[computer-go] Collaboration project. Once again

[Dave Denholm]

Mark Boon <tesujisoftware at gmail.com> writes:

> In spirit I very much like the idea of a GNU
> Go project. But there are a few things that stand in the way of me
> joining that project. A small reason is the C language.

There was someone rewriting it in java. Called for help a couple of
times, but I don't think any of the existing people had much
interest.

> A bigger
> reason is that I don't want to butt into that project knowing the
> stubborn, opiniated, know-all smart-ass I can be and piss everyone
> off that is currently involved in it.

The license allows you to fork the project - just start from the
current sources and take it in any direction you like. If your ideas
work out, you can fold stuff back in, keep your version in parallel
(gnu emacs vs xemacs), or yours can become the official gnu version
(as has happened with gcc a couple of times)

> The biggest reason however is
> the GNU license. Maybe someone with an academic position can afford
> to work on a non-profit project for a long time, but generally I
> think smart individuals should be able to profit financially from
> their work and their clever ideas if you want to keep them involved
> for years to come.
>
> So what it boils down to is I want to do a completely free open-
> source project. Free in the sense that anyody is free to take from it
> and use any which way they see fit, whether it's for commercial
> purposes or not.

But if it's open source, how do you stop other people stealing your
code and ideas and selling their version for cheaper ?

> The only way it's not free is that initially I'll be
> the only one deciding what will go into the project.

But again, depending on license, someone else can just copy your
source tree and then have a project where *they* get to dictate what
happens. (GPL allows this. gnuplot has a license which aims to prevent
this.)



dd
-- 
Dave Denholm              <ddenholm at esmertec.com>       http://www.esmertec.com