From: Daniel M. G. <dm...@uv...> - 2007-02-02 18:07:24
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Hi Ron, Ron> To avoid writing an essay, let me just make a "few" statements. Heh. Ron> 1 - It's important that the license for PanoTools be respected and Ron> actively enforced, or it means little, and is bound to lead to Ron> conflicts; [...] Ron> 14 - If the developers can't find a compromise that allows the open Ron> and closed-source products to thrive then we've taken a huge step Ron> backwards. Overall, I would say I tend to agree with you in almost all points. The idea is sound, with just one some problems. 1. The copyright from Helmut needs to be transfered. Otherwise his code needs to be rewritten. 2. I don't believe the income from licensing can pay me for my contributions. Let me put it into perspective. During December and January (12 months ago) I spent FULL TIME developing PTmender. That means an investment of close to US$20k, at my current level of salary. Why would I donate my time to be used by a company if I am not compensated appropriatedly? I donate my time based on a bargain: I give you code, but you give me whatever you add on-top-of-it in exchange. (This is the bargain of the GPL). 3. If the foundation does not pay me then there is no incentive for me to give it my code that it will then resell to a company that does not benefit me nor the free (as in freedom) software community. >From my research in open source I have found that most foundations are created in projects where there is a lot of commercial interest (and contributions). Many of these contributors are payed employees of these companies (the FSF is an important exception). Ron> 1. Form an organization - let's call it the PanoTools Foundation I think this is needed as a way to protect the interests of everybody. You are right on. Ron> 2. Make the foundation the holder of PanoTools source code copyright, Ron> and the relevant trademarks (though none exist today, it may be too Ron> late for PanoTools?, but perhaps it's time to move past that name Ron> anyhow, or at least deprecate it) See my point above. Ron> 3. Provide PanoTools free (beer/speech) under a GPL-like license, and Ron> use the foundation to actively enforce that license I agree. Ron> 4. Provide an alternative license to commercial entities, allowing Ron> complete liberty to use PanoTools in commercial products - for a fee Ron> (to be determined - a blanket license fee, a per unit sales fee, an Ron> annual fee, etc) This is done via BSD and other licenses in those projects. See the apache license for another example. Ron> 6. Use the collected funds to support core PanoTools development - Ron> for instance, purchasing gear such as lenses (as we did earlier this Ron> year as a group) See my comment above. Ron> This would seem, with refinement, of course - I'm writing this on a Ron> smelly, packed, noisy old Airbus 320 so I'm not suggesting this is a Ron> complete model - to address the core needs. :):):) I am writing this from a smelly office (it happens that the Heavyweight Satin paper from Canon smells like vinegar :) -- Daniel M. German "In the coffee table or by the loo, a book is the intellectual equivalent\of a spare Gucci label stitched Simon Jenkins. -> on a handbag or an alligator on a T-shirt." http://turingmachine.org/ http://silvernegative.com/ dmg (at) uvic (dot) ca replace (at) with @ and (dot) with . |