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digitalmars.D - Looking for ideas

reply "Andrew Fedoniouk" <news terrainformatica.com> writes:
I am going to provide couple of samples for Harmonia Framework
beside of the test bed application which I have already .

So I need ideas for simple applications with
web style interface (presumably) or any others.
Will appreciate a lot for ideas.

I am focused on publishing it this week.
Progress so far:
Finalized with Harmonia license. It is slightly
modified PHP license. Text is here
http://www.terrainformatica.com/harmonia/license.txt
Will appreciate a lot if somebody aware of these matters
will take a look.

So far only toolbar and statusbar are unfinished.

Other stuff which was done recently (and could be viewed in the demo) :
- HTML: <iframe> support. It's just cool - allows dynamic updates of
  portions of HTML on the screen.
- Context menus. They can be enabled for any widget but can be viewed in the 
demo only for edit box.
- Simple tree view: on the left side.
- Many features under the hood including excelent one provided by Burton 
Radons, the Boxer.
   Having boxes made possible implementation of

alias box[wchar[]] NamedBoxes;
// fetch all values - boxes from a container
NamedBoxes values(Widgets container);
// set values - boxes to all IValues(Widget implementing IValue) in a 
container
// returns number of values successfully set
uint values(Widgets container, in NamedBoxes bag);

These are extremely useful when dealing with e.g. DB forms -
get/set all values of input fields on the form in one shot and eliminates (I 
think)
need of databinding mechanism.

Demo is here:
http://www.terrainformatica.com/screenshots/HarmoniaDemo.zip

Andrew.
May 09 2005
next sibling parent reply Mike Capp <mike.capp gmail.com> writes:
In article <d5pank$9qj$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Andrew Fedoniouk says...

Finalized with Harmonia license. It is slightly
modified PHP license. Text is here
http://www.terrainformatica.com/harmonia/license.txt
Will appreciate a lot if somebody aware of these matters
will take a look.


It is of course entirely your choice, but *please* consider using one of the
standard licenses instead of rolling your own. The OSI (among many others) has
observed that "License proliferation has become a significant barrier to
open-source deployment" - every new license means more legal uncertainty and
makes it harder to combine or reuse OSS code.

In particular, the PHPv3 license you're using as a base is incompatible with the
GPL:

"It is a non-copyleft free software license which is incompatible with the GNU
GPL. We recommend that you not use this license for anything except PHP
add-ons."

(http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html#GPLIncompatibleLicenses)

I'd suggest using the (new) BSD license instead
(http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php) - it looks substantially
similar to what you want, but is well-known, well-understood, compatible with
the GPL and liked/used by many companies including Apple and Microsoft. The FSF
recommend
(http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html#GPLCompatibleLicenses) the
almost-identical X11 license just to avoid confusion with the old BSD license,
but BSD has far greater name recognition.

HTH,
Mike
May 10 2005
next sibling parent Dave <Dave_member pathlink.com> writes:
In article <d5q8io$10ci$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Mike Capp says...

In article <d5pank$9qj$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Andrew Fedoniouk says...

Finalized with Harmonia license. It is slightly
modified PHP license. Text is here
http://www.terrainformatica.com/harmonia/license.txt
Will appreciate a lot if somebody aware of these matters
will take a look.




<snip>

I'd suggest using the (new) BSD license instead
(http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php) - it looks substantially
similar to what you want, but is well-known, well-understood, compatible with
the GPL and liked/used by many companies including Apple and Microsoft. The FSF
recommend


I agree - Good suggestion.
May 10 2005
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Andrew Fedoniouk" <news terrainformatica.com> writes:
Thanks a lot, Mike,

As I mentioned there, we can change
license in the future.

Question: will current license
stop anyone from the list to do not use it
now? If there are such people already
then let me know.

Andrew.
May 10 2005
next sibling parent John Demme <me teqdruid.com> writes:
Regardless of whether or not it will effect people who want to use it
now, anyone whom it would inhibit in the future will be less like to use
it now.  If they can't use it in the future, why put effort into it now?

