healthy developer community. Kill the
>> community, and you kill the project with it, that's it.
>
> I agree, I know this very well, but the thing is that with our limited
> resources, we have tried building the rdesktop community the best we can. I
> have sent many emails to Matt and asking him to add new developers. But
> without administrator access, I couldn't do it myself.
>
> The most difficult part is keeping Open Source projects healthy over a long
> period of time. People and organizations may be active for only a brief
> period of time, then disappears. Many students are active when they are
> studying at some university, but when they graduate, they leave the
> community.
>
> It's more funny and exciting to start new projects but what the community as
> a whole needs is really more of long term thinking.
>
>
>> Yes, I know, this was expected. Apple is trying hard to exclude Open
>> Source. There's a war out there. I see no reason
>> why we should surrender.
>>
>> Oh, wait, aren't you producing commercial software, ThinLinc? Is all of it
>> contributed back to the open source community?
>
> ThinLinc consists of perhaps 80% open source software and 20% proprietary
> code, plus documentation, services etc. For the open source parts, we are
> working closely with the upstream projects and are always shipping the
> pristine (or close to) upstream software. We are also including the source
> code on the product CD.
>
> You could say that we are in the "Open Source" camp rather than the "Free
> Software" camp. We are pragmatic and believes that commercial products are
> OK, especially if they allows us to produce more Open Source. This is what
> we are doing when we are contributing back to the rdesktop, TigerVNC, OpenSC
> etc projects.
>
> The Apple App Store terms are too limiting, however.
>
>
>>  I'm not saying it is wrong, because it is perfectly fine, but what I find
>> a bit ironic here are your priorities. First, Apple has not declared a war
>> on open source, it will allow GPLv2 applications to be distributed on its
>> App Store. The problem is that the GPLv2 says that you cannot impose further
>> restrictions, such as those imposed by the App Store itself. For these
>> reasons, some people have been filing complaints against GPLv2 applications
>> in the App Store - complaints from the GPLv2 developers themselves in the
>> case of VLC.
>
> I know, and I think they are right.
>
>
>> We're not even talking about linking proprietary code into GPL code, we're
>> simply talking about distribution GPL code on a platform that imposes
>> certain restrictions. No matter how open the source code is, if the platform
>> itself imposes ANY further restrictions, it won't be considered suitable for
>> it. Should we remove all GPL applications from all platforms imposing any
>> form of restriction?
>
> My opinion is that any platform where you are only allowed to run binaries
> which have been signed by the vendor is too restrictive. Such a platform is
> not compatible with GPL.
>
>
>> The irony here is that if we compare imposing certain restrictions such as
>> with the App Store and building a commercial product out of GPL software, I
>> think building a commercial product out of GPL software might just come
>> first if you ever want to consider it "bad".
>
> Commercial software is commercial and Open Source is Open Source. One
> problem with the App Store model is that if you distribute Open Source apps
> through it, users would be running Open Source software but with many of the
> Open Source rights taken away from them.
>
>
>> It should be possible to provide the same interface by providing a stub
>> library. This small glue code can then have a
>> different license.
>>
>> If that is all it takes, why even bother with GPL? Let's just use a
>> license that allows better and more lightweight
>> interfaces, period. Come on, you're making commercial software out of
>> rdesktop, how is that even supposed to hold? "I want
>> people to be forced to use technically inferior ways to interface with my
>> code, because they will interface with it anyway?"
>
> You have to consider the whole picture. There's a reason why GPL is still
> one of the most popular licenses.
>
> Rgds, ---
> Peter Åstrand           ThinLinc Chief Developer
> Cendio AB               http://www.cendio.com
> Wallenbergs gata 4
> 583 30 Linköping        Phone: +46-13-21 46 00
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