Richmond has a point, though, when he says: "to describe something which is written using a proprietary language and/or IDE as Open Source is potentially misleading"
Open source is not about what it runs on. The main point of open source is that the source code shall be available, and modification of it shall be permitted as long as those modifications are also put back. Its the modification issue that matters here, the practical effect on the ability to modify of the use of a proprietary language and IDE. This was always the issue in the Gnome/KDE wars. The licenses were the same. But anyone could get Gtk anytime to modify the Gnome code. They could modify or fork Gtk if they felt like it, too. They could only get Qt under some restrictions, and they could not modify or fork it no matter what. So the Gnome people worried that KDE's open status was effectively at the mercy of a few guys in Trolltech. They did have a point, and you notice that the wars have come to an end now that Qt is really open source, and been succeeded by the Mono wars. We could argue that with Rev, particularly now that Media is out for all platforms, free, and pretty powerful, that this doesn't matter. I'm not sure how much it matters (after all, I am using Rev quite cheerfully!). But there is a real point here: the license may be the GPL, but you've got to admit that your power to take advantage of the powers that license gives you are more limited if you have to exercise them by acquiring a proprietary IDE and language, than if you just exercise them by downloading (eg) Python. Look, here is a practical example. There are quite a few things in Rev for Linux that are just broken. Printing for instance. Suppose I write and distribute an app under the GPL. Done in Python, someone who is really irritated with this can modify Python itself, then fix the app. It may be unlikely, but this possibility, and the power of forking Python, is part of what makes OSS developers responsive. Done in Rev, the same person basically has no recourse except to wait, as I am waiting patiently, for 4.0. If Edinburgh falls victim to a giant tsunami down the Firth of Forth then, like KDE with Trolltech, the powers of the GPL license holder to my app are in practice very limited. There is a real point here. Did I say 'patiently' by the way....? Its all relative! Peter -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Calling-all-open-source-developers-tp25961091p25970062.html Sent from the Revolution - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list use-revolution@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution