Richard Zidlicky wrote: >> You can have free 'Open Source' code and Richard et al will write for it >> and Marcel and a few others will quit > > Did you ask Marcel?
He knows my opinion quite well, yes. And what he wrote is true. To make this clear up front I will NOT participate in a GPLed SMSQ/E. Why? Because virtually everything one does with the SMSQ/E sources includes lines, code or include files from Tony. I don't want to be forced to release my code this way. I don't mind others having my sources, but then they have them because I WANT them to have them, not because I'm FORCED by some "give everything away for free" licence. I've kept quiet for quite a while, mainly because I was too busy (I did for example some actual coding on the SMSQ/E sources. Some code all platforms will profit from). So what are my intentions in all this, some might ask. First of all I'd simply like QPC to stay the way it is. No much argument there, I suppose. The second point is that some people would like me to write a colour driver for the Aurora hardware. To be frank I am not too keen on doing this and if anybody else wants to do it, fine, go ahead. I'd just do it to do the QL scene a favour. I am however not that charitable, i.e. if I would invest any time into writing the driver I need to be able to collect some revenue. Like Wolfgang said, the revenue will probably be pretty bad compared to the work involved. But that's fine with me, at least it's better than nothing! The screen driver would definitely be based on Tony's code, i.e. if his code was GPLed I'd be forced to give the sources of it away, limiting the already bad revenue even more, probably to almost zero. I simply WON'T do it under those circumstances. Remember, this would be no loss for ME, I don't have any personal interest in doing them. This would just be a loss for the QL scene. Therefore the possibility for "not so open" new sources was built into the licence. My example would not have any impact on the Q40 part of the source tree and I don't plan ANY addition that would be "secret" and would in any way affect the common core of the systems. BUT if somebody was going to implement a GD3 driver or whatever and says he'll only do it when he's going to get some money for it, then I too say "Fine, go ahead! Better for money than not at all!". I am not going to do that, but why stop somebody who's willing to? Therefore I don't want to exclude any commercial developments up front. Like many people here I don't fully understand where the problem with this licence is. SMSQ got cheaper (QPC got cheaper this way, too), you can have a look at its sources and also improve it if you like to. To be frank, I don't expect the latter to happen very often. I fear that I will be one of the very few who can actually work with the code and do some stuff that is not specific to the Q40. The biggest advantage in getting the sources after all is in my eyes that application programmer can see how the OS does some things and maybe understand why it doesn't do other things like they think it should. Never underestimate the work involved in doing any change. The new 16bit shadow routine in QPC (which by the way is also already prepared for running under Q40) took me a dozen hours to write! Ridiculous? Yes, it is. But some things are not as easy as they might seem to be. Marcel
