On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 6:40 PM, Jim Hall <jh...@freedos.org> wrote: > On Thu, Apr 19, 2018 at 5:12 PM, dmccunney <dennis.mccun...@gmail.com> wrote: > [..] >> Having it available under a compatible open source license will let >> Jim make it available as part of FreeDOS. >> >> Having it available as Freeware gives folks something they can *do* >> with FreeDOS, which may be more important. > > I agree! > > My view is "Ask, and they might do it." And "If you don't ask, they won't."
Yep. > The ideal is that vendors might release the source code under a > Free/open source software license, like the GNU GPL. That would be > great! Better still if they would release under a BSD or MIT license. > But some vendors might not be able to release the source code. Maybe > there are legal restrictions, based on licensing agreements > (libraries, etc) and it would be too much work for them to go through > the legal clearance process to release the source code to a classic > DOS program. In this case, I'd be happy if they re-released the > software as free (gratis). Yes again. Source for applications of any size will likely not be entirely written in house by the vendor, but will have come from other sources and were licensed to the vendor. The vendor of the final product may well not have the rights to release all the source. Consider Star Office, which became the base for Open Office and Libre Office. Sun bought Star Office GMBH, the original vendor. They decided to make it open source. One of the components of Star Office was a database. The one issued with Star Office was a version of Adabas from Software AG. Star Office's license for Adabas allowed them to release binaries as freeware, but did *not* allow them to release source. Sun replaced Adabas with a Base module that was actually written in Java which they did control. You had to have a current JRE installed along with OO/LO to be able to *use* Base. (OO/LO would *install* without a JRE present, but would throw errors if you tried to *use* Base without a JRE installed.) And all open source licenses are not equal. One development I follow is Toybox. Toybox is an effort by Rob Landley. He was the former maintainer of Busybox. Toybox is an improved Busybox equivalent. The initial target for Toybox is Android, and several contributors to Toybox are Google Android developers, because they use Toybox internally. Rob cannot accept contributions licensed under the GPL. There are too many strings attached to using the GPL. (And GPLv2 and GPLv3 are not compatible with each other!) My irony meter has pegged off scale more than once when two *open source* projects cannot share code because the licenses are incompatible. ______ Dennis ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Check out the vibrant tech community on one of the world's most engaging tech sites, Slashdot.org! http://sdm.link/slashdot _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
