Community (A Modest Proposal)

[Stephen Hansen]

On 6/13/10 8:42 AM, rantingrick wrote:
> However, if the ivory towers continue to pretend that the rest
> of the Python community does not exist well then they will force my
> hand, and i will start a fork. Then we will have a sort of ironic
> situation... the very people who rail *against* me (and others) would
> actually be working *for* me unwillingly but without recourse. he-he
> Yes, as you've said "karma *is* a bitch" ;-)

There is nothing ironic about it.

They will not be working for you; and they will not actually care in the
least that you have forked the code. They will not mind. They will not
be hurt, hampered, threatened, or in any way inconvenienced. They will
continue to do what they always have done. Volunteer to a project that
they care about.

The terms of that volunteer donation is that the work is open source;
not just open source, but open source with a very liberal license, that
says anyone can do basically anything they want. Including package it up
in a commercial application and make millions without ever giving
anything back, if one so chooses.

They know the license. They are fully aware of the terms by which they
do their volunteer work. They don't care what you do with it.

Its yours to use as you please.

Welcome to Open Source (not to be confused with Free Software, where
they don't care what you *do* with it, but do care that if you share it,
you share it on their terms-- note this statement is intended to be
taken as a neutral statement and not a condemnation of one over the other).

-- 

   Stephen Hansen
   ... Also: Ixokai
   ... Mail: me+list/python (AT) ixokai (DOT) io
   ... Blog: http://meh.ixokai.io/

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 487 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/attachments/20100613/8ff16198/attachment-0001.sig>