Re: silc license change before v1.0 ?

[Matthew A. <ma...@al...>]

<two cents>

I'm very happy to see this thread in silc-devel, and that there may
a silc license change before v1.0 - I speak as the developer of
milc (http://milc.sourceforge.net), which is at the moment just
a small (barely working) cross platform client using
wxGTK/MSW/MAC libraries (http://www.wxwindows.org) and
silcclient libraries.

I also speak as a long term NetBSD user, a longer term IRC
user, and longer still Altos user - but my ramblings should be
considered from a 'potential developer' perspective.

I'm enjoying a 3 month vacation between changing jobs at
the moment, and decided to release something 'public-domain'
while I had the opportunity to do so, without invoking some
unknown intellectual property law.

(If I develop anything whilst an employee, there is the very
real chance that an employer can claim intellectual property
rights to the application, or at least attempt to do so. Try
telling me that the words I include in a text file will protect
me from being inconvenienced, when I'm wasting my time
in court with my former employeer's liquidator who is
trying to raise as much value from a company that went
belly up. I don't want to make this a possibility.)

I decided to try something with all the sexy buzzwords, like
XML, SSL, IRC, cross-platform, open-source, etc., and
'milc' is the current result. I'm very 'license-aware', and was
concerned to see the GPL on the silc source.

I'm between jobs. I have the very real possibility of
approaching someone to develop a commercial product,
based on milc, or something else based on silc. There is
also the very real possibility that intellectual property will
become an issue, just as above.

Sure, there are plenty of commercial GPL success stories
out there, but, I'm between jobs. You give me the money
to make a commerical GPL success, and then I won't be
between jobs.

When I do start working again, then my employeer will
decide if milc will continue. (if i want to avoid the the
possibility of a courtroom.) reality bites, film at 11, etc.

Without a GPL license, my employeer can do as he
needs, I can do as I need, and we're all happy. (the
employeer could decide to release a GPL branched
version of milc for all I care.)

With a GPL license, silc is telling me, and my employeer
what to do, and we're not at all happy.

A GPL license also means I have to raise the whole
intellectual property issue with an potential employeer,
or at least risk conflict with the 'standard' employeer
contract agreements which usually attempt to establish
some type of 'business confidentiality' clause.

I'd *much* rather silc be GPL free.

What I do with milc when I'm employeed is up in the
air. The reality is, that with a GPL license, I'd probably
stop working on milc, and hope that someone else
decides to try to do something with it.

I'd also probably start working on it again, after getting
my self settled at work, and past the standard probation
periods, but I have no control over how long this might
be. (I'm also not too keen on being labelled the 'GPL
intellectual property guy', because of something the silc
license told me to do.)

</two cents>

Matthew Aldous.