John Demme

On Tue, 2005-05-10 at 08:31 -0700, Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:

 Thanks a lot, Mike,
 
 As I mentioned there, we can change
 license in the future.
 
 Question: will current license
 stop anyone from the list to do not use it
 now? If there are such people already
 then let me know.
 
 Andrew.
May 10 2005
prev sibling parent reply Mike Capp <mike.capp gmail.com> writes:
In article <d5qk06$1bhl$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Andrew Fedoniouk says...

Thanks a lot, Mike,

As I mentioned there, we can change
license in the future.


Do bear in mind that changing license in the future may prove to be *far* more
work than changing it now. For starters, you'd probably need to track down
everybody who's contributed code to the project in the meantime and get their
permission for the license change. And if you can't track them down, you have to
identify, remove and reimplement all their contributions. The Mozilla guys had a
hell of a time getting their NPL/MPL codebase relicensed to MPL/GPL/LGPL after
the FSF declared NPL/MPL incompatible with the GPL. (Do I win the 2005 'most
acronyms in one sentence' award?)

cheers
Mike
May 10 2005
parent "Andrew Fedoniouk" <news terrainformatica.com> writes:
Thanks, Mike,
This "...may publish revised and/or new versions of the license from time to 
time...."
looks suspicious and I will remove this statement completely.
So it will become just a BSD style license (I guess).

Andrew.


"Mike Capp" <mike.capp gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:d5qr1q$1ih6$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 In article <d5qk06$1bhl$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Andrew Fedoniouk says...

Thanks a lot, Mike,

As I mentioned there, we can change
license in the future.


 Do bear in mind that changing license in the future may prove to be *far* 
 more
 work than changing it now. For starters, you'd probably need to track down
 everybody who's contributed code to the project in the meantime and get 
 their
 permission for the license change. And if you can't track them down, you 
 have to
 identify, remove and reimplement all their contributions. The Mozilla guys 
 had a
 hell of a time getting their NPL/MPL codebase relicensed to MPL/GPL/LGPL 
 after
 the FSF declared NPL/MPL incompatible with the GPL. (Do I win the 2005 
 'most
 acronyms in one sentence' award?)

 cheers
 Mike
May 10 2005
prev sibling parent reply "Andrew Fedoniouk" <news terrainformatica.com> writes:
One more question about following:


 In particular, the PHPv3 license you're using as a base is incompatible 
 with the
 GPL:

 "It is a non-copyleft free software license which is incompatible with the 
 GNU
 GPL. We recommend that you not use this license for anything except PHP
 add-ons."


Why I (as anyone else) should stay with GPL?
What it can give to community and to me pesrsonally "en principle"?
Will Harmonia GPL license, if it will be applied, help spreading D and 
Harmonia
in all developer communities or only in some particular?

 I am just wondering.... I did not have a chance to write GPL software 
before.
 I am occasionally using gcc and gperf and
 personally don't care what type of license they have.
 So I *really* would like to know is GPL so worth it? May be I missed 
something
 critical here?

Beg my pardon if my questions look naive.
I've seen a lot of flames of holy wars about the subject so
I just *realy* want to hear real arguments finally.

Andrew.
May 10 2005
next sibling parent reply John Demme <me teqdruid.com> writes:
For programs such as gprof, and gcc, you are correct... it doesn't
really make that much of a difference.  The big problem is licensing on
libraries.  If you use a non GPL compliant license (basically non OSI)
then people writing a GPL application cannot use your library.  I don't
know the specifics, but there are probably also issues with someone
writing any program that uses your license along with a library that
uses GPL- they probably wouldn't be allowed to do it.  In short, when
one uses a license that's not on the OSI-approved list for a library, a
whole host of potential problems emerge.  Plus, the list has so many
licenses, there's probably one that's acceptable.

It is also worth noting that in D context (in Linux, at least) that
there is no significant differences between the GPL and LGPL, since the
LGPL just makes allowances for dynamically linked libraries.  On cannot
dynamically link D libraries on Linux (to my knowledge.)

