As a mere user and enjoyer of the unpaid labour of the rg developers, I realize that it is not my place to critizice individual developers for choices they make regarding their own commitment to the project. But as a user, I can't help but express my surprise and sadness over the fact that a key developer apparently intends to make a complete switch to a proprietary platform, taking his future contributions to the project with him back over that fence. I'm surprised because I've always found it so hard to understand why people even consider returning to proprietary software once they've tasted the free kind. (To me that looks kind of like finally giving up cigarettes and then starting again...I just don't get it.) And I'm sad, because I realize that this is not a happy and fruitful course of events for my favourite piece of music creation software.
I am so excited about, and thankful for, the existence of the Rosegarden project that I have repeatedly considered the (im)possibility of learning to write code just so that I could contribute something back. There are many many things I love about Rosegarden, but the one thing that is really the most important one to me about it is that it is free software. I realize that Guillaume's reasons for making this choice are not of the ideological kind, which is probably also true for a lot of GNU/Linux users in the first place. But I still can't help but wonder: have the negative effects of the fed up-ness with the percieved imperfections of the GNU/Linux platform at all been weighed against the negative effects that forking away into proprietaryland will have for the Rosegarden project as a whole? For the developers and users for whom aquiring proprietary software (not to mention hardware!!) is completely out of the question - and I strongly suspect that would be most of us - all we will be left with is one less developer contributing to the project. Considering the central role that Rosegarden plays in the reality of music making for users of free software, this is a significant and regrettable loss. Are the social and ethical implications of free versus proprietary software of no interest at all to the forming of this decision? Just wondering: Gunhild ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100. Use priority code J8TL2D2. http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone _______________________________________________ Rosegarden-devel mailing list [email protected] - use the link below to unsubscribe https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/rosegarden-devel
