nanogui: Request for comments - Microwindows
Subject:
Re: Request for comments - Microwindows
From:
"Vidar Hokstad" ####@####.####
Date:
4 Oct 1999 23:10:13 -0000
Message-Id: <19991004230620.28400.qmail@mail.relight.com>
On Mon, 4 Oct 1999 17:41:24 -0500 (EST) you wrote:
>I'm just a nanogui lurker, trying to pick up as much as I can about the
>design and the release timetable of nanogui, but perhaps what I have to
>say counts for something. After all, I am a potential nanowidget
>(application) developer, and I am definitely a potential customer for
>Screenmedia's device, once it comes out.
>
>I think this is the most sensible advice I have heard so far re: the
>licensing issue. I, for one, would be much more inclined to buy a
>nanogui-running device if I knew that its software was 100% free (as in
>free speech, of course) and that it would always be that way, no
>matter what devices it was ported to. By the same token, I would be
>much more inclined to develop applications for that platform. Why?
>Well, I am committed to the idea of free software, and I want my
>code to be useful to people. Dependency on closed-source--and hence
>likely buggy and feature-starved--code would make my software less
>useful.
But you aren't anywhere near being representative of the market we wish
to reach. In fact, until recently we didn't even consider the OEM market,
since it is small compared to the segment we are targetting. Free software
simply isn't an issue in our market segment - most of our potential customers
likely haven't even heard the phrase before, and there will be lots of
closed source software on the box - much of it from partners where we
have no influence whatsoever on whether or not they'll open source
their applications.
>In general, I think a no-compromises open-source license will be better
>for the customer and for the developer base.
Maybe. But for Screen Media for instance, it would mean that it would be
way to costly for us to use NanoGUI, and it would be cheaper for us to
license a commercial GUI, and pay per unit royalties (at least with our
projected production volumes), because then we wouldn't have the added
development cost to replace software that we can currently buy from
third parties, but that would be unavailable for us with NanoGUI under
LGPL or GPL.
The result for us would be that we'd be back to either licensing a commercial
GUI, or use an open source system with a less restrictive license.
Regards,
Vidar Hokstad