John Demme

On Tue, 2005-05-10 at 11:44 -0700, Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:

 One more question about following:
 

 In particular, the PHPv3 license you're using as a base is incompatible 
 with the
 GPL:

 "It is a non-copyleft free software license which is incompatible with the 
 GNU
 GPL. We recommend that you not use this license for anything except PHP
 add-ons."


 
 Why I (as anyone else) should stay with GPL?
 What it can give to community and to me pesrsonally "en principle"?
 Will Harmonia GPL license, if it will be applied, help spreading D and 
 Harmonia
 in all developer communities or only in some particular?
 
  I am just wondering.... I did not have a chance to write GPL software 
 before.
  I am occasionally using gcc and gperf and
  personally don't care what type of license they have.
  So I *really* would like to know is GPL so worth it? May be I missed 
 something
  critical here?
 
 Beg my pardon if my questions look naive.
 I've seen a lot of flames of holy wars about the subject so
 I just *realy* want to hear real arguments finally.
 
 Andrew.
May 10 2005
parent reply "Andrew Fedoniouk" <news terrainformatica.com> writes:
 ... writing any program that uses your license along with a library that
 uses GPL- they probably wouldn't be allowed to do it....


"wouldn't be allowed" - Why?
For some political reasons? I don't care about
such motivations in general.

And what about non-GPL software which is (my guess) is
95% or even more over there?

Again, I am not against GPL or against non-GPL.
I just don't care.
I do know that distribution of libraries of common use should be in open 
source.
But Open Source is far not GPL as I was told....

Andrew.


"John Demme" <me teqdruid.com> wrote in message 
news:1115752102.2831.6.camel localhost.localdomain...

 For programs such as gprof, and gcc, you are correct... it doesn't
 really make that much of a difference.  The big problem is licensing on
 libraries.  If you use a non GPL compliant license (basically non OSI)
 then people writing a GPL application cannot use your library.  I don't
 know the specifics, but there are probably also issues with someone
 writing any program that uses your license along with a library that
 uses GPL- they probably wouldn't be allowed to do it.  In short, when
 one uses a license that's not on the OSI-approved list for a library, a
 whole host of potential problems emerge.  Plus, the list has so many
 licenses, there's probably one that's acceptable.

 It is also worth noting that in D context (in Linux, at least) that
 there is no significant differences between the GPL and LGPL, since the
 LGPL just makes allowances for dynamically linked libraries.  On cannot
 dynamically link D libraries on Linux (to my knowledge.)

 John Demme

 On Tue, 2005-05-10 at 11:44 -0700, Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:

 One more question about following:


 In particular, the PHPv3 license you're using as a base is incompatible
 with the
 GPL:

 "It is a non-copyleft free software license which is incompatible with 
 the
 GNU
 GPL. We recommend that you not use this license for anything except PHP
 add-ons."


 Why I (as anyone else) should stay with GPL?
 What it can give to community and to me pesrsonally "en principle"?
 Will Harmonia GPL license, if it will be applied, help spreading D and
 Harmonia
 in all developer communities or only in some particular?

  I am just wondering.... I did not have a chance to write GPL software
 before.
  I am occasionally using gcc and gperf and
  personally don't care what type of license they have.
  So I *really* would like to know is GPL so worth it? May be I missed
 something
  critical here?

 Beg my pardon if my questions look naive.
 I've seen a lot of flames of holy wars about the subject so
 I just *realy* want to hear real arguments finally.

 Andrew.
May 10 2005
parent Burton Radons <burton-radons smocky.com> writes:
Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:


... writing any program that uses your license along with a library that
uses GPL- they probably wouldn't be allowed to do it....


 
 
 "wouldn't be allowed" - Why?
 For some political reasons? I don't care about
 such motivations in general.


Supposedly you would be able to sue them and collect damages.  <shrug> 
Who knows?


 And what about non-GPL software which is (my guess) is
 95% or even more over there?
 
 Again, I am not against GPL or against non-GPL.
 I just don't care.
 I do know that distribution of libraries of common use should be in open 
 source.
 But Open Source is far not GPL as I was told....


