Open Source Licence (LGPL or GPL) - Reality Check

[J. Landman Gay]

On 9/11/03 5:05 PM, jbv wrote:

> if someone from this list develops some rather
> sophisticated and useful piece of code (for instance, Alejandro is working
> on some bezier tool simulation, libURL is improving continuously, I for
> one am working on a 3D editor using openGL...), no doubt that these
> things would improve the MC IDE, but would be more than simple
> tweaks of what already exists...
> Would such tools find their place in the webpage you are discussing, and
> what about possible code stealing ?

I think we need to make a distinction between maintaining the IDE and 
writing plug-ins or similar types of stacks. For the open source effort, 
people will want to only submit code that they are comfortable sharing. 
This stuff will mostly involve tweaks to the current MC stacks and won't 
have much new functionality. The goal is to maintain compatibility.

Other things, like the improvements you are describing, are additions to 
the existing IDE. These don't necessarily need to be part of the open 
source effort. It is up to each author to decide whether they want to 
protect their scripts or not. If so, a password-protected plug-in is 
fine and can be uploaded to a web site where others can download it. If 
the author is comfortable releasing the contribution to the public, then 
unprotected stacks are a good way to share information. But either way, 
the plug-in doesn't necessarily become a standard part of the IDE. It's 
more an individual choice by every user whether to use those stacks or not.

The object of the open source group, as I understand it, will be to 
maintain the existing IDE so that it continues to function with each new 
Revolution release. I'm in agreement with Richard that changes should be 
minimal and non-intrusive. Folks who want to add new functionality to 
their setup can do it, just as most of us have already done, by dropping 
plug-ins or backscripts into our MC setups.

At least, that's my understanding of how it works. I'm sure if I'm off 
track someone will say so.

-- 
Jacqueline Landman Gay         |     jacque at hyperactivesw.com
HyperActive Software           |     http://www.hyperactivesw.com