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tcaudilllg
Dragonmaster
Joined: 20 Jun 2002
Posts: 1731
Location: Cedar Bluff, VA
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 Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:42 pm Post subject: The SceneLion EUA: reasonable? |
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From the readme:
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Terms of Use:
By using this software application/Dynamic HTML document collection
("program"), you are agreeing to specific terms of use.
You, as the user, may use this program for any purpose you desire.
Distribution of the program, however, is restricted.
- You may distribute this program, provided it is not changed in
any way from its original form. You may change the default contents of
the SceneData element however, as it is considered a sample work and
not a part of the program itself.
- You may not receive payment for the program (excluding cost of
distribution); however, you may receive payment for ("sell")
intellectual works of your own creation and copyright that require
the program as a means of expression. For this purpose you may package
the program with your works. (payment is received for the work, not
the program)
- You may study, learn from--even reverse engineer--the program source.
However, you may not reproduce the program source in whole or in part
without the explicit permission of the program copyright holder. You
may create products that are designed for the specific purpose of
creating content for this program, provided that no cost is charged for
them. Further, you may create original programs that exchange data with/
accent this program by means of Dynamic HTML, Java, or any other
Internet-oriented/cross-platform technology, provided that no charge is
made for them, nor payment recieved.
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I don't agree with GPL, nor really LGPL either. In fact, I don't much agree with anything currently out there. It seemed to me that SceneLion's nature as a script-driven, cross-platform product demanded a unique EUA that respected its community-oriented design focus while protecting the rights of the author and the user equally.
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Nephilim
Mage
Joined: 20 Jun 2002
Posts: 414
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| Posted: Mon Apr 24, 2006 11:33 pm Post subject: |
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You'd be better off running this by a lawyer.
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Visit the Sacraments web site to play the game and read articles about its development.
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tunginobi
Wandering Minstrel
Joined: 13 Dec 2005
Posts: 91
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| Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 2:01 am Post subject: |
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Well, it's your creation, which technically means you can distribute with whatever license you wish.
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Nodtveidt
Demon Hunter
Joined: 11 Nov 2002
Posts: 786
Location: Camuy, PR
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| Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 5:29 am Post subject: |
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The GPL is actually very restrictive. Anyone actually read it over in totality? Don't be fooled by what they say about "freedom"...the LGPL is actually more "free" than the GPL, and it's supposed to be the "limited" version! If you want a good pre-made license, go with either the zlib license or the bsd license...the GPL is overrated and stupid once you know what all the mumbo jumbo means.
LG, it's not bad, but it could use some work and a lot of clarity. As Nephilim said, run it by a lawyer.
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If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace
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Bjorn
Demon Hunter
Joined: 29 May 2002
Posts: 1425
Location: Germany
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| Posted: Thu May 11, 2006 8:17 am Post subject: |
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| nodtveidt wrote: | | The GPL is actually very restrictive. Anyone actually read it over in totality? Don't be fooled by what they say about "freedom"...the LGPL is actually more "free" than the GPL, and it's supposed to be the "limited" version! If you want a good pre-made license, go with either the zlib license or the bsd license...the GPL is overrated and stupid once you know what all the mumbo jumbo means. |
Actually the GPL has to be restrictive to ensure freedom is available to all users. The BSD license only ensures freedom to the first order users. LGPL is weaker than GPL because it allows free software libraries to be used by non-free software, thereby not helping to spread freedom to all users as much as the GPL itself.
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Nodtveidt
Demon Hunter
Joined: 11 Nov 2002
Posts: 786
Location: Camuy, PR
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| Posted: Sat May 13, 2006 11:21 am Post subject: |
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| Bjørn wrote: | | ...the GPL has to be restrictive to ensure freedom is available to all users... |
...at the expense of the developer. :(
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If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace
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LeoDraco
Demon Hunter
Joined: 24 Jun 2003
Posts: 584
Location: Riverside, South Cali
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| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 2:42 am Post subject: |
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| nodtveidt wrote: | | Bjørn wrote: | | ...the GPL has to be restrictive to ensure freedom is available to all users... |
...at the expense of the developer. :( |
Which is the whole point of copyleft licenses: prevent the developer from raping the user.
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"...LeoDraco is a pompus git..." -- Mandrake
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Rainer Deyke
Demon Hunter
Joined: 05 Jun 2002
Posts: 672
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| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 2:51 am Post subject: |
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End users don't care about open source. If you only want to share your software with end users, release it as closed source freeware. If you want to share your software with developers, use a BSD-style license. If you only want to share your software with the developers in your little hobbyist club who don't rely on software sales to support themselves, release it under the GPL.