If you don't care, then I recommend public domain.  Neatly sidesteps all 
the politics and, as far as I know, has never resulted in an author's 
code being used in ways he doesn't approve of - and anyone who ever did 
do anything like stealing code and claiming it was his would be outed 
and ostracized for life (unless if it were a child, which it almost 
certainly would be).  It's a big bunch of hullaballoo about nothing if 
you ask me.

Getting back to the material portion of this thread, an example is a 
good gesture but I think you should devote your efforts to the 
documentation and ironing out any wrinkles in the interface.  And an SVN 
repository.  :)
May 10 2005
prev sibling parent reply Mike Capp <mike.capp gmail.com> writes:
In article <d5qve8$1li9$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Andrew Fedoniouk says...

One more question about following:


 In particular, the PHPv3 license you're using as a base is incompatible 
 with the GPL:


Why I (as anyone else) should stay with GPL?


I'm carefully not saying you should. It's your code, you can do whatever you
like with it. That said, there are major benefits to a GPL-compatible license,
which you might want to consider.

Note that's "GPL compatible", not necessarily the GPL itself. "Compatible" means
that someone can create and distribute a program which links in both Harmonia
and, for example, some GPLed 'C' library. (The whole thing is then covered by
the GPL.) "Incompatible" means they can't. Therefore, GPL-compatibility would
make Harmonia more attractive to developers, because it doesn't take away their
ability to use any of the huge number of GPL libraries out there.

Huge number? Yup. Take a look at Sourceforge's breakdown of projects by license.



138.)


What it can give to community and to me pesrsonally "en principle"?


[...]

 So I *really* would like to know is GPL so worth it? May be I missed 
something critical here?


Again, the big issue (aside from avoiding yet another hand-rolled license) is
being *compatible* with the GPL, not necessarily *using* the GPL. As for (L)GPL
versus BSD, it really comes down to a simple choice on your part: what are you
trying to achieve? 

If someone takes Harmonia under the GPL or LGPL licenses and improves it
somehow, they have to release the source for those improvements back to you (and
the rest of the world) under that same license. This is good if your goal is to
get Harmonia improved as much as possible for everybody's benefit.

Under the GPL (but *not* the LGPL), they *also* have to release under GPL any
source code which is linked to Harmonia. This is good if you believe that open
source (or "Free Software") is a Good Thing and there should be more of it. It
encourages people to make their own sofware open/Free because by doing so they
can benefit from all the GPL code out there. However, it will put many
commercial developers off, because they don't want to open up their own code.

(Note: contrary to what John Demme wrote, the GPL/LGPL distinction applies to
all libraries, not just dynamic ones. In fact, dynamic linking is more of a grey
area than static, because it can be deferred until runtime using dlopen/dlsym or
LoadLibrary/GetProcAddress.)

The BSD license doesn't require any of the above; it really just says that
anyone using your library has to acknowledge your copyright, and can't use your
name for advertising etc without permission. However, anyone can take the code,
modify it, and sell modified binaries without releasing the modified source. For
obvious reasons, commercial folk love it; Microsoft has pulled many an "embrace
and extend" on BSD-licensed code. (You may remember the Kerberos fiasco.)
Therefore, this is good if you just want Harmonia to be used by as many people
as possible and aren't too concerned about having improvements contributed back
to the community.

If you do decide to go with one of the standard licenses, I would suggest that
you call it what it is, rather than "The Harmonia License". Many developers
won't take the time to read (or, worse, have a lawyer read) the license text to
work out what it means, they'll just look for another library with a license
they already understand. I'd suggest avoiding "tweaks" to the license for the
same reason, however minor they may look.


Beg my pardon if my questions look naive.


Not in the least.

I don't know how strict this forum is about threads drifting off topic, but if
you want to follow up via email, that's fine.

cheers
Mike
May 10 2005
parent reply John Demme <me teqdruid.com> writes:
On Tue, 2005-05-10 at 21:00 +0000, Mike Capp wrote:

 (Note: contrary to what John Demme wrote, the GPL/LGPL distinction applies to
 all libraries, not just dynamic ones. In fact, dynamic linking is more of a
grey
 area than static, because it can be deferred until runtime using dlopen/dlsym
or
 LoadLibrary/GetProcAddress.)


