[openbeos] Re: OpenBeOS in competition with BeOS
- From: Peter Mogensen <apm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Helmar Rudolph <helmar@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2001 19:03:47 -0400 (EDT)
On Sat, 25 Aug 2001, Helmar Rudolph wrote:
> what happens if Palm says "Ok, Group X, you are awarded a licence
> to develop and market the BeOS"?
That's a good question Helmar and one I think the OpenBeOS project needed
to ask it self anyway.
I guess there's many different opinions here. I guess we all agree
about these two extremes:
1) Palm ignores us, keeps BeOS closed, take it apart to use BeIA in
some new Palm OS and never releases a BeOS R6.
Then we will: Code our own open source OS since no other major open
source OS is like BeOS. (How exactly we will do that is another
discussion).
2) If Palm made BeOS open (like OpenTracker or GPL), maybe letting us
do the task of removing licensed code under NDA.
Then most of us would forget about rewriting BeOS and work on
the original code.
In between that there's a lot of grey. The "Once bitten, twice shy"
certainly applies for some. Personally I've learned BeOS will be the
last closed source system I'll rely on. That is: If Palm decides to
keep BeOS closed, but commits to _continued_ support (More than just
releasing BONE and leave) then I'll still be here to support
BeOS. I'll most likely not care rewriting it as open source if it's
still _actively_ supported by Palm. That's not to say I wouldn't join
a project to write an even better open source OS. There's still many
thing BeOS could do better.
So, I'll support a closed BeOS, but BeOS is also the only exception to
the rule that in the future I'll only do open source. I'll never buy a
"BeBox" again!!
But of course, I'd probably work harder if "Group X" also released their
code on equal terms. It's still my spare time and I don't want any strings
on that. There will be times where I just find something better to do, if
I know I won't get anything back for the code I write. Not even code.
That's one of the reasons why I guess I'd prefer GPL.
regards,
Peter
Other related posts:
