On Tue, 16 May 2000, Alexander Mai wrote:
> The OM FAQ indicates that perhaps/sometime in the future they might
> have another license but that's similar to the situation in the past:
> there have been rumours of OM for about a year (or more?) but you'll
> never know whether it will really happen.
>
> Also one doesn't have to be a "GNU"/"OpenSource" fanatic person to
> understand that a license like the OM one should not be supported at
> all. It's just an attempt to destroy real "open source' movement,
> something one could have expected from another company, this with the
> "M" in the beginning ... ;-)
I promissed myself never engage in a license flamewar again, so please
don't take my comments as a flame.
You seem to be a little bit angry because after all that effort developing
LessTif, a simple movement from TOG may render all your job irrelevant.
This is not the case, in my opinion. If I didn't have LessTif for all
these years, probably I had switced to Gtk, Qt or even ncurses. LessTif
saved me :-). I believe also that the success of LessTif is in part
responsible for TOG's decision. This IS a victory, boys, a partial one,
but still a victory!
I have read comments that they decided to release the source code because
they were afraid of loose the free operating systems market. Well,
perhaps, but this is happening in many other places. SGI opened GLX to
XFree86 and is deploying workstations with linux preinstalled, BSDI
decided to merge the code with FreeBSD, IBM released the source of DX.
Many other examples exist. It is happening EVERYWERE, it HAD to happen to
Motif too! Software companies are switching to a new business model in
where they get revenue for selling service, not code. Look at Corel, VA,
Caldera, S.u.S.E. and Red Hat!
I can't see attempt from "M" (?) to destroy lesstif, thoug this may really
make it obsolete IF THE OPEN GROUP RELEASE IT AS A TRUE FREE SOFTWARE. and
if that happens, why can't the LessTif team join XFree86 to provide Motif
as part of the XFree package, for exemple? Or to improve and support VDX,
a free GUI builder that is exactly what we need to convince those newbies
impressed by Gtk+/Glade or Qt/Kdevelop?
Just my 2�.
--
Carlos A. M. dos Santos
Federal University of Pelotas Meteorological Research Center
Av. Ildefonso Simoes Lopes 2791 Pelotas, RS, Brasil, CEP 96060-290
WWW: http://www.cpmet.ufpel.tche.br RENPAC (X.25): 153231641
Phone: +55 53 277-6767 FAX: +55 53 277-6722
