Vote to disable password protection for revMedia 4 stacks

[David Bovill]

I'm on the fence with this one.

My definite preference would be to enable the SSL libraries on the all
versions, so that we can use proper security and access web services that
require SSL - I suspect the need for this function to grow rapidly as more
and more web services move over to tighter security models - the right
balance of openness and incentive to upgrade would be include ssl in the
free versions but easy stack level encryption in paid models.

This debate is parallel to the debate between different types of open source
license - GPL or more liberal licenses like MIT. In this debate there is a
trade off between encouraging businesses to adopt, and encouraging code to
flow back to the community. In this context RunRev are using features of the
engine to do the equivalent of what the GPL / MIT licenses do - the MIT
license allows you to lock your code additions away and not feed them back,
the GPL forces everyone to feedback.

The argument for removing the ability to password protect stacks is a good
one (thanks capellan) - but just like the GPL, the debate is open with
regard to whether it has a greater effect on stimulating the creation of
robust public domain/open source libraries than more liberal licenses.

For marketing reasons alone, whichever the choice of strategy, I've long
encouraged RunRev to adopt a clear open source strategy. A very clear signal
would be sent if they explicitly built in the ability to license and publish
code from within the editor. Allowing / disallowing certain features in the
engine can also express / help enforce the same policy - but it is more
important to work with the community and encourage clear licensing
arrangements.