[Fwd: FW: For Approval: Generic Attribution Provision]

[Nicholas Goodman]

On Fri, 2006-12-15 at 10:25 -0500, Craig Muth wrote:
> Nicholas Goodman wrote:
> > What am I missing?  What do the USER, COMMUNITY, and WORLD get out of
> > badgeware other than more startups popping out more pseudo open source
> > applications?  (ie, Free to use software)
> 
> The value is that the project was released as open source in the first
> place.  Some people must believe that the attribution-license projects
> in question have value, judging by their large numbers of users.  If

So... The value is that there is more "free to download" and "use"
software in the world?  That's compelling, and even a trend (Oracle
express edition, MSFT Express, etc), but it's not necessarily open
source.  I'm trying to figure out why these companies find the term
"shared source" or "public source" or "community source" so offensive.
I'm NOT dogging freeware.   Freeware is good for users, not as good as
Open Source, but it's good for users.  :) 

>Not all projects are like this though.  Not all projects have a huge
>group of contributors to leverage.  Many projects deal with a very
>specific application or component, and can't reasonably expect help
>from contributors.  This is why the OSI has approved more than just
>the GPL - because not all projects are alike.

Let's consider this:
100k+ projects on sourceforge; clearly the vast majority of them don't
have the commit base that Linux does.  I'll admit many of these projects
are old and dead, but there are literally tens of thousands of projects
that meet the profile you describe.  ie, small commit base, niche
project, relatively small code base, easy to rebrand (Tcl scripts, php
application, etc).

These companies, people, etc seem comfortable with the understanding of
open source as has been established over the past decade or so.  So
let's be clear here:  We're talking about a few (< 20, primarily VC
backed) NEW companies and individuals, not a huge population of people
currently doing open source feeling like they've been ripped off.  

How about a question to anyone:  Is there anyone that has been doing
open source for years, but now feels that badgeware is necessary for
them to continue to do "open source?"  Perhaps if people share they're
ready to leave open source because they don't have a badgeware license
that indicates a gap in the "license market."