You're saying that if I create a static LGPL library, it can be linked
into non-F/OSS libraries?  If so, then good... I though there was some
issue in the wording that prevented that.

John Demme
May 10 2005
parent reply Mike Capp <mike.capp gmail.com> writes:
In article <1115763427.2831.13.camel localhost.localdomain>, John Demme says...

You're saying that if I create a static LGPL library, it can be linked
into non-F/OSS libraries?


Yes, you can, and no, you don't have to distribute the source of the non-F/OSS
libs.

There's a "but", however. The wording of the license itself is a little hairy
here; it's a lot easier to understand if you look at the INTENT. The intent of
the LGPL is this:

Suppose Andrew releases the Harmonia library under the LGPL. You come along and
create an app - let's say it's an IDE for D - which uses that library. It's
closed-source, you're raking in cash for it, whatever. Fine. Now, suppose Andrew
(or anyone else) buys your IDE at vast expense, and in the course of using it
hits a bug in Harmonia which seriously reduces the app's usefulness to him. He
fixes the bug and asks you to rebuild with the fixed library. You do so, and
make the new build available... for the trifling "upgrade price" of $20,000.

This is what it's all about. This is exactly the sort of vendor behaviour that
led Richard Stallman to create the Free Software movement in the first place.

The GPL says: if you use ANY of my code, you don't get to dictate terms like
that. Period. The more limited LGPL says: if you use ANY of my code, you don't
get to dictate terms ON THAT BIT OF CODE.

So how does this apply to the static/dynamic distinction? Go back to our
hypothetical situation. Andrew must be able to fix the Harmonia bug in his IDE
without being dependent on you. For a dynamic library, that's easy. Build a new
dll/.so, drop it in, job done. For a static library, though, he has to build a
new .lib and then relink the whole IDE app. To do that, you'd have to have
distributed the object files - object, not source - which make up that app.

And this is exactly what the LGPL requires. If you static-link to an LGPLed lib,
you have to distribute linkable object code for the rest of your app. If you
dynamic-link, you don't. Same goal, just a different mechanism.

cheers
Mike
May 10 2005
next sibling parent reply John Demme <me teqdruid.com> writes:
That clears it up a lot.  I realize that this was the intent, but how
hairy is the wording (I've never spent a ton of time combing through the
legalese)?  Hairy enough that one should be cautious using LGPL and
static libs?

John Demme

On Tue, 2005-05-10 at 23:25 +0000, Mike Capp wrote:

 In article <1115763427.2831.13.camel localhost.localdomain>, John Demme says...

You're saying that if I create a static LGPL library, it can be linked
into non-F/OSS libraries?


 
 Yes, you can, and no, you don't have to distribute the source of the non-F/OSS
 libs.
 
 There's a "but", however. The wording of the license itself is a little hairy
 here; it's a lot easier to understand if you look at the INTENT. The intent of
 the LGPL is this:
 
 Suppose Andrew releases the Harmonia library under the LGPL. You come along and
 create an app - let's say it's an IDE for D - which uses that library. It's
 closed-source, you're raking in cash for it, whatever. Fine. Now, suppose
Andrew
 (or anyone else) buys your IDE at vast expense, and in the course of using it
 hits a bug in Harmonia which seriously reduces the app's usefulness to him. He
 fixes the bug and asks you to rebuild with the fixed library. You do so, and
 make the new build available... for the trifling "upgrade price" of $20,000.
 
 This is what it's all about. This is exactly the sort of vendor behaviour that
 led Richard Stallman to create the Free Software movement in the first place.
 
 The GPL says: if you use ANY of my code, you don't get to dictate terms like
 that. Period. The more limited LGPL says: if you use ANY of my code, you don't
 get to dictate terms ON THAT BIT OF CODE.
 
