Open Source Question

Richmond richmondmathewson at gmail.com
Wed Feb 27 11:23:15 EST 2013


On 02/27/2013 05:58 PM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
> Richmond wrote:
>> Is it alright to use closed source and/or commercial software to produce
>> components used in Open Source software, for instance:
>>
>> 1. I produce something using the Livecode Open Source variant, but use
>> Adobe Photoshop to produce all the graphics.
>
> Graphics aren't bound to the executable code, so there's no conflict 
> with the GPL.
>
> That said, GIMP is a wonderfully capable tool, and with it's new 
> single-window UI is easy to work with and more than adequate for most 
> needs.

GIMP rocks; using it right now. I recently downloaded Adobe Photoshop 
CS2 for Windows (as Adobe very kindly gave it away) and ran it with WINE 
1.5.24 in Linux, thinking there would be some advantage - yet to see it.

The Photoshop example was a choice of commercial software that sprang to 
mind; and I really didn't mean just graphics; I meant
audio files, graphics, fonts, and anything else associated with a 
Livecode standalone for that matter.

A spreadsheet authored in a close source Office program?

A database file?

>
>> 2. I include a substack in my Livecode OS-authored standalone that was
>> made using the commercial variant.
>
> The GPL-governed Community Edition enforces its GPL requirements by 
> not being able to run stacks made with the Commercial Edition.
>

BUT . . . Presumably . . . one could copy-paste scripts out of a stack 
authored with the commercial edition into a homologue
of that stack set up using the GPL version?

This wouldn't be far different from converting a Hypercard stack.

I wlll return to my former role of "court jester cum gadfly" (as if I 
ever left it) until answers to some of these questions have been 
hammered out.

AND . . . what about Metacard? The IDE is now Open Source, but, at least 
at present, it requires the Livecode commercial engine to run:

does that mean that stacks authored with it, as it stands at present, 
are closed source, semi-open or open (or, perhaps, Worcester Sauce) ?

And; How on earth will a stack authored in, say, RR/LC 2 be marked so 
that Livecode GPL refuses to open it? Presumably in much the
same sort of way the last 3 stack formats are differentiated - something 
that can be easily circumvented as J. Landman Gay demonstrated
recently on my prodding.

Presumably scripts written by some end-user working with the commercial 
version don't mysteriously become covered by the closed
licence of the Livecode commercial engine once they are rolled into a 
stack . . .

. . . I tend to work my scripts out (or at least the bare mechanics of 
some of those 'orrible CASE statements) on bits of scrap paper;
and as such they are my property as much as they can be said to belong 
to anyone, I don't quite see how I lose control of the things
once they are pasted into the script-editor of some object.

Richmond.




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