"They would indeed be motivated enough to look at the code, track down the bug and fix it."
I agree, they would. However, would they actually take on the whole project and start adding features? Or would it just feature freeze forever with random bug fixes from the community and eventually vanish into obscurity? "If you were a regular Dabo user, you would feel insulted by this? You would feel like a 'second-class citizen'?" What you described is fine. You're not purposefully stalling your non-paying clients on buggy builds of Dabo as to make them pay for the latest and greatest. Here's a related blog entry from a MySQL expert: http://jcole.us/blog/archives/2007/05/14/breakdown-in-mysql-enterprise-process/ "What would give you "warm fuzzies"?" They should continue the unspoken bond they previously had with the community. Everyone gets the same release. If you need support you pay for it, but they shouldn't keep you from using the latest and greatest just because you don't pay for support. "The communities are stronger than ever." Googling "mysql free binaries" and finding that 4 of the 5 top hits are people talking about the change tells me "the community" isn't happy about it. On 7/18/07, Ed Leafe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Jul 18, 2007, at 2:46 PM, Justin Darnell wrote: > > > "So if Apple hired Paul and I, nobody could enhance Dabo? That's > > absurd." > > > > I understand that someone could, but would they? If the two lead > > developers > > walked away, would anyone be as passionate or involved enough to > > pick up the > > project? My opinion is that the answer is probably no. > > That's probably correct. Now consider someone who used Dabo for > their application, and a year later found that the code to talk to > the PostgreSQL backend had a bug. They would indeed be motivated > enough to look at the code, track down the bug and fix it. Compare > that to, oh, I don't know... Visual FoxPro. How are you going to fix > bugs you may find in that? > > > "Enterprise customers also get high-level support. In other words, > > they are paying for the support to make sure that all the latest and > > greatest stuff works. When that stuff is working consistently, it is > > migrated to the community edition." > > > > I understand this too. That wasn't my point. You SHOULD pay for > > support. > > > > My point was, if you're running an open source project, and previously > > accepted free code from the community, this seems like you're > > turning your > > back on them to start treating them like second class citizens. > > These are > > the same people who evangelized your software and got it into > > mainstream use > > to start with. > > That's a pretty backwards way to look at it. Let me see if I > understand you correctly. > > I currently write and support Dabo. Anyone can download it and use > it for free. But I need to pay my bills, so I start accepting paying > customers who ask for specific changes that they need for their apps. > I focus on them, since they're paying the bills. I then take all the > changes I made to the framework as pass them on to the rest of the > Dabo community. > > If you were a regular Dabo user, you would feel insulted by this? > You would feel like a 'second-class citizen'? > > > I get it, perfectly legal. Not necessarily the thing that gives > > you warm > > fuzzies about open source, though. > > What would give you "warm fuzzies"? > > > "Did you somehow interpret the word "freedom" as "guaranteed immediate > > updates and support for all eternity"?" > > > > No, but everyone brags about the community spirit of open source. > > Both of > > these moves are not community oriented. > > Again, a backwards way of looking at things. They are making money > and helping to ensure that the developers are financially able to > continue to work on their projects. The communities are stronger than > ever. > > -- Ed Leafe > -- http://leafe.com > -- http://dabodev.com > > > > [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
