Guys,
There appears to be a misunderstanding as to what OpenSource software
means. OpenSource is a business model. OpenSource software may be
commercial software or software released to the public domain.
Free software - as defined by the FSF and now referred to as Open Source
software, which I believe is typically linked to FSF's GNU Copyleft version
2 upwards - has never been about not having to pay for software. "Free" has
always meant that the provider publishes the source code to the software,
so that clients do not depend on the provider's ability and willingness to
maintain and upgrade the software, and provides a license which permits the
redistribution of the software including the source code. This permission
comes with limitations that are designed to ensure that the Copyleft
license continues to be valid - to a degree - for software that is
derivative work of software distributed under the Copyleft license. (read it)
Furthermore Free Software demands that anyone who makes and distributes
changes to the software must make the sources containing his changes
available publicly as well. The big innovation of the GNU Copyleft version
2.0 was that software developed using FSF libraries and extensions that can
be considered essentially a new work (even though they rely to some degree
on some Copylefted) are exempt from having to be distributed under the GNU
Copyleft license. (See statements Richard Stallman has made in different
papers with respect to his intentions.)
I believe Mozilla is also considered Open Source, even though it has a more
restrictive license. Then there is the Berkeley license, which is more
liberal in that it permits software and derivative works, which was
released by the original author free of charge, to be redistributed against
payment, i.e. clients may be charged for obtaining the software without any
license fees or arrangements necessary with the originator of the software,
and permits proprietary modifications and upgrades to be kept under lock
and key.
Walnut Creek, SuSE, Red Hat and Cygnus (I'm not sure how well Cygnus is
doing) are three companies who have demonstrated that OpenSource software
can be the basis for a lucrative business. $49 or $59 per CD ROM containing
an Operating System is not that much cheaper than MS Windows or OS/2. (Of
course, you get better quality ;-).
NextStep, which was incorporated into MacOS, is an example for a commercial
software that incorporated Free software as part of a commercial package -
the GNU C/C++ compiler, with permission of the FSF, in a deal in which
NextStep contributed an Objective C front end that was redistributed under
the GNU license, pretty much putting StepStone our of business. (StepStone
is/was Brad Cox' company. Brad Cox was the inventor of Objective C.)
In short the OpenSource model does not guarantee that users will be able to
obtain the software without paying for it, nor does OpenSource exclude the
programmer from making a living.
Finally, OpenSource is not always the appropriate business model for a
software.
With respect to REBOL, it would be helpful, if REBOL Tech committed to
releasing REBOL under an OpenSource license, if and when for some reason
they decide to discontinue it and cannot find a commercial entity
interested in continuing to maintain and evolve it. The reason I say this
is that in the early/mid eighties I was using Coherent (Mark Williams
Company). They went out of the business but Coherent continues to be
proprietary. One of the disks I have was damaged and now I have no legal
way of replacing it. There is no organization to back it and there is no
way to continue to evolve it so that it makes use of new hardware
capabilites etc.
Elan
At 11:30 AM 11/18/99 +0000, you wrote:
>
>On Wed, 17 Nov 1999 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>> We all seem to agree that REBOL is a fantastic acheivement. Then isn't
the
>> creator of this fantastic product deserving of some type of compensation
for
>> his work?
>
>well, welcome to the current 'hip trendy idea' in computing. theres the
>'Open Source bandwagon' thats rolled into town demanding that all
>software be free and that the authors only reward is Kudos.
>
>hmmm, Lets see how long developers can afford to make a living in this
>sort of system...the only way they can imho, is to release awkward
>to use software (eg Windows) that can command usage of a hightoll
>support line :-|
>
>alan
>
>PS REBOLs been 'commercial' for quite some time - you could buy the
>software and manuals
