Johan Lopes wrote: > It's not my intention to hijack this thread but what I'm saying is this:
I shouldn't worry about hijacking the thread. I think this discussion is probably long overdue. Macromedia still retain a joker card as it stands, because they are at liberty at any time to pull the plug on one of these projects - because they have not given official consent to any of them. Obviously they have every legal right to protect their products and their intellectual property, but I think that perhaps the uncertainty that lies on both sides probably stems from the fact that are no agreed rules in the playground. Macromedia are obviously keen to oversee proceedings here to ensure that we are within the boundaries they are comfortable with - i.e. their EULA's, and we as an open source community are keen to adhere to Macromedia's wishes - not only for legal reasons, but also because we have a respect for Macromedia. These discussions really set the boundaries. I suspect Mike's comments last night were probably intended to remind us that we were getting a bit close to the perimeter fence. The fact of the matter is, as things stand - despite Macromedia's public embracing of open source, any of these projects may hit problems once they are stable and start becoming popular. Take Red5 for example. A huge amount of effort has gone into producing it - but what happens if Macromedia discover that Red5 is becoming more popular than FCS? Will they compete or legally squash Red5? Who knows. That's why we need these discussions - so that Macromedia can understand that we want to enhance the Flash world, not take it over - and so that we can understand how far Macromedia is prepared to let us go to do that. - IE _______________________________________________ osflash mailing list [email protected] http://osflash.org/mailman/listinfo/osflash_osflash.org
