At 03:18 PM 11-28-2001 +0000, Laurie Griffiths you wrote: >This is NOT directly ABC related, so you might call it Spam. If so, I >apologise. I will try not to do it often! > >Taking some of Laura's pleas to heart I want to experiment with Open Source. >I'm not prepared to risk the source code of Muse in this way at present, but >I am working on another music related project.
<snip> I'm just going to comment on the "Open Source" aspects of this... The project itself sounds very interesting. >The question is, on what terms should the source be opened? Here is what I >have in mind. > >1. Developers undertake not to market a competing product (whether free or >for money) and will not incorporate any of the code into a competing >product. >2. Developers may make any use of the source code for their private use. >3. Enhancements should be incorporated back into the main product base. >Developers undertake that any contributions they make are free of any legal >entanglements (i.e. they own the copyright, they give a non-exclusive free >licence to the project and they know of no patent infringements). >4. Developers should receive a share of any profits. Formula yet to be >worked out, but don't start thinking greedy thoughts. That probably means >irregular pocket money not wages! This is -not- Open Source. Check out http://www.opensource.org for a description of Open Source from the Open Source Initiative -- the folks that coined the term. Open Source is -not- simply the source being available. Open Source typically grants the end-user several rights -- the right to make bug fixes, the right to create enhancements, the right to customize, and the right to further distribute the original software, customizations, bug-fixes and enhancements at will. Open Source prevents the user of the software from being dependent on the original developer. Your point 1 above is, to me, entirely contrary to Open Source. Would point one mean that a developer would be prevented from saying "I submitted a patch to allow the Music Analyzer to work as delivered as a plug-in to FreeAmp, but he refuses to accept it. On my web site you can get the patched source code so you can build the Music Analyzer FreeAmp plug in for yourself. I also have pre-built binaries for Win2k, BSD, and Linux (both .rpm and .deb archives)." -- as that would be incorporating the code into a "competing product"? Would it prevent a developer who's other open source activities are writing and maintaining sophisticated sound analysis and processing software from submitting a patch saying "Your spectrum analysis code is OK, but it could be improved. Here's some code I am using in my open-source clone of baudline" because baudline (and any clone) could be viewed as a "competing product"? In my opinion, if the answer to either question is "yes" (and it looks like it would be), it isn't Open Source. The other points are OK, but they seem to be "missing the point" of Open Source. >If any developer is interested, initially I suggest that they email me >off-list. Unless they say not to, I would distribute their emails to others >who reply (but not to the ABC list). > >Feel free to distribute this further if you know anyone who might be >interested. > >Laurie Griffiths >http://www.musements.co.uk/muse >where you will find music notation software for PCs. > >To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: >http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
