OpenXTalk Forums

This is a repost of something I posted over the other side of the 'Berlin wall':

I do feel disappointed by the scenario that seeks to attract open source support for a LiveCode fork in competition with and at the expense of the parent.

I would like to tease that sentence apart a bit:

A "scenario that seeks to attract open source support for a LiveCode fork"

I honestly don't see anything wrong with this, either morally or legally.

Once LIveCode released an Open Source version 8-9 years ago, Pandora's box was open, and I cannot believe that
the good folks up in Edinburgh were unaware of the possible consequences.

I am absolutely sure an Open Source fork, in the short term at least, is likely to be an inferior product, and as such
is only likely to be taken up by the types of people who used the Community version of LiveCode and never sent a red cent,
one way or another, to LiveCode central.

IFF (and that's a big 'IFF') an Open Source fork does 'take flight', should LiveCode 'go under', it at least would prove useful
for any future work with xTalk (or whatever the language is called).

IFF an Open Source fork is in some way better than LiveCode, then it can act as competitive gadfly to put the
skates under LiveCode.

"in competition with"

Well, I am not a protectionist, a one-size-fits-all person, a monopolist or a socialist, and having seen in various
places what monopolies do (whether state or private) I think at least one fork might do "the scene" some good . . .

"at the expense of the parent"

Much the same as above: if a fork of LiveCode does turn out to be 'at the expense of the parent' then that says
something about 'the parent' which, from a Whiggish sort of viewpoint, is not very healthy.

Personally I deploy GIMP, Inkscape and LibreOffice across multiple computers running versions of macOS and Linux . . .

For three very, very simple reasons:

They do at least enough of what Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and Microsoft Office can do for my needs,
they cost nothing, and none of those 3 work under Linux.

The fact that Adobe and Microsoft have not seen fit to develop their programs for Linux, nor made them sufficiently
better than their open source competitors (although they have had to drop their prices like nobody's business)
says more about them than the teams that put together the open source programs.

I am in an odd position myself as I have an extremely meagre income and LiveCode have very generously equipped me with educational
versions of the new LiveCode, and I will try to repay their generosity in a variety of ways.

But an open source version will also allow me to get a copy onto the computer of not only the children I teach summer classes to,
but absolutely everyone I meet who expresses interest . . . such as the EFL teachers I run into at EFL conferences who would
like to run up "baby grammar and vocab" standalones for the half-a-dozen manky-franky old PCs they have at the back of their
living-room-cum-classroom . . . and these are humble folk who wouldn't know a widget if it came knocking, let alone a
SWITCH statement.

IFF LiveCode keep on their toes, can pull themselves out of whatever slough they are currently in, and develop a "real shocker"
LiveCode 10, they have absolutely nothing to fuss about . . . and, if they don't "Hard Casein."

I personally have spent much more hard-earned money ON various LiveCode products than I ever earned WITH it, for the specific purpose of supporting the open source effort. I can't be the only one. I honestly couldn't care less about the opinions of people who call FOSS users "freeloaders", as they just don't "get it". I wonder how much LC has paid the people who wrote the open source software used in LC as mentioned in the licenses.txt file? I strongly suspect that they are "freeloading" as well. Despite all of this, I am still a currently paying LC license holder even though I don't have anything but the open source version installed on my machines. I would love to see LC succeed, but if a few misfits working to keep a FOSS version alive moving forward are viewed as such a threat, the outlook is grim. Just my two cents.

a few misfits

That was a bit near the bone.

Always been a misfit, intend to be until the end; then I'll line up a triangular coffin!

SethMorrow wrote: ↑Sat Oct 02, 2021 9:01 am I personally have spent much more hard-earned money ON various LiveCode products than I ever earned WITH it, for the specific purpose of supporting the open source effort. I can't be the only one. I honestly couldn't care less about the opinions of people who call FOSS users "freeloaders", as they just don't "get it". I wonder how much LC has paid the people who wrote the open source software used in LC as mentioned in the licenses.txt file? I strongly suspect that they are "freeloading" as well. Despite all of this, I am still a currently paying LC license holder even though I don't have anything but the open source version installed on my machines. I would love to see LC succeed, but if a few misfits working to keep a FOSS version alive moving forward are viewed as such a threat, the outlook is grim. Just my two cents.323360628_bbf3a560fc_o.jpg

This! I made 5$ via a donation from someone who liked the open source LCB work I was doing. I've sent more than that to LCC ltd, for "Infinite" funding drive, and then again last year when I "brought" the "pay what you can" Indy Version because it seemed like they probably needed the money when COVID hit (which hit me financially somewhat as well), I didn't need or want anything from the Indy Edition... and so to hear Kevin tell the media / pubic that they've counted that as a LOSS from commercial to the free community edition, just really made me angry.

The company chose to go open source, and they chose the GPL to do it.

Hard to imagine how any blame could be cast on folks doing exactly what the GPL openly encourages.

I paid $100 for the "pay what you want" Indy thing and never used it.

I have also donated modest sums from time to time.

But I already knew that Kevin has few social graces.

After all, the way Kevin dumped the Open Source version could have been down in a far more
sensitive fashion even if the end result were the same, and lots of people would not have felt
someone has socked them one in the solar plexus.

I did NOT send LiveCode $100 because of Kevin's social graces: I sent LiveCode $100 because
LiveCode is a fantastic product and I had $100 I could spare. And Kevin, as well as the rest of
the team at LiveCode central had to put food in their bellies during an extremely sticky patch.

Kevin Miller is an extremely talented programmer, and without him
there would be no LiveCode at all. Where things "have gone wrong" is that Kevin Miller is still the public
face of LiveCode, which he really should not be; he should be doing what he is good at: programming.

Someone else who can present LiveCode in its best light, and with a whole shed load of business acumen
ought to be the company's front person.

After all, look at all those smarmy types at the Apple Developer thing: they are giving us the charm offensive
and the hard sell while the "back room boys and girls" are getting on with what really matters.