RE: X11Amp version 0.7

[James Hall <jhall1@isd.net>]

SuperQ: god of geek wrote:
> 
> have those people finally come to their senses, and relased the source? or
> do we still have to deal with their bad attitude

Why does not wanting to release their source create a "bad attitude"?

> 1: they don't understand what the GNU public license really does.

This is certainly an obstacle.  Anyone who considers releasing source
code should, IMO, consider using the GPL.  With other projects, I have
seen the GPL "in action", and it really does protect your work.  (case
in point: one company tried to blatantly steal and release as their own
a DOS app that was GPL'd.  Not much was done to change the UI, probably
because that would have taken additional time to get it to market.  The
company was bombarded with email, and threatened with legal action from
different sides.  The result: the company "backed off" before they even
made a sale!)

> 2: their code must be really poor, that would be one of the only reasons
> that they would not release the source.

Or, they just don't feel like releasing the source.  :)

> I, and a few others do not use X11amp, simply because of their anti-GNU
> attitutde, why bother writing software for linux, if you don't make the
> source available.. I would love to be able to compile X11amp for my DEC
> alpha, or port it to work on sparc stations.  [..]

If you don't want to use their [free] software just because they do not
release the code, that's certainly your opinion, and you are entitled to
it.

However, I don't understand your reasoning: how does this differ from
when Netscape initially released Navigator for Linux.  At the time, the
code was not available, but did this mean it wasn't a good app and that
you shouldn't use it just because the source code wasn't posted also?

Or, how does it differ from DOS freeware (not "open source" software)
that was so often posted on Simtel?  Many of those programs (many of
them were quite good) did not post the source code.

Just because someone writes an app for Linux doesn't *require* them to
release the source code.  I don't know where this mind-set got started. 
For example, take commercial software: commercial apps will really lend
to the flexibility and visibility of Linux.  I would love to see more
commercial apps run on Linux.  Yet you'll never see a commercial app
that will also release its source code.  Applixware, for one, will
probably never release its source code, yet it is a fine office package.



--Jim Hall
-- 
Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.
		-- Henry Spencer