ANNOUNCE: Ice 2.0 released

[Anand Hariharan]

Marc Laukien <marc at zeroc.com> wrote in message news:<0YidnREmZ8xECDHcRVn-oA at speakeasy.net>...
> > 
(...)
> > Am interested to know, what "percentage" (*) of the code in your CVS
> > repository has been contributed by people other than the group
> > mentioned in the quote above?  Obviously, you do not allow anonymous
> > CVS write access.  Perhaps, one wishing to improve Ice (a freedom
> > granted by GPL) and who does not work for ZeroC has to mail his/her
> > improvements to your maintainers?
> > 
(...)
> 
> 100% of the Ice source code has been developed by ZeroC employees.
> 
> Note that this does of course not apply for third-party code that is 
> being used by Ice, such as BZIP2, Berkeley DB, OpenSSL, etc.
> 

Consider the *hypothetical* situation where an individual or a group
of people re-write large portions of Ice.  This could enhance the
value of Ice (obviously to some, if not all), or this could conflict
with the ideologies of Ice (again, not in everyone's point of view). 
How will ZeroC react to this?

I believe whichever road you take, ZeroC is going to find itself in
problems.  If ZeroC merges the changes made by this/these person(s),
how can ZeroC now sell it under a commercial license, as closed source
(violation of GPL)?  If you refuse to merge the changes, you have just
given them a strong impetus to fork.  History shows XEmacs and EGCS as
two such examples.

Guess what I am primarily interested in finding out is rooted in what
I said earlier:

> > Interesting to see this blend of GPL and an alternative for
> > closed-source software.

What were the ideas behind going the GPL way?  How did ZeroC plan on
benefiting from it?  Were there any qualms within ZeroC in going GPL?

Note that I am not saying GPL and commercial software don't go
together (I do believe though that LGPL and commercial software don't
go together).  I am well aware of Free software being "Free speech,
not free beer".

What if you did not provide Ice as a free download, but a price based
on your current licensing policy(*).  However, the download would give
one the complete source, and the freedom to modify and redistribute it
(at whatever price so long as the complete source code with the GPL
notice is released).
(*):  All of this is hypothetical.  Am not making a business
proposition here.

You do not, because that would discourage Ice from becoming
ubiquitous, from paving way for becoming a potential de-facto
standard.

Then, why not simply advertise Ice as being commercial (with unlimited
free trial plus source code)?  Doing so, would get you the extensive
peer review that you are currently benefitting from.  What do you gain
by going GPL?  The freedom to modify and/or redistribute is
(apparently) pretty restricted anyway.

> > PS:  Please feel free to set FU-Ts as appropriate.
> 
> What are FU-Ts?
> 

"Follow-up To:".  Most news clients will allow sending a post to
multiple groups, restricting any possible responses to certain groups
alone.  A poster who is replying can over-ride it, of course.

sincerely,
- Anand