Mark Holmquist wrote:
Of course, maybe I've misunderstood the purpose of this list. If so,
I invite dissent!
Freedom is not necessarily incompatible with charging a fee for access
to a distribution service that happens to contain specific GPLed
content,
assuming that's what Miles meant by "limited release."
No, the model is thus:
Pay $X for the software after release
Pay $X+2Y for the software during beta
Pay $X+3Y for the software during alpha
Pay $X+4Y for the source code after release
Pay $X+5Y for the source code during beta
Pay $X+6Y for the source code during alpha
My problem is that he's releasing the software to people, but not
giving them the source code, or the ability to change it (in fact,
since he's clearly not using the GPL for these releases, the source
code could still be under restrictive licenses). Stopping that
behavior is exactly why we're on this list.
Absolutely wrong. All code will be released GPL (or other open source
license - also looking at Apache, BSD, MIT) - alpha, beta, full public
release. And source code will included (actually, sort of hard not to,
since we're talking JavaScript embedded in web pages).
What I'm trying to do is:
1. offer some incentives for contributing to the kickstarter effort
2. try to limit dissemination during alpha and beta to those who are
likely to test and contribute (I really don't want to inflict really
early code on folks who simply want a usable tool - I figure that's
doing them a disservice) (note: since the alpha and beta code will be
available as source, under GPL, there's nothing stopping further
dissemination - just that I'm not going to be pushing the early code on
the world)
3. try to limit load on our servers, particularly since they'll be in
constant flux during early development (note: again, the server-side
code will be available and GPLd, but the protocol definitions and code
will be in high flux until release 1.0)
4. try to limit impacts on my time - I need to spend my time coding and
building up initial server-side infrastructure - interacting with a
limited base of alpha and beta users helps move things along;
interacting with a larger user base starts to eat up more time than
available (I'd like to have things just a little more solid, and have a
bit of a contributor community in place before going "public")
I hope that addresses your objections.
Miles
--
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice, there is. .... Yogi Berra
