On 13 Oct 2003 at 19:44, Phoebus R. Dokos (Φοίβος Ρ. Ντό wrote: > That is not possible under any legal agreement. It's other one or the > other especially for GPL style licenses as the premise is so different > that it is impossible to do so.
Yes, I think I'd agree with you on that in a strict view. However, the licence explicitly sets out that code could be distributed "alongside" the official version of the software - this is thus not bound by the licence itself. (ahem - that was one more concession compared with the original licence) > >(...) Only this week I spent a whole day fixing SMSQ/E > > for SGC (the "QubIDE" problem which in the end wasn't related to > > QubIDE at all) although it was not my code that was at fault. Yes, it was a problem in the GoldCard related code ONLY. > > In fact > > it was just luck that it ran most of the time at all. I can confirm that Marcel has done an ENORMOUS amount of work on the sources. More than anybody else (except TT, of course) and more than all others combined. (Please all you "others" don't interpret this as a slur on your contributions - it's just the truth!). > Oh I do not argue all these points. As I said, it's a personal choice to > do or to do not do something. But isn't the motivation for doing something also important? If Marcel esteems that he can only justify doing so much work if he, at least, gets some of his expenditures back, isn't that something that really counts? > If for example (as my self) one maintains a QL related business for other > reasons (It's a good tax break after all), profits really do not matter > although I have made profits but not from SMSQ/E but QL related from eBay > trading.... beside that though it's a nice distraction for me cooped up in > the house all day. Well, get a life, then ... :-) I think that everyone on the list here can agree that doing QL related "business" is a money losing proposition. The only question is: how much money are you prepared to lose? (...) > > In conclusion, free beer is nice, as long as you're not the publican. > > At this point I'd like to thank the one person who actually gave a > > donation. Names, names! > > Well I agree that Free beer is nice but having something *really* open > source and free does not exclude the possibility of making money out of > it! (See for example Linux distros). I have always thought that this example is totally flawed when one tries to attempt to adapt this to the QL "market", apart from the fact that not many (if any) are actually making some money out of it. I do point out, however, that I'm not a Linux aficionado, so some of my comments may perhaps lack pertinence. Nominally, a Linux company ONLY makes money through support, i.e. the OS it supplies is completely free, and you can download it for free (or get it, for example, from magazine cover CDs etc). So you are selling support to people to whom you supplied "free" software to (and I'll pass over those that don"t supply much support at all, thus actually "selling" you the OS). Would that kind of thing be feasible in the small QL market? Would people accept to pay money, say, to Jochen Merz only for support? In other words - "here is SMSQ/E for free, but if you want to ask me a question it'll cost you - even though we have known each other for a very long time". Is that realistic? How fast the QL market would have disappeared by now if that were the case? And how fats the QL world in itself would have gone down the drain after that? And (some) people still need that support, believe me. And, on an aside, to come back to the Linux model disgression, isn't it totally unethical to make money on the back of the (stupid?) hacks that made the software available for free in the first place? > I still believe that the license gap can be remedied, although apart from > that I have other problems with the current SMSQ/E versions. Oh, we all agree that the OS could be so much better - let's try to make it happen! > The changes > that I have in mind (and some of which I have implemented in "test tube" > conditions, discarded or kept) AND THE LICENCE ALLOWED YOU TO DO THAT! (...) > > Well, Peter sells hardware, of course he wouldn't mind the software > > being totally free. I sell software, I wouldn't mind getting the > > hardware for free, but that usually doesn't happen either ;-) > > I think this pretty much sums it up. Nicely put. I'm not sure, however, that the financial motivation really was the main concern for Peter here, else I'd be pretty disappointed. And I'm SURE that financial reasons aren't Marcel's main concern, else he'd have stopped this a LONG time agao.... > Now just for the heck of it... isn't it so much nicer when we disagree in > a civilised manner??? :-D > > I do believe that at one point we will have to What - disagree or be civilised? Wolfgang
