>Alain: If this means that, in order to protect
>ourselves against a MicroSloth takeover by using GPL,
>we must forego the advantages that standalones would
>have represented for us, then so be it.
Alain,
I don't think OC will have much success w/o standalones.
>Alain: Bad example, I guess. How about HyperCard? Or
>other softwares where the distinction between program
>and data is blurry. I greatly appreciate the fact that
>we can create HyperCard standalone programs without
>any licencing restrictions whatsoever. Its a really
>big plus. If proprietary Apple can be so generous, why
>can't we who profess to be open and free be as
>generous?
Because a HyperCard standalone is limited. It has noc script editor hooks,
it's limited to userlevel 4 and it resets the tool to "browse" on idle.
>Alain: Besides, given the fact that our engin is not
>ready yet and, consequently that we will be using
>MetaCard's engin for the time being, we cannot allow
>standalones because MetaCard's engin is not open
>source.
No! We will *not* be using any MC engine for anything we'll redistribute.
We will just be creating an MC *stack* that contains windows, icons and
scripts that allow editing MC stacks if you have a copy of MetaCard. This
stack will be PD or whatever and MC will ship it as a bonus with their
application (which is what this "engine" is, it's the application, nothing
more. Period). When we have OpenCard finished, we'll do some more work to
create our cool editor stack to an OpenCard stack, and *then* we'll
distribute it along with OpenCard. We will *not* distribute MetaCard, we'll
only create our prototype *using* MC.
>Alain: The worse part about not allowing standalones
>is the fact that we would oblige our users to get,
>install and maintain the entire Standard Distribution
>to run their OpenKard stacks, albeit for free. The
>alternative to standalones that I envision now would
>be to provide an open source PLAYER of OpenKard
>stacks.
We need standalones. A player is nice, but most people will want more.
>Alain: Does Scott already make available a free
>player? Would he be willing to provide one? In the
>negative, we will have to wait for our own to be
>developed. What will our end-users use to run their
>OpenKard stacks while our engin/player is not ready?
There will be no end-users until our OpenCard application is ready. The
deal with MC is merely a way to allow us to produce OpenCard faster, but
we'll still have to wait for both parts to be finished before anything is
distributed.
Cheers,
-- M. Uli Kusterer
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