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Nodtveidt
Demon Hunter
Joined: 11 Nov 2002
Posts: 786
Location: Camuy, PR
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| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 4:45 am Post subject: |
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| LeoDraco wrote: | | Which is the whole point of copyleft licenses: prevent the developer from raping the user. |
...by raping the developer. >:O
Sorry...it's trading one anus for another...not kosher.
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If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace
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LeoDraco
Demon Hunter
Joined: 24 Jun 2003
Posts: 584
Location: Riverside, South Cali
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| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 5:53 am Post subject: |
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| Rainer Deyke wrote: | | End users don't care about open source. If you only want to share your software with end users, release it as closed source freeware. If you want to share your software with developers, use a BSD-style license. If you only want to share your software with the developers in your little hobbyist club who don't rely on software sales to support themselves, release it under the GPL. |
Right, sure end users don't care about the source being open or not. They probably do care, however, if that source does something they were not expecting, or was bundled without their knowledge with software that they were not expecting. They probably also care about the price of the software they are buying, their capability to bring the software house to trial in the event that the use of the software ruins their system or data, or if they are fined for fair use of the software, say through the distribution thereof. While a copyleft license does not guarantee, necessarily, any of these things, it should cover them better than the first option.
| nodtveidt wrote: | ...by raping the developer. >:O
Sorry...it's trading one anus for another...not kosher. |
And that is an issue, why? Beyond the proverbial capability to sell the software --- which is not going to happen for most indie/hobby developers in most cases --- what really is lost by disclosure?
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"...LeoDraco is a pompus git..." -- Mandrake
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Nodtveidt
Demon Hunter
Joined: 11 Nov 2002
Posts: 786
Location: Camuy, PR
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| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 6:04 am Post subject: |
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| LeoDraco wrote: | | And that is an issue, why? Beyond the proverbial capability to sell the software --- which is not going to happen for most indie/hobby developers in most cases --- what really is lost by disclosure? |
Who is really screwed over is the small developer who isn't a "big gun" yet isn't a hobbyist either. Small developers often have radical ideas for new ways of producing applications, yet lack the funding for powerful libraries to assist them...so they have to use an open-source alternative or something cheap but proprietary. With a great deal of these open-source "solutions" being licensed under the GPL, these small firms have no chance of retaining any kind of trade secrets, and lose out on a LOT of market share by being associated with open source. Hobbyists don't have to give a damn, and the big companies have the big bucks so they can finance whatever they want. In essence, the GPL snuffs out chances for small, independant firms to break into a market dominated by larger firms and further widens the gap between the huge corporations and the tinkertoy users.
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If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace
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Nephilim
Mage
Joined: 20 Jun 2002
Posts: 414
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| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 6:43 am Post subject: |
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Whoa, nelly. How, exactly, does the GPL "rape" developers? If some developer doesn't like the terms of the GPL, they are in no way obliged to use GPL software. They can burn their own man-hours to develop their own solution instead.
[Edit]
It's all about the business model. Every business needs to look at the licenses they are considering and see if it works or doesn't work with their strategy, and GPL is no exception. GPL restricts what you can do with the code, but it doesn't restrict your access to it, and in some business models, that benefit may greatly outweigh any down sides to the GPL (such as business models built on consulting, support, or hosting).
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Visit the Sacraments web site to play the game and read articles about its development.
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LeoDraco
Demon Hunter
Joined: 24 Jun 2003
Posts: 584
Location: Riverside, South Cali
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| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 8:05 am Post subject: |
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| nodtveidt wrote: | | Who is really screwed over is the small developer who isn't a "big gun" yet isn't a hobbyist either. Small developers often have radical ideas for new ways of producing applications, yet lack the funding for powerful libraries to assist them...so they have to use an open-source alternative or something cheap but proprietary. |
Or they can hack together something to take its place; this is not a black and white situation: at least a third option does exist.
| Quote: | | With a great deal of these open-source "solutions" being licensed under the GPL, these small firms have no chance of retaining any kind of trade secrets, |
So, they don't use GPL'd solutions, as Nephilim suggests. In any case, I would tend to think that any "trade secrets" small firms might have are either (a) blazingly obvious to anyone who gave the problem more than a moments thought and so are worthless, regardless, or (b) are hardly complex enough that the so-implied large firm could not through enough man power thereat to duplicate. True, "trade secrets" might keep two firms with the same personnel size from duplicating each others efforts, and that may, in fact, be where your argument is being lobbied; however, if (a) truely is the case, closing the source will not do much to keep some idea from being replicated.
| Quote: | | and lose out on a LOT of market share by being associated with open source. |
Non sequitur: how, exactly, does being "associated with open source" have anything to do with profit-/market-share- loss? The GPL does not prevent the selling of any source licensed with it; it primarily stipulates that source be available if it is desired, not that a profit cannot be made on it. Redhat and Suse, for example, sell their variants of GNU/Linux (although, I suppose, one might argue that they are, in fact, selling support and services, rather than the software itself, but that is splitting semantics from a user perspective); IBM sells mainframes which come with Linux installed on them (again: one could possibly argue that they are selling the hardware, or the support for the machine, rather than the software itself; again, this is semantics).
