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mTCP 2010-10-20 Version - IP Fragments! (Announce)

posted by Rugxulo Homepage, Usono, 22.10.2010, 22:24

Hi,

<rant>

> > > And yes, this will be open source one day [...]
> >
> > What type of license do you have in mind for this?
>
> I am open to suggestions.
>
> I have not picked a specific license for it but I suspect it will be
> something GPL like. I did this as a hobby to support other hobbyists so I
> really don't want to see it as the underpinnings of a commercial product,
> no matter how unlikely that is. That makes a BSD style license less
> likely.
There are at least two (semi-popular, even) programs that I know of that are "GPL" except non-commercial only. The FSF will indeed whine if you do that, though, because that's non-free to them (e.g. Red Hat or whomever can't commercially use it or patch / improve it). Similar to how even our beloved OpenWatcom is OSI approved but Debian hates it (go figure).

And yes, there are still many various commercial DOS software products out there (despite all the deprecation and incompatibilities the world throws at us / them). So it's not really THAT unlikely that somebody will sell something with your code in it. Nevertheless, I'd consider that quite rare.

In short, it sounds like you should just say something like this:

1). Don't be evil, be nice, don't hurt, maim, kill anybody or steal or make viruses, obey the ten commandments, etc.
2). Give back ALL of your changes so we can ALL enjoy a robust, working product without worrying about silly infighting, proprietary bullcrap, etc.
3). Don't use this in a commercial setting (or at least, IMHO, don't sell it outright ... using it AT a commercial site isn't the same as actively making money off of it, Joe Schmoe secretary should be able to use it too, right??)

Having said all that, I do feel like it's worrying over nothing. I like public domain just because I don't have to think about stupid things like licensing. I mean, is it just me or are licensing and legalities really really BORING???

> The problem with any open source license (or any license in general) is
> enforcement. I don't have the resources to do anything if somebody doesn't
> want to play fair. I guess that is a problem we all face.
Nobody can stop anybody else, at least not online. It could be argued that we shouldn't want to anyways. Oh, and plenty of people get really mad if you tell them what they can and can't do with their own hardware, software, etc. The whole "you pay us but we own you" mentality is still predominant everywhere. Kinda crazy. So yeah, I wouldn't worry about it. Don't worry what people do with it, it's not your blame. (Incidentally, has anyone here ever sued or been sued for faulty software??? And yet every single frickin' license whines about NO WARRANTY, etc. Seems overkill for something that no sane person would do anyways, and that's even assuming the courts are dumb enough to agree. I mean, damn, suing someone over software? You should know what you're getting into in the first place. Especially overkill for stuff that isn't mission critical. But people love their silly licenses, *sigh*.)

> Of a more practical concern is having a real source code repository and
> being able to keep up with changes that people might want to see. I'm
> fairly particular about my code so I'm worried about people becoming
> frustrated and just not sending me patches because I'm too slow or I
> scrutinize the code too much. :-(
SourceForge???

Some projects are more closely monitored and controlled than others. Most will admit that an open repo will increase bugfixes, improvements, etc. But some have tried and still fallen by the wayside for lack of updates. (Of course, r/w repo access and licensing and popularity and management affect all this too.) So there is no guarantee.

You only need to worry about yourself (mostly), then your audience (obviously). What do they want? What do they need? What hurts you or them? And so act accordingly.

</rant> (* which I doubt anybody wanted, sorry!! *)

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