2006/3/8, Moritz Lennert <<a href="mailto:mlennert@club.worldonline.be">mlennert@club.worldonline.be</a>>:<div><span class="gmail_quote"></span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Laurent C. wrote:<br>> 2006/3/8, Glynn Clements <<a href="mailto:glynn@gclements.plus.com">glynn@gclements.plus.com</a><br>> <mailto:<a href="mailto:glynn@gclements.plus.com">glynn@gclements.plus.com</a>>>:
<br>><br>><br>> As I see it, the main risk of allowing proprietary derivatives is a<br>> risk of "siphoning off" developers and beta testers (aka "users") from<br>> the free version towards a "mostly, but not quite" free version.
<br>><br>> IMHO, the biggest risk is with versions which are "free-enough for<br>> most people", e.g. "free for non-commercial use". OpenDWG is probably<br>> a good example; it isn't "Free Software", but it's close enough to
<br>> significantly reduce the chances of a genuinely-free alternative being<br>> developed.<br>><br>><br>><br>> Hello list, hello Glynn,<br>><br>> I don't think OpenDWG is a good example because there is no free
<br>> alternative and AFAIK Open Desing Alliance hasn't fork any free<br>> software, and there is no community around this project.<br><br>That's exactly the point: since there is something "free-enough for most
<br>people" as Glynn puts it, there is not enough incentive for the creation<br>of a really free version.<br><br>Using the GPL should keep people from using the existing code to create<br>such "free-enough for most people".
<br><br>Moritz<br></blockquote></div><br>I understand that, but I don't think it apply to GRASS.<br>I mean "no comunity around ODA". GRASS community is active. ODA is some commercial consortium.<br>I think that GRASS will be in the situation of "OpenDWG competitor" if ESRI release Arcinfo under a "free-enough for most
<br>people" licence. Not if some GRASS parts (libraries for example) are released under a BSD-like licence.<br><br>Laurent<br>