 So how does this apply to the static/dynamic distinction? Go back to our
 hypothetical situation. Andrew must be able to fix the Harmonia bug in his IDE
 without being dependent on you. For a dynamic library, that's easy. Build a new
 dll/.so, drop it in, job done. For a static library, though, he has to build a
 new .lib and then relink the whole IDE app. To do that, you'd have to have
 distributed the object files - object, not source - which make up that app.
 
 And this is exactly what the LGPL requires. If you static-link to an LGPLed
lib,
 you have to distribute linkable object code for the rest of your app. If you
 dynamic-link, you don't. Same goal, just a different mechanism.
 
 cheers
 Mike
May 10 2005
parent reply Mike Capp <mike.capp gmail.com> writes:
In article <1115771536.2831.25.camel localhost.localdomain>, John Demme says...

That clears it up a lot.  I realize that this was the intent, but how
hairy is the wording (I've never spent a ton of time combing through the
legalese)?  Hairy enough that one should be cautious using LGPL and
static libs?


Well, that rather depends on your tolerance for hairiness. Read
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/lgpl.html (particularly clause 6) and
judge for yourself.

I don't think this aspect of the LGPL is controversial or ambiguous, so I don't
think you need be "cautious" in this regard. There are ambiguous bits, but
they're more in the area of runtime dynamic linking (and web services, and so
on). It's just that the verbiage puts people off. And I think many people don't
understand the GPL/LGPL distinction and believe (wrongly) that both licenses are
equally "viral", which may put them off.

I suspect most people linking LGPL libs do so dynamically, just because it's
less hassle that way. Distributing object code would be a pain.

cheers
Mike
May 10 2005
parent "Andrew Fedoniouk" <news terrainformatica.com> writes:
Thanks a lot Mike for good and detail explanation.

At least I think I know pros and cons now.

Andrew.
May 10 2005
prev sibling parent reply David Medlock <noone nowhere.com> writes:
Mike Capp wrote:

 In article <1115763427.2831.13.camel localhost.localdomain>, John Demme says...
 

You're saying that if I create a static LGPL library, it can be linked
into non-F/OSS libraries?


 
 
 Yes, you can, and no, you don't have to distribute the source of the non-F/OSS
 libs.
 
 There's a "but", however. The wording of the license itself is a little hairy
 here; it's a lot easier to understand if you look at the INTENT. The intent of
 the LGPL is this:
 
 Suppose Andrew releases the Harmonia library under the LGPL. You come along and
 create an app - let's say it's an IDE for D - which uses that library. It's
 closed-source, you're raking in cash for it, whatever. Fine. Now, suppose
Andrew
 (or anyone else) buys your IDE at vast expense, and in the course of using it
 hits a bug in Harmonia which seriously reduces the app's usefulness to him. He
 fixes the bug and asks you to rebuild with the fixed library. You do so, and
 make the new build available... for the trifling "upgrade price" of $20,000.
 


(Sorry for the tangent here)

These 'if' situations don't hold up well in the free market.  Something 
tells me if the person is 'raking in cash' and it costs 'vast sums' then 
  not fixing bugs would quickly dry up that revenue stream.  Outside of 
politics its impossible to make money in the free market without helping 
consumers.



 This is what it's all about. This is exactly the sort of vendor behaviour that
 led Richard Stallman to create the Free Software movement in the first place.
 


Go read the FSF manifesto, and you will see what RMS dislikes, namely 
software used as a commodity.  Even if it is sort of an anti urban 
legend now, this is precisely Marx and Engells "when Labor is what is 
valuable everyone is equal" - ridiculous thinking when you consider even 
commodities such as water require labor to sell.  Water falls out of the 
sky but we pay for it....

RMS likes freedom;  the kind he agrees with anyways.


 
 cheers
 Mike
 
 


No flames intended, just passionate about these subjects.
-DavidM
May 11 2005
next sibling parent reply "Andrew Fedoniouk" <news terrainformatica.com> writes:
 Mike Capp wrote:

 In article <1115763427.2831.13.camel localhost.localdomain>, John Demme 
 says...


