Re: OpenSourcing a project

["Jeremy H. Griffith" <jeremy@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 21 Jul 2005 09:42:01 -0400, Larry Kollar 
<Larry.Kollar@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[Abbas Zaidi <abuzz@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:]
>> ... the whole idea of
>> OpenSourcing something is totally giving up all
>> responsibility over it, (while also giving up power -
>> something you may want to think about.)

Actually I don't see it as giving up responsibility, more as
sharing it.  And power is best when it is distributed...  <bg>

>That's the real sticking point here, IMHO. An open-sourced
>version of Mif2Go for Mac/Unix could be ported back to XP,
>and then where's the incentive to buy it from Omsys at all?

For support and enhancements.  We make custom mods
all the time.  Companies like Cygnus (later bought by Red 
Hat) have had considerable success supporting open-source 
products...  It's a perfectly workable business model.

As it is, our only protection is licensing anyway.  We refuse
to use any form of software copy protection, because there
is *no* method that avoids penalizing legitimate users in a
time of crisis (such as after catastrophic hardware failure).
Think about it.  We did, and that is why we use the one safe
( for our users) system... the Honor System.  It works.  ;-)

>I'd hate to torpedo the whole idea, especially since I'd be
>keenly interested in a Mac version of Mif2Go -- Free or
>otherwise. 

We're ready to cooperate with that any way we can, but
our resources for it are unfortunately limited...

>But Jeremy is one of the good guys & I'd hate
>even more to see his income dry up.

It already has.  Adobe's failure to market, plus the steady
withdrawal of Frame from platform after platform, have
taken their toll.  This does *not* mean we will drop Mif2Go;
before we did that, we'd open-source it for *all* platforms.
But it does mean we are putting some work into other areas,
quite unrelated to Frame (and not yet public, sorry!).

Again, we welcome inquiries from Mac FDK experts who
want to see what is IMHO the best export tool for Frame
available on the Mac.  And on UNIX, for that matter, which
would be an easier port as originally Mif2Go was created
on SunOS... and we've gone to some trouble to maintain
UNIX portability ever since.   ;-).

-- Jeremy H. Griffith, at Omni Systems Inc.
  <jeremy@xxxxxxxxx>  http://www.omsys.com/

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