OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical > Programming
Discussion about Open Source - Was: eCS 2.2 C API documentation
Martin Iturbide:
I'm sorry Alexander that your forum thread got hi-jacked by this old conflict. There is a old conflict between Eugene, that sells eCS russian software, and some other Russian developer groups.
We are merry and fun community of users :) ....but sadly I need to reply hard on this issues and try to explain a more philosophical point of view about Open Source to Eugene.
Eugene, it is hard to discuss with you because you don't support the Open Source model, and sometime it is hard to understand your english. (my personal opinion) Money is important, and developers needs to be paid, but that does not mean that it is obligatory to produce close source software and charge for license. To me close source software today is future abandonware... because everybody will leave to be an OS/2 user in one way or other ..... or do you think we are going to leave this life alive? :)
Selling license is a 90's model that is getting close to the end. Selling software in commodities like Operating Systems, Office Suites, Web Application servers and a lot of other software sales are getting complicated because of the options you have in the market.
Eugene, you offer a library that is freeware (not open source), and someday you may change your mind, you may start charging money for it, or even someday you may die (like everybody here) and all your software will became abandonware. Instead the open source software has the possibility to live forever without depending on the developer. Please try to embrace the open source model. Thanks to open source we have firefox, OpenOffice, XWorkplace..... yes, the effort of the developers is important, but if we didn't have Firefox open sourced in the first place today we will not have a browser at all. Money is important, but this is a community, not a marketplace anymore.
--- Quote ---....when you made efforts to collect money for new fraud (port network drivers, etc).
--- End quote ---
Eugene, it seems that you don't understand that this kind of comments hurts you instead of others. We all know the issues on both sides (eCo Software vs Russian developers) and I'm sick of that. We are not here to define who is good or bad, we only discuss things. Eugene, if you have problems that hurts your business, please start with legal actions and please stop this.
Returning to open source. Open Source is the only way we have to reduce the #1 issue of this community.
The #1 issue is that this is orphan platform, IBM dumped us, and nobody has OS/2 source code available to keep improving it components. I want to this platform to live forever and evolve in time, while other just want drivers, other just want their things working, other just wants to make money and other just wants their business software running. On which side are you?
Open Source will set the platform free, once we get our freedom, we can turn from a community to market again, and you can sell all your products to get millions. But right now, if we want this platform to endure in long future we need to collaborate, and open source is a formal way to do it with clear rules, and we all need to put the shoulder.
Or.... we can try to squeeze the last dollar to the 400 (?) OS/2 community users left? Should we turn OS2World under paid subscription? :) ....oh.. that was what killed WarpCity.... I should stop digging into the past, I may wake a Balrog :)
Eugene Gorbunoff:
To Martin Iturbide:
* I don't have conflicts with russian developers. We all, all developers of OS/2 shareware applications, all users have conflict with the pirates. And os2world.com moderators have verified this and were protecting us in the past.
* eCo Software supports Open Source model, we have some open source programs.
* Yes, you can sit on a mountain and wait when OS will be opensourced, but what to do today? Today the developers need libraries, the users need tools and applications.
* Do you have examples of applications which were created for OS/2 and then opensourced? XWorkPlace development and opensourcing was paid by eComStation. More examples?
* All this discussions about open source are not actual. When possible, the program is opensourced. You should understand that opensourced program are more expensive than shareware. Somebody should pay full price for the program.
* "Open source" topic is not the most important. Better discuss how to use OS/2 for engineer tasks, for business tasks, ..
Eugene Gorbunoff:
To Martin Iturbide:
Article "OpenSource OS/2 / eComStation - fake target"
(russian text) http://ru.ecomstation.ru/showarticle.php?id=305
What topic is more important?
"Let's open source OS/2"
or
* What Solutions to develop, what are the areas of eComStation usage?
* What unique functions to implement in eCS? in user interface, in functionality?
* What libraries and development tools do we have in eCS?
* What applications to develop to attract more users and extend the market?
* How to overcome the "barriers"?
agena:
> I'm sorry Alexander that your forum thread got hi-jacked by this old conflict.
Pax in terra ! :)
Martin Iturbide:
Hi
I splited the topic to reply Eugene. I'm going to try again to explain but not necessary for Eugene to understand because I had tried without success on the past. The intention is to try to reply the questions in a straight way:
--- Quote --- I don't have conflicts with russian developers. We all, all developers of OS/2 shareware applications, all users have conflict with the pirates. And os2world.com moderators have verified this and were protecting us in the past.
--- End quote ---
Yes, but that is no reason to call Pasha and Boris frauds, when they just submited a proposal that OS2world was not able to accept (reason was explained in the forum - timing). There is not reasson to label people, I don't like it even for you.
--- Quote --- eCo Software supports Open Source model, we have some open source programs.
--- End quote ---
Please let me know, the one one I know is the Animated mouse pointer derivated work you have. PianoLaunch pad was based in open source, but since it was BSD license, you closed the source code of the derivative works .
--- Quote ---Yes, you can sit on a mountain and wait when OS will be opensourced, but what to do today? Today the developers need libraries, the users need tools and applications.
--- End quote ---
Who is saying sit on a mountain and wait? I had told in the past that we need to support eComStation, Mensys, Bitwise works, everyone, but that we also need to at the same time have a long term strategy for the platform, and that strategy should be open source the close source components of it. Please everybody, supporting the idea of an open source OS/2 is not just sitting back and relax until it happen, it does not mean stop selling OS/2 to corporate software. It means hard work for everyone, it means chipping in at every level. (Money, code, documentation, help support, etc).
--- Quote ---Do you have examples of applications which were created for OS/2 and then opensourced? XWorkPlace development and opensourcing was paid by eComStation. More examples?
--- End quote ---
I don't know why you are always wrong with this. XWorkplace was not created by Mensys or Serenity Systems, it was created by "Ulrich Möller", the only attorney on earth that knows WPS programming :) Serenity and Mensys only paid other developers to fix some bugs and to give support. If Ulrich will not open sourced XWorkplace, it is very possible that we will not have it on eCS today. The same with WarpIn, Airboot, and all the open source software that it is for eComStation.
Without the people that gave his software as open source, we will not have eCS as we have it today. Community efforts was very important on eCS and people will not recognize it.
All this discussions about open source are not actual. When possible, the program is opensourced. You should understand that opensourced program are more expensive than shareware. Somebody should pay full price for the program.
Has someone been reading the Microsoft sponsored Forrester report again? Open source reduced the risk of what happened us. IBM dumped us, and we have an orphan platform, with open source that does not happens. If Redhad goes out of business today, someone else can grab the source code and continue Linux. If someone freaks out on the Joomla community and starts selling it for $1M, someone will fork the project and continue with it. Open Source is a way to reduce the risk to get dumped.
--- Quote ---"Open source" topic is not the most important. Better discuss how to use OS/2 for engineer tasks, for business tasks, ..
--- End quote ---
Discussing how to use OS/2 for business and engineers is interesting. But when you try to attract them to eComStation, they saw that Mensys does not make any announcement, they hear that Mensys do not have all the OS/2 source code, they see that we lack a lot of drivers, and they see that OS/2 can be dumped again just like IBM did.... plus they see the price tag on a software they will only use to experiment. Does that attract developers and business people?
If we have a plan to open source the platform and we say, we need help on this , and this and show some progress, that will attract more people to the community. (in part)
....to be continued.
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