You're saying that if I create a static LGPL library, it can be linked
into non-F/OSS libraries?



 Yes, you can, and no, you don't have to distribute the source of the 
 non-F/OSS
 libs.

 There's a "but", however. The wording of the license itself is a little 
 hairy
 here; it's a lot easier to understand if you look at the INTENT. The 
 intent of
 the LGPL is this:

 Suppose Andrew releases the Harmonia library under the LGPL. You come 
 along and
 create an app - let's say it's an IDE for D - which uses that library. 
 It's
 closed-source, you're raking in cash for it, whatever. Fine. Now, suppose 
 Andrew
 (or anyone else) buys your IDE at vast expense, and in the course of 
 using it
 hits a bug in Harmonia which seriously reduces the app's usefulness to 
 him. He
 fixes the bug and asks you to rebuild with the fixed library. You do so, 
 and
 make the new build available... for the trifling "upgrade price" of 
 $20,000.


 (Sorry for the tangent here)

 These 'if' situations don't hold up well in the free market.  Something 
 tells me if the person is 'raking in cash' and it costs 'vast sums' then 
 not fixing bugs would quickly dry up that revenue stream.  Outside of 
 politics its impossible to make money in the free market without helping 
 consumers.


Exactly!

.....


 Go read the FSF manifesto, and you will see what RMS dislikes, namely 
 software used as a commodity.  Even if it is sort of an anti urban legend 
 now, this is precisely Marx and Engells "when Labor is what is valuable 
 everyone is equal" - ridiculous thinking when you consider even 
 commodities such as water require labor to sell.  Water falls out of the 
 sky but we pay for it....

 RMS likes freedom;  the kind he agrees with anyways.


Out-of-scope:
I used to live in Russia so I know cited (?) subject pretty well.
That social experiment is ending somehow these days.
Theory is probably not bad, but implementation....
almost 40 millions of us were paid their price by their lives for
the idea of society "from each according to their ability to each according 
to their needs".

On other side....

Truth as always is in the golden middle - in harmony to be short :)

GPL is on one pole, commercial software - on another.
Is compromise possible? That is the question (rhetoric one, beg my pardon 
for it)....

Andrew.
May 11 2005
parent "TechnoZeus" <TechnoZeus PeoplePC.com> writes:
"Andrew Fedoniouk" <news terrainformatica.com> wrote in message
news:d5u4dd$1sra$1 digitaldaemon.com...
*snip*

 Is compromise possible? That is the question (rhetoric one, beg my pardon
 for it)....

 Andrew.


Of course it's possible.  We just have a lot to learn.

In fact, compromise isn't even the best case scenario...
it is possible to turn a win/lose situation into a win/win situation,
given sufficient cooperation where possible and compromise only when
cooperation can't be achieved...
but again, much learning is needed.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the learning experience you went through
along with so many other people.

TZ
May 16 2005
prev sibling next sibling parent Mike Capp <mike.capp gmail.com> writes:
In article <d5tq9l$1lae$1 digitaldaemon.com>, David Medlock says...

These 'if' situations don't hold up well in the free market.  Something 
tells me if the person is 'raking in cash' and it costs 'vast sums' then 
not fixing bugs would quickly dry up that revenue stream.  Outside of 
politics its impossible to make money in the free market without helping 
consumers.


Your argument might be persuasive if we actually had a free market for software.
We don't. Not even close. We have monopoly rents, barriers to entry
(particularly software patents), predatory pricing, network effects, hardware
vendor lock-in, hostage-taking of critical data... the list goes on and on.

Windows ME. Did that help consumers? No. Did it make money? Yes. Microsoft
Office's closed file formats. Do they help consumers? Emphatically not. Do they
make money? Beyond the dreams of avarice. The Windows tax. CherryOS, if you want
to get topical.


RMS likes freedom; the kind he agrees with anyways.


Whereas you like the kind of freedom you don't agree with? Besides, how does the
GPL limit anybody's 'freedom'?


