Nelson Pavlosky <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: [...] > How much of a problem is it for open source projects to use a > proprietary customer support system?
It's a big problem, making them look like hypocrites. However, even GNU projects are using proprietary software (from Atlassian) for user support, so I think my view is a minority one and this isn't a free software/open source difference. > Perhaps more importantly, how could we encourage Get Satisfaction to > open source more of their code, given that many open source projects are > already using it? I don't know. Promote a freer competitor somehow? > I started a conversation on this subject on the Miro blog post about > moving to Get Satisfaction at > <http://www.getmiro.com/blog/2008/07/new-forums/>, and the Get > Satisfaction people were nice enough to leave replies asking why I care > about opien source and how they could address my concerns. Could you > lovely folks help me respond and answer their questions? What were their questions? I didn't see them at the above link. Rob Myers <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Get Satisfaction aren't selling code, they are selling a service. Making > all of their code Free will not stop them from selling that service. But > the problem is that it will allow others to provide that service themselves. If GS's business model is so weak that they can't cope with competition, they're not going to be around for the long term and users should make sure to keep regular backups of anything on GS! [...] > Using the Affero GPL (rather than the MIT Licence) would protect them > against competitors or users modifying their code and not contributing > back the changes. Only if GS have access to the competitor's interface or someone with access is passing the changes back. Affero GPL is broken by design, limiting the freedom to adapt the software while not being able to "ensure cooperation". Regards, -- MJ Ray (slef) Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ (Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237 _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss
