HI All, Once more on the idea of a license list: >Alain: (3) The licencing issue is nearly resolved. We won't need to >discuss it much longer. And it is not likely to come up often again, >afterwards. Thus a mailing list for the licencing issue would most >likely be useless. I beg to differ. Even if the license issue is resolved, every new user is going to need to spend some time with license issues. Even the most seasoned legal minds are going to have certain issues to grapple with -- be they few and far between -- fine. If this venture of OPEN-CARD is to fly high with thousands of users, from pros to students, there will always be a new stream of folks coming to the party. With that authoring task ahead -- and with the tool decisions as well -- there will be questions about what it means to be "OPEN". A license list and a license archive would be more welcoming. Furthermore, the "OPEN" model is different from what most others are used to. Different in a "great" way, but it takes some time to get used to it. And, there are a number of different "OPEN" models floating out there -- so there are always the GNU folks with the artistic folks with the Mozilla/NPL folks -- and finding the common ground is tricky even when you have been in this world a while. And, to many, once the license terms are dealt with -- all license questions are high-noise. The license chatter should not get in the way -- and I'm sure it will. The license discussions on the mozilla list were silent for weeks if not months. Then things would come to live in very precise ways with excellent contributions from many perspectives. Good that the web pages/site get organized with FAQs and such. But this is an experience that needs to live and grow -- and the license experience need not be too engaged with the progamming issues. >>Anthony: I think we should split the list, however. > >Alain: Perhaps, but I don't believe that it is time for that yet. There >are approximately 25 messages per day. It's not that bad. And splitting >up would complicate communication, particularly on issues that involve >more than one sub-group. Some lists would become ghost-towns because so >few people would participate in any given sub-list. The mail filtering is good for active participants -- but I'd think a number of people would subscribe only to the license list, if there was one, who are into the free and open culture on the net. These are the license gurus who have been around the block a number of times, but would not want to develop in the actual tool, however would like to follow and contribute in the groundswell of open-environments that are budding on the net -- and proliferating in some places. Slipping up in the license issue can prove to be fatal. To the overall tool and to any potential developer with his/her bosses in a corporate setting. I think a license-only list is worthy for these reasons. I won't post again on this topic. But, I'm not going to filter past 25 emails daily to catch the lone license question/insight/update/challenge either. The 25 message volume is horrid if zero are about my interest, licenses. And, a ghost-town is perfectly okay as an alternative. FWIW, my programming contributions are such that you don't want my help there..... Mark Rauterkus [EMAIL PROTECTED]
