Rekall Binary

[R.Marquez]

llothar at web.de (Lothar Scholz) wrote in message news:<6ee58e07.0401011433.5ce91221 at posting.google.com>...

> "The Kompany" wasn't able to pay the developer for month with non GPL
> software, why do you think they can do it with GPL now (if you say
> yourself that it will be less then in the BOS days) ?

Yes, I think the Kompany is in a difficult spot.  I think they waited
too long to release Rekall as GPL.  The reality today is that we live
in the shadows of a huge monoply.  Basically, the only way that I (and
many others) see to compete with an application that is part of that
monopoly is through Open Source/Free software.

I am not against closed source or proprietary software in principle
(except on the Operating System layer where I think that closed source
has no place since it prevents a level playing field).  I am happy
that developers have the choice.  But, until the grip of the monopoly
is relaxed, or Linux takes off, I see no point in trying to compete
with them that way.

There are already products appearing on the same space that are going
to give Rekall even more competition in the cross platform space (e.g.
Omins Studio, Kylix, etc).  I want to see Rekall succeed, mainly
because it uses Python.  So, at this point I think it would be better
for the developers to provide it for free and build up a loyal base of
users and bug/patch submitters.

> In fact i believe that a main stream desktop tool like "Rekall" has no
> future when it must live on support contracts only. If you need
> support then the product has an error, but i don't want to use
> errounous software. This is the reason why GPL does not work for a lot
> of software products.

I think Rekall has great potential.  With a little imagination and
creativity it could offer things such as a plug in mechanism that
would allow it to perform many things beyond the basics.  The
developers could offer some of these pluggins in a closed source
fashion if they chose, without alienating the rest of the Rekall
community, and without sacrificing quality.

Any way, this are my two cents worth.

-Ruben