| Quote: | | Hobbyists don't have to give a damn, |
Ever take a look at half of the "hobbyist" mailing lists for open source software? While I have only been reading some of the boost mailing lists for a short while now, they are full of people who do, in fact, give a damn about the quality and performance of the software libraries, which are developed and provided free for most C++ compilers. Most of the "hobbyist" Linux fora that I have frequented are full of helpful gurus whom do not mind spending time helping neophytes with problems. This particular argument, lest you have verifiable evidence, seems the strawman.
| Quote: | | and the big companies have the big bucks so they can finance whatever they want. In essence, the GPL snuffs out chances for small, independant firms to break into a market dominated by larger firms and further widens the gap between the huge corporations and the tinkertoy users. |
This is also a rather illogical conclusion: take, for example, a rather new market, content (specifically, digital video) management for public safety divisions. Small companies exist within this market, which provide end users --- in this case, public safety clients, which should mostly be taken as city and county police agencies --- with closed-source solutions to their content management problem; at the moment, no large companies are in this market, and the market itself is not entirely dominated by any one small firm, yet. Nothing would stop a large company --- something like a Microsoft or a Novell --- from entering this market, developing a solution of comparable quality as existing products in half the time the small companies could produce a new version, and quickly dominating the market. As you say, a large market force with a considerable cash flow can easily destroy any new market it sets its sights upon; the status of the source code --- that is, whether the source is open or not --- would not hinder this hypothetical behemoth; at best, extant closed-source solutions would slow down the large company, while is reverse engineers those solutions.
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"...LeoDraco is a pompus git..." -- Mandrake
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Nodtveidt
Demon Hunter
Joined: 11 Nov 2002
Posts: 786
Location: Camuy, PR
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| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 3:31 pm Post subject: |
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I can tell neither of you have actually worked a said small firm before...
LeoDraco, one thing I don't think you understand is that the vast majority of large corporations have spent years "degrading" open source and making it out to be "communist" in the Reagan sense. This becomes a turn-off for the major consumers (companies who rely on applications, NOT the average Joe who plays Solitaire on his home computer) and so only the big guns get into their offices. And it's because of this negative connotation "open source" has. By using a GPLed resource, you're canning your own slice of the pie. Sure, you can burn your own money and resources on 100% in-house stuff, but then the big boys have already surpassed you and of course, since they have all the money, they don't have to worry about a damn thing. You, on the other hand, are stuck six years in development on something that is now terribly obsolete.
THIS IS EXPERIENCE TALKING, NOT SOME RANDOM THEORY.
And no, it's not just black and white, but take a look at your options...you've got option #1: powerful resource plus powerful price, and option #2, free resource and licensing rules that strip you of your rights at your expense. Third option? Lead the way because I don't see any of any quality. If there truly is a gray area, I'd like to know where it's hiding.
Sure...you can go after some niche market that the big guns don't touch, but now you've got to spend who-knows-how-much on research, which is more money out of your own pocket...
And the hobbyist argument isn't a strawman. If you would read it again carefully, I said they don't have to give a damn...no one's pulling their chains, forcing them to care about top-quality products. It doesn't mean they can't or don't care, it simply means it's not a requirement for them...after all, they do what they do for fun, the love of the code, so whether it's considered high-quality or not isn't as much of an issue as is the learning experience or joy of creating something unique your way.
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If you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear demonic voices. The scary part is that if you play it forwards it installs Windows. - wallace
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LeoDraco
Demon Hunter
Joined: 24 Jun 2003
Posts: 584
Location: Riverside, South Cali
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| Posted: Sun May 14, 2006 10:07 pm Post subject: |
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| nodtveidt wrote: | | I can tell neither of you have actually worked a said small firm before... |
Assuming there is a missing "at" in that sentence, your assumption is incorrect; I currently work at a small firm, which is where I got that counterexample from.
| Quote: | | LeoDraco, one thing I don't think you understand is that the vast majority of large corporations have spent years "degrading" open source and making it out to be "communist" in the Reagan sense. |
Oh, I understand that. But what I don't think you understand is that "just because everybody is doing it" arguments are hardly sufficient reasons to propagate and support FUD. If nothing is done to counter bullshit, it shall persist, especially because of this mentality.
| Quote: | | This becomes a turn-off for the major consumers (companies who rely on applications, NOT the average Joe who plays Solitaire on his home computer) and so only the big guns get into their offices. |
I still do not see that as vailid: that, in essence, is a marketing issue; there is no reason why an OSS product cannot be as agressively and flameboyantly marketed as a closed source solution.
