Hi, while i agree with most of the comments but i want to add one more aspect of the picture:
There are different kinds of open source libraries and i would like to differentiate in two groups (correct me if i am wrong here): 1. GPL like -> when used in a project the sourcecode has to be opensourced also - thus in most cases not usable for commercial apps (then people buy a commercial license) 2. LGPL like -> when used in a project the sourcecode needs not necessarily to be opensourced thus usable also for commercial apps I think there are different philosophies behind both licenses: 1. E.g. a company (or even an individual) tries to increase the usage of their library but still (financially) depend on it. In case somebody wants to use the library commercially and do not want to opensource their project they have to buy a license. Or if they want business level support or need additional features they will also buy a license. Thus the maintainer will make money out of it. 2. E.g. a big company/individual donates a project to the opensource community. It did earn money with it or not - but nobody expects to get more profit out of it. It is out of generosity, to do something for the greater good or just too good to be wasted in closed source bounds. Sometimes developers who orginally developed it 'freely' maintain it, are paid by their company for it or people contribute freely in their spare time... But it is important to point out when you decide to use a library (in a commercial setting) you have the following in mind: Decision for 1.) Normally use the library and in case of any bugs you will get support. But since one has the sourcecode it is possible to develop a quick hotfix in case of an urgent production problem. Decision for 2.) There is basically no support (in many cases there is no commercial license available). You have to take the lib 'as it is'. If something is needed YOU develop it yourself or pay somebody who does it for you. In most times there will be practically no documentation. => The money you invest you pay to your own developer who has to familiarize himself with the project, test it and in many cases there are bugs and features which are missing. So i think the problem is that iText started with the 'wrong' kind of license. Several factors of iText were like 1) style license (good documentation, good support etc.) however the license was a 2) style license. Furthermore Bruno you dedicated several years of hard work into it but didn't get much in return, due to the 2.) type license. Now however the users are not to blame (ok, maybe except for those who DEMANDED features insolently but then they didn't understand the license) - they just used the software according to the license (and in most cases didn't know that the author voluntarily worked is a** off.) Now the iText license was (understandably) changed to reflect the real world situation that somebody financially depends on it however many projects used the library under different initial conditions. So that's why many people think about forking because they also invested time to adapt the library, tested it, fixed bugs, contributed features, integrated it into their environment and stuff like that. They basically decided for license type 2.) but now it is switched to 1.) which practically wouldn't have arisen if iText started with the right license from the beginning. So now it is difficult to complain about a fork since the license change is practically "forced" upon them (even if it was communicated earlier). For instance what do I do if I have bug fixes for the last version of the "old" iText (2.1.7)? I can submit them and they will be integrated in a future release, which i currently can't use. If I go to my superiors and want (for them) out of the blue 10K to buy iText licenses they think i am insane ;-) - the project is long in production and there is no budget for it whatsoever. Don't get me wrong here - of course when a new project come's up I will adapt to the new (license) situation and evaluate if i go that route. In that case the licenses are then part of the whole budget calculation from the beginning... Just my two cents, ToM 2010/5/11 David Hoffer <[email protected]> > I'm not trying to vote for a fork just pointing out that someone in > this thread (or recent thread) said they DID fork; so if your thinking > of doing the same you might want to share resources with one that > already did the fork. > > -Dave > > On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 7:49 AM, 1T3XT info <[email protected]> wrote: > > Michael Olenick wrote: > >> People -- Call or write to Bruno's sales agent. > > > > Thanks! > > > > I've had a speed course in economics at http://www.vlerick.com/ last > > year, discovering there's more to the IT business than writing code. > > > > It's all about the business model, not just the business model used for > > iText, but also the business model of the end user/developer. > > > > You've explained that very well. We are using a license (be it the AGPL, > > or a commercial license) because that's better for everyone. If you > > choose the AGPL, you share your code. If you choose the commercial > > license, you share some of your revenue. > > > > The situation before the AGPL was not healthy. At some point, I had the > > impression I was being suffocated: plenty of people were mailing me > > personally, DEMANDING a solution for their problem. I didn't have any > > time to think about new code anymore, and that's not good: a good > > product has to offer continuity! > > > > Recently, I attended an event where I had a talk with a CEO of a company > > who had been using iText for years. He said that he was now looking for > > another free product "because he could no longer use iText." > > I asked him how much switching to another library would cost in terms of > > development, and what he would do if that other free library decided to > > change its license too (because it's easy to run a F/OSS product if > > you're not successful, but it's a lot of hard work as soon as people > > actually start using it). > > He hadn't thought about that yet, but I saw that he realized that would > > probably cost him far more than to have another chat with sales. > > So it goes... > > -- > > This answer is provided by 1T3XT BVBA >
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