No flames intended, just passionate about these subjects.


Ditto. This is getting a bit too offtopic even for me, though, so I'll bow out
at this point.

cheers,
Mike
May 11 2005
prev sibling parent Kevin Bealer <Kevin_member pathlink.com> writes:
In article <d5tq9l$1lae$1 digitaldaemon.com>, David Medlock says...


..

These 'if' situations don't hold up well in the free market.  Something 
tells me if the person is 'raking in cash' and it costs 'vast sums' then 
  not fixing bugs would quickly dry up that revenue stream.  Outside of 
politics its impossible to make money in the free market without helping 
consumers.


I think a lot of the apparent "stall" w.r.t. the O/S market, for example, is due
to consumer knowledge.  For a free market to work smoothly, customers need to be
well informed.

If the customer was familiar enough to easily learn WinXX plus xxxBSD plus
Linux, they could balance security, stability, and other factors.  Then there
would be real pressure, on *all* sides, to fix the ugly parts.

For the last half dozen decades here in the USA, the baby boomers have mostly
decided what the market wants.  In the sixties; the country seemed "youthful"
because the boomers were 15-25, then career and family oriented, then stable
adults (the 1980s) and so on.

The baby boomers grew up after the accessible computer era; they preferred the
more accessible O/Ses so they didn't have to spend their last working decages in
Unix training classes.  As they retire, the average age will plummet (already
starting).  So the market and economy will become more tech savvy and familiar
(and probably less savvy in certain other ways, unfortunately.)

(No offense intended to any age group of course.)

Kevin


 This is what it's all about. This is exactly the sort of vendor behaviour that
 led Richard Stallman to create the Free Software movement in the first place.
 


Go read the FSF manifesto, and you will see what RMS dislikes, namely 
software used as a commodity.  Even if it is sort of an anti urban 
legend now, this is precisely Marx and Engells "when Labor is what is 
valuable everyone is equal" - ridiculous thinking when you consider even 
commodities such as water require labor to sell.  Water falls out of the 
sky but we pay for it....

RMS likes freedom;  the kind he agrees with anyways.


 
 cheers
 Mike
 
 


No flames intended, just passionate about these subjects.
-DavidM





 May 13 2005



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Joel Lucsy <jjlucsy usol.com>  writes:


Andrew Fedoniouk wrote:

 Demo is here:
 http://www.terrainformatica.com/screenshots/HarmoniaDemo.zip


Don't know if you're aware, but if I position your demo my secondary 
monitory positioned to the left of my primary, the popups show on the 
primary.

-- 
Joel Lucsy
"The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program." 
-- Larry Niven



 May 10 2005



  parent  "Andrew Fedoniouk" <news terrainformatica.com>  writes:


Thanks, Joel,

I am aware of it. Mulimonitor support is there
but I've commented it out for a while as
standard win32.d does not have needed
functions exported.
Use of these functions in fact shall be
activated only for
NativeApplication.os() >= OS.WIN32_2K
so it is going to be a runtime switch.
Thanks a lot anyway.

BTW: I am generating Wiki for Harmonia.
All documentation, design discussions, bugs,
etc. will go there.

Andrew.



 May 10 2005



prev sibling  parent  "Andrew Fedoniouk" <news terrainformatica.com>  writes:


http://terrainformatica.com/screenshots/HarmoniaHelloWorld.zip
Source:
-----------------------------------------------
import harmonia.ui.application;
import harmonia.ui.window;
import harmonia.html.view;

// html behavior could be assigned
// to any container. This time - to the window
alias HtmlPanelT!(Window) HtmlWindow;

void HelloWorldStart()
{
  HtmlWindow w = new HtmlWindow;
  w.html =
     "<HTML back-color='edit info'
            text-align=center
            vertical-align=middle> <!-- center aligned, gradient 
background -->
   <H1>Hello, World!<BR/>Stay in Harmony!</H1>
   </HTML>";
  w.state = Window.STATE.SHOWN;
}

static this()
{
  Application.onStart = &HelloWorldStart;
}



 May 10 2005