| Quote: | | And it's because of this negative connotation "open source" has. By using a GPLed resource, you're canning your own slice of the pie. |
Non sequitur. Especially as you are making an argument about an industry which has not had fair practices --- that is, in a free market, non-monopolistic business models --- in well over a decade.
| Quote: | | Sure, you can burn your own money and resources on 100% in-house stuff, but then the big boys have already surpassed you and of course, since they have all the money, they don't have to worry about a damn thing. |
Non sequitur: as I pointed out above, the practices of a small company --- especially when it comes to their software development lifecycle, access to various libraries, etc. --- will not matter too much if a large company decides to flex itself in their particular market. Most of this comes down to numbers: a company can only logistically throw as many programmers and consultants at a task as their money base allows; smaller firms have less money, and can therefore afford less human capital then the larger companies.
| Quote: | | You, on the other hand, are stuck six years in development on something that is now terribly obsolete. |
Which has absolutely nothing to do with the status of the source, nor access to various libraries. It has everything to do with access and utilization of resources
| Quote: | | THIS IS EXPERIENCE TALKING, NOT SOME RANDOM THEORY. |
I LIKE TALKING LOUDLY IN LARGE CAPS TOO! IT IS THE BEST FOR GETTING ACROSS ASININE POINTS! WOOT!
| Quote: | | And no, it's not just black and white, but take a look at your options...you've got option #1: powerful resource plus powerful price, |
That is not guaranteed; expense does not denote quality.
| Quote: | | and option #2, free resource and licensing rules that strip you of your rights at your expense. |
That is not guaranteed; while your exact argument is against the GPL, other copyleft licenses are more permissive. You have still yet to explain how, exactly, these licensing rules "strip you of your rights at your expense;" software, for all intents and purposes, is practically the only market now extant where those nefarious "trade secrets" are better held in abstractions --- such as development processes and languages --- rather than in implementations.
| Quote: | | Third option? Lead the way because I don't see any of any quality. If there truly is a gray area, I'd like to know where it's hiding. |
Quick and dirty components do not necessarily take large amounts of time to develop. Sure, if you are talking about something the user has to see --- say a UI component --- then "quality" certainly might be an issue. Your argument, here, is absurd, however: hypothetically, assume that open source initiatives did not exist, and that all source was closed and proprietary --- the only access you might have to these solutions would be via licensing them. Your proverbial small company --- assuming your perspective of OSS is valid --- is in the exact same situation as the currently are, only with a single less option to consider (although, granting the assumption made above, the last option was never an option regardless): they can either buy expensive libraries --- which do not connote quality --- or they can develop something ad hoc on their end. The absense of OSS in this hypothetical situation does not suddenly make that proverbial small company any more competitive against other small companies within its market, nor against any market giants which were either already extant within their market, or silently crept in.
| Quote: | | Sure...you can go after some niche market that the big guns don't touch, but now you've got to spend who-knows-how-much on research, which is more money out of your own pocket... |
Non sequitur: in many cases, small firms exist within a "niche market" for some time, and continued development of a product is closely tied to the clients of that market. This has, again, nothing to do about the status of the source code, and everything to do about resources. If the "big guns" decided to touch that market, they could probably dominate it rather quickly if they elected to do so, regardless the code being written by any small companies being open or not.
| Quote: | | And the hobbyist argument isn't a strawman. If you would read it again carefully, I said they don't have to give a damn...no one's pulling their chains, forcing them to care about top-quality products. |
Nothing is forcing large companies to have to care about top-quality products, either. While, admittedly, I have no direct sources to cite in this matter, I have been given to understand that many large companies outsource their support departments to firms that are out of the country, which degrades the quality of the support for a product offered from what I have heard. Closer to the development side of things, being large does not connote being of quality: Microsoft developed Windows ME, which has been, perhaps, one of the most substandard of their OSs ever produced. (Apple, which has a considerably smaller market share than Microsoft does, produces higher quality --- in terms of bells and whistles, which is all that really matters to the end user in any case, right? --- software than Microsoft does.)
| Quote: | | It doesn't mean they can't or don't care, it simply means it's not a requirement for them... |
Which brings me back to my one of my original points: in a market that is practically dominated by a monopolistic force, that force does not have to care about the quality of product they offer consumers, as there is no competition for thos consumers to run to. While, obviously, this argument is clearly oriented around currently extant operating systems, the validity of it is not cheapened thereby: the exemplars of the closed-/open-source flamewars are the operating systems offered by those contingents.
| Quote: | | after all, they do what they do for fun, the love of the code, so whether it's considered high-quality or not isn't as much of an issue as is the learning experience or joy of creating something unique your way. |
Non sequitur: open-source intitives do not map directly to hobbyists or other non-profit-seeking agents.
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"...LeoDraco is a pompus git..." -- Mandrake
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