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Re: My explaination of why Ultimate++ is not mainstream [message #17431 is a reply to message #17429]

Thu, 14 August 2008 21:20

amrein
Messages: 278
Registered: August 2008
Location: France

Experienced Member

captainc wrote on Thu, 14 August 2008 18:20

Quote:

Here are two references on-line explaining most of the U++ raison for failure in main stream

Firstly, I don't think there has been failure here.
Secondly, that statement assumes that it was trying to be mainstream in the first place. To my knowledge, there hasn't been any significant effort to market U++.
...

My referenced post:

http://www.ultimatepp.org/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=94&am p;start=0&
http://www.ultimatepp.org/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=301&a mp;start=0&

It's not a failure for proprietary software companies at all.
There won't be any FOSS community around it, that's all.
FOSS is a a different way to do business. FOSS is commercial. Companies have no problem using FOSS. U++ could have a huge help from the FOSS community and fail to have a bigger one because things are going differently. FOSS is everywhere. Even in my cellphone and my aDSL modem.

luzr wrote on Thu, 14 August 2008 17:58

amrein wrote on Thu, 14 August 2008 11:46

It's for all those companies releasing proprietary application.

Actually, yes. Well, to be more specific, it is for programmers of such companies Smile

Anyway, I agree about the license issue. You know, when we were about to supply it, I just scanned a couple of FOSS projects and picked what I liked - that is files from E17. They told "BSD licensed" in description of E17 that is why I supposed this is BSD. Then read some other BSD - they require the same with different wording.

Reading "the real" BSD license, the only thing I really care about is clause 1 (do not remove copyrights from sources, well, uhm, really, do not remove copyright files from directories). Is there any license like that?

Thinking about it, maybe we can just go PD? Smile

So here is how things goes at present for U++ (all this is approximation of course):

- Source available and shareable
- Everyone can improve it or link with it but
- No one can redistribute the modified source or their own applications without your copyright in-build
- Fork is possible but anyone forking U++ will still need to write your copyright in each source file you have written and in their about menu
(+) you would like also people to not remove anything from your tarball to be sure that when someone see your copyright, they know it's yours.

Here is how things goes in FOSS:

- Source available and shareable
- Everyone can improve it or link with it as long as they follow the licence but
- No one can redistribute the modified source or their own applications with your copyright. If their modification or software are trash software, it's not your fault.
- Fork is possible, but anyone forking U++ must follow the licence in each source file (and show the licence in their about menu if you use GNU licence for example)
- If they fork and distribute the modified software, you can read/copy/share/modify/get back those modifications into your own software and continue to grow your way

Here are the addition for the 2 main GNU licence:
i
(+) GNU GPL : anything linking with it must be GPL licensed
(+) GNU LGPL : anything linking dynamically with it can use whatever licence, but if (software + U++) == (One .exe) then the software must be LGPL licensed
(+) GNU LGPL + exception (like the WxWindows licence) is not official from GNU but a short explanation could be: as long as you provide the modifications of the software we give you and that your are distributing now, we don't care about your own source code and your licence. Just let people know you have build your software with it and gave them back our software with ypur modifications of our source files.

With your old BSD like licence, there is no share possible between you and any other source code with the same BSD like licence with different copyright name. There is no share possible with other LGPLed libraries. No share possible between FOSS developers and you. Just a community of programmers from proprietary companies. A shrinking target.
To be short, U++ is talking to proprietary developers. Open source talk to proprietary developers as to all other developers. When I mean all other, a short list could be:

GOOGLE, YAHOO, IBM, INTEL, AMD, VIA, NOVELL, HP, DELL, ASUS, MSI, MOTOROLA, NEC, NTT DOCOMO, PANASONIC, SAMSUNG, NOKIA, VODAFONE, REDHAT, UBUNTU/CANONICAL, MANDRIVA, all other that works around your database (mysql, postgresql, sqlite...), your webpage (apache, php, python, ...), ... even governments. And they are so much more with all those anonymous contributors.

So, when I read: "How can we get bigger community around U++", I don't need to think twice.

Note: The most near licence from FOSS, when comparing to yours, is the GNU LGPL + exception (like the WxWindows licence), but It doesn't have the old BSD viral copyright.

Will that really change your business? Yes! People will always be able to do the same thing with your source code but won't be able to di it without giving the same right to downloaders. Afraid about project forking? Get back their modifications into the main line. You don't like what they have done? Don't care, the best will survive. It's not you? You can still copy and adapt. Even proprietary companies will like to use your software. No change for them. Big changes for you.

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