Hello, The applet is free and will be free. This applet is a test right now. It may succeed or it may fail. We will see.
The reason it is delicate and that sources shouldn't be distributed yet is because in it's early stages, I can imagine 20 people changing the applet. This results in 20 different applets, 20 different protocols. If there are 20 different applets its no different than having 20 different cards and the musclecard idea is completely lost. You can't have interoperability on the card if there are 20 different versions of the applet. The current license is restrictive, but that is because I'm trying to gain feedback. The license currently restricts redistribution. I don't want this initial version to be widely distributed and changed - if this occurs nothing has been accomplished and a huge distribution mess has occurred. I hope this is understood. I'm trying to push this idealistic dream of interoperability on the card and not on the host. I imagine the day I can put any Java Card smartcard into a computer and it works kind of like a USB keyboard, floppy drive, and other things that work together at the level of the hardware device. Although many people on this list may disagree with me, I don't agree with the GPL license - it is too restrictive. It does exactly the opposite of what it stands for, restricts freedoms. GPL requires any software using a GPL'd software be also open source. This is a restrictment. I don't expect every item built on pcsc-lite and this applet to be free and/or open source. Some may disagree with this. I know these emails will stir up a huge debate, but I guess that's the point of public forums like this : ) Dave *************************************************************** Unix Smart Card Developers - M.U.S.C.L.E. (Movement for the Use of Smart Cards in a Linux Environment) http://www.linuxnet.com/ To unsubscribe send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with unsubscribe sclinux ***************************************************************
