>I detect from the tone of your response that you are a bit cheesed off with >Richard's comments on the proposed licence. I missed out on some of this because I have been trying a new spam rejection program which was harder to configure than I thought so I apologise if some of my comments are slightly off. > >I think that he has some valid points which you don't seem to have >understood. Think of it this way: Richard has done a good job with UQLX and >has it working on may flavours of Unix, on different platforms and >processors. It would benefit the community to SMSQ to have it supported by >UQLX, and have Richard's Unixy extensions within it as he has already done >for JS and Minerva. However, he does not have continous access to all those >platforms, and definitely not all the combinations of interface cards, >displays etc they come with. He therefore cannot guarantee support, or to >fix problems. He helps where he can, and in the spirit of GNU etc, he makes >the information available so that technically advanced users can help >themselves. This is surely not a problem because the technically advanced can have the source code and do the fixes, pass these back to Richard and he can get them into an 'official' UQLX SMSQ/E. > >Under the current proposed licence, he cannot operate in this reasonable >way. He cannot merely do his best, but he has to give an open-ended >commitment to provide support -something that few if any software vendors >would do. Only in the PC world. In practice most of the QL authors have, in the past, given pretty much open ended support. Bugs and problems get reported either to the authors or to the vendors and get passed on and, where possible, fixed. Marcel, in particular, has been pretty tireless in this area. There will be some insurmountable problems with some hardware but that is unavoidable, even on the best platforms. The problem of the many different flavours of both UNIX and LINUX is one of the things that this licence is setting out to try to avoid. >He isn't even allowed to provide effective support -emailing >patches, assistance over the phone of how to hack a config file ....outlawed >by the proposed licence. Patches and hacks always confuse the issue and, given the complex nature of SMSQ/E a patch here may destroy something else there (This happened several times to TT himself so I should imagine it would be worse for someone who is not the original author). We want coherent and uniform versions of SMSQ/E not hacked and patched ones. Of course this may not matter if the patches and hacks are confined to UQLX but this is an opening for the 'if they can do why can't I?' >This is not the way to encourage the few souls who are both willing and >capable of making SMSQ available and useful to a wider audience to harness >their talents to our mutual benefit. WE are only asking for discipline I think. > >I really do urge you to rethink this. Conversely, I would be interested to >know how you intend to police the licence; it seems to me to be impossible, >so perhaps Richard and others like him need not worry. There is also nothing to stop you copying the whole of the commercial library of QL programs and handing that out for free to. If you want to steal this is your conscience. > p.s. Most unix distributions include an emulators package these days. Think >how many extra users we might end up with (or ex-users that return) if we >could get them to add UQLX +SMSQ etc into that package? A little matter of the fee to TT. I have no problem with running Q Branch for free, for instance, if my garage will give me petrol for nothing, the post office gives me stamps for nothing and you all come round to my house with food and drink when I am hungry and thirsty. Until this time I think you should pay the people whose services and goods you use and who ask for payment and thank politely those who are giving it all for free. I have nothing against free software and open licences but you cannot expect it as a right.
-- Roy Wood Q Branch, 20 Locks Hill Portslade. Sussex. BN41 2LB. UK Tel : +44 (0)1273 386030 Fax : +44 (0)1273 430501 (New number!) Mobile +44(0)7836 745501 Web : www.qbranch.demon.co.uk
