Good afternoon, community and developers. It's not my intention to beat a dead horse, however, I believe this may be of general interest
from the community, and I'd like to hear both from the community and Dan himself. This question has been asked a few times, as I've read through the old messages - why not to open the source code? Dan mentioned that one of the reasons for not letting the code to be redistributed is keeping the community together, but from a Free, Open point of view, this does nothing but hurt the freedom of the community, by restricting the methods it has to contribute. Contribution isn't just about suggesting fixes, but to work as a community to discuss and solve problems to make the software more adequate to the users. Distributing modifications both benefits the users who are interested in the improvements made by the community and helps spreading the software. With a GPL license, all modifications must retain the Free Software nature, so the original developers can implement the improvements in the main branch, resulting in a better software for everyone. Concerning the moral principles, I agree with Erlend Sogge ( http://groups.google.com/group/boltwire/msg/3201fac552b4d9f7 ). This kind of restriction should be described as guidelines, not as part of the license. You don't have to restrict the sale of your knives because there are people who kill with them. The current license itself is a mess. "Immoral purposes" by itself is extremely subjective - Abortion or drugs, for instance, may be considered immoral to many, but there are countries that allow it. The license also contains terms such as "Me" and "etc", which don't belong documents of this kind. Also, suggestions such as asking for contributions are definitely things that should be placed in guidelines, not license. I believe licenses should deal with rights, obligations and options, not suggestions or personal inquiries. It's a pretty generous license, indeed, but as the generosity of a sultan, not of an individual. I believe we can sort it out in the best way possible. It's about time for BoltWire to go GPL - It can only help the community, while not preventing the developers from selling the software to someone, or some company, who wants to make a commercial version of it. Enough said, I would like to thank Dan for the excellent software. Except for the license, it is exactly what I was looking for. Best regards Raphael -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "BoltWire" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/boltwire?hl=en.
