2008/12/30 Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@au-kbc.org:
well, let us agree to disagree - my concept of FOSS differs from yours. I believe that license is only one aspect of FOSS - a more important aspect is
it is ok to have individual concepts about what is foss and how it differs. But if you have a different idea from what is commonly referred to as foss (Free Software definition from FSF, Debian Free Software Guidelines, Open Source definition - almost all foss passes the three definitions, except for some corner cases like reciprocal license which passes Open Source Definition but fails FSF's definition) it would be better to call it by a separate name to avoid confusion.
You can have KG's foss guidelines and state clearly what constitutes foss according to you.
the developmental model. If you take Mysql, any contributor to the code has to assign copyright to Mysql. No doubt they pay for it, and pay well. But that cuts down the number of contributors and the quality of contribution.
low quality foss is still foss.
The result is a skewed development model. Although most FOSS projects have just a handful of major contributors, It is the huge number of casual
every foss project does not have to follow the same model. As long as it complies with the common definitions of foss - it is foss.
contributors that really make a FOSS project good. I am not talking about the idealogical aspect here - I am just talking about the fact that the FOSS developmental model is the major factor in making FOSS code good and secure - license is secondary.
A project might have a bad development model, but it alone does not make it non-foss.
And for your info, Qt is also under dual license.
I know - which is why I am ambivalent about QT.
As long as we have the choice to take the Free Version, why bother if some one does not want freedom?
- Praveen