Trying to make economic sense of open sourcing livecode

[Peter Haworth]

Apologies if this has already been discussed but I have a licensing question

Fast forward a few months, the code base is open source and the free
version of LC is available.  Someone adds a feature to to the open source
(not me, I have no C++ knowledge).  People using the free
version obviously have access to it.

Does RunRev have access to the code for that feature to include in the
commercial version of Livecode?  If so, do they have an obligation to
compensate the original author of the code?

Pete
lcSQL Software <http://www.lcsql.com>


On Fri, Feb 1, 2013 at 10:03 AM, Mark Schonewille <
m.schonewille at economy-x-talk.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> It is quite simple. Many consultants and companies will find it profitable
> to contribute to the LiveCode engine. RunRev can use these contributions
> and include them in the commercial version of LiveCode. This way, the
> commercially available engine will develop more quickly, which makes it
> more attractive to everybody and RunRev can sell more commercial licenses.
>
> As an economist, you know that co-operation between two parties allows
> them to have complete information, which makes the market more efficient.
> An open-source licence makes free exchange of information between all
> involved parties possible. Of course, this is only one of many possible
> explanations.
>
> Oh... btw I'm just trying to give you a clue. I don't mean to participate
> in an endless discussion on economic viability :-)
>
> --
> Best regards,
>
> Mark Schonewille
>
> Economy-x-Talk Consulting and Software Engineering
> Homepage: http://economy-x-talk.com
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/**xtalkprogrammer<http://twitter.com/xtalkprogrammer>
> KvK: 50277553
>
> Use Color Converter to convert CMYK, RGB, RAL, XYZ, H.Lab and other colour
> spaces. http://www.color-converter.com
>
> We have time for new software development projects. Contact me for a quote.
>
> On 14 January, we suffered severe server problems. If you tried to send an
> e-mail between 13 and 18 January and didn't get a reply, please try again.
>
> On 2/1/2013 18:48, Dr. Hawkins wrote:
>
>> I'll preface this with that I am quite familiar with open source, have
>> a Ph.D. in Economics, and published the first paper that actually
>> explained why and when open sourcing software or backing open source
>> solutions can make solid commercial sense.
>>
>> I'm not quite seeing that here.
>>
>> Apple really sells hardware, and distinguishes Darwin with OS/X on top of
>> it.
>>
>> IBM really sells served web pages, and would get no advantage, just
>> more costs, from a proprietary unix or server, thus massively backs
>> Linux & Apache.
>>
>> Is netscape really still around?
>>
>> Sun needed an office suite that would run on their unix, and wouldn't
>> be able to charge a larger total price for calling OpenOffice a
>> separate product; the market they saw was server + light workstations
>> + stuff to run.
>>
>> The closest I see is redhat's commercial side.
>>
>> But are there enough developers that would pay for support?  Some of
>> us (most?) will; the thousand or two a year is a small part of our
>> expenses if we're full time (and in my case, is one or two annual
>> licenses for my own product).
>>
>> Boosting sales of web serving (I don't see that working on the
>> commercial side, though; pricing, etc. isn't even close to competitive
>> for just serving, and how many *need* that extra bit of livecode
>> maintenance on the server?)
>>
>> I love the idea, and particularly the inevitable early open source
>> change of switching from single monolithic files to some sort of
>> revision control for our stacks.  And some of the customization I
>> would want.
>>
>> But I just can't see where the revenue stream that keeps livecode
>> around will be.
>>
>> hawk
>>
>>
>
> ______________________________**_________________
> use-livecode mailing list
> use-livecode at lists.runrev.com
> Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your
> subscription preferences:
> http://lists.runrev.com/**mailman/listinfo/use-livecode<http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode>
>