Start Thread:re Software

[James Simmons]

On Tue, 28 Mar 2000, JJ Neff wrote:

> Just a thought that's been circling for some time in my head.  I have begun to
> read the articles and essays of those responsible for the GPL and FSF and the
> competing "ideaologies".

For those of you unfamilar with FSF and GPL. FSF is the Free software 
foundation which is a non profit group devoted to developing free
software. Understand this is not money free but freedom free. Freedom in
the sense of that you have the source code in your possession. Now their
is a difference between OpenSource and Free software. Read the docs at
http://www.fsf.org 

> Is it wrong if me to want a software company to make their software ported 
> to Linux and be willing to pay for it?  Clarification-->  I would gladly
> pay $ for a program like Half-life if it was ported to Linux (heck I
> paid for it anyway to play under Window$).  Does software written for a
> "free" OS also "have to" be free?

No. Understand free is not money free but you have the source code free.
The standard license GPL under linux requires any software written using
other software like a library under GPL must also be GPL. Think of the 
GPL license as the borg of licenses. What does this mean? If you have a
libaray on your system thats GPL and you write a game using it you must
place the games code under GPL. Meaning you must give away your source
code. Now what about game companies that want to port to linux? Thats
where the LPGL licence comes into play. This license has the library under
GPL but allows you to write close source software or any peice of software
that you don't want to fall under GPL.

  As for companies getting paid to port games over to linux. Their is such
a company. They are called lokigames. Take a look at their site
(http://www.lokiegames.com). I see Civilliation 2 there but I know if I
download it I'm finished.

> Can large (or small) software companies still want to make money producing
> great games or software (insert Accounting package, graphics program, data
> management etc here) that just happen to run under Linux?  

Yes!!! 

> I know there are
> "programs" available that do almost all of the things I mentioned above but
> what if I want a good software package that is not available as an Open
> program.  The example referred to by myself when talking to others(besides
> games) was Quikbooks Pro.  A great full featured Accountign package for
> business small and LaRGE.  If you neede stable good accounting software would
> you rather 1) buy QuikBooks for Linux (not available) or 2) use an Open Project
> Accounting package that may or may not work the way you need it to.  
> REMEMBER, I am asking the question as a non-programmer, I can not change
> the source to do what I want I can only use the tool!

Well I have no problem buying software. If its good software then I'm
going to buy. I do want to try it out first. If I don't like it then I
don't bother. Their have been times when I have bought software to only
use it once :( As for it being opensource. I do perfere that its would be
open source just for the fact that someone out their can fix bugs or add a
feature that I want to use but can't program myself and submit it to the 
company. Another reason is with the source code you can just compile it
to run one a platform that wasn't avaliable from the company. It just
boils down to opensource is a better model to write software. A good
example is when ID software gave out some of it source code for quake.
Well people created hacks. One of them being action quake. In fact some of
code for action quake was used for quake 2. As for close source apps. I do
use such apps. I use applix ware which is completely closed source.

  So you ask how would a company protect itself with having the source
code avaliable? Well do what ID did. Have the license so you can take and
modify the code or whatever you want but you can't claim it as your own
game and try to make money off of it. 

"Look it's a text editor, no it's a OS, no it's Emacs"
James Simmons                                           ____/| 
fbdev/gfx developer                                     \ o.O| 
http://www.linux-fbdev.org                               =(_)= 
http://linuxgfx.sourceforge.net                            U