Re: Question/suggestion

[R.K. O. Ph.D. <rk...@ow...>]

> Dr. Owen:
> A thought just occurred to me regarding the location of your code.
>
> The site http://www.sourceforge.net allows open-source development
> projects (like modules) a place to store the code in a well-maintained
> environment (backups, multiple servers, etc) as I understand it.
>
> Have you considered utilizing this resource as a means for distributing
> and maintaining the "modules" codebase?
>
> Just a thought.
>
> Cheers,
> Dave
> -- 
> Dave Barnett	System Software Engineer	x1434

I have been thinking of such a project move for some time ... I just
haven't been able to devote the time to it.
(multiple servers would be great, since I do have periodic network
outages when my DSL line connection breaks.)

I have noticed some comments lately that there is some disagreement
with the decision to move modules to the GPL, instead of the original
BSD license. Yes, GPL is viral, but that doesn't really apply here.
It's doubtful that any larger program can incorporate modules within it.
I contacted the original authors and got consensus from them that it
would be a good idea.  In fact, John had thought about it for some time:

> I've been supportive of changing the licensing agreement for Modules to the
> GPL for a long time. It's just one of those things that never got taken care
> of.  ...
> John L. W. Furlan

What prompted this change was that a number of sites & vendors have used
modules, improved upon it & fixed defects, but none of these changes
ever made it back to the code base.  Haven't we all noticed that the
ftp.modules.org code was "stale", and when I first tried modules for
linux 3(?) years ago it was just barely able to compile it and some of
it worked and some didn't.  I used modules on Crays which worked fine.
Think about the lost time & effort, if only those fixes were included
back into the code base for others to benefit from.

Whether the license is GPL or BSD I don't really think it matters, what
really matters now is to make modules more functional:
	less dependent on specific versions of Tcl,
	easier to build, compile, & test,
	easier to install and upgrade,
	better documentation,
	GUI tools to easily create mundane module files,
	work with rpms,
	perhaps if someone would take on the www.modules.org responsibility,

Unless these issues are worked on and resolved modules will remain
a minor software package, when it really should be part of any Unix
distribution.

My $.02
	R.K.
+-----------------------+----------------------+
| R.K.Owen,PhD          | rk...@ow...     |
| KooZ Software         |                      |
| NERSC/LBNL            | rk...@ne...     |
+-----------------------+----------------------+