Re: [Axiom-developer] Axiom meeting at ISSAC

[C Y]

--- Bill Page <address@hidden> wrote:

> > >  Thus, open Aldor ideally could make significant strides which
> > > would be available to the  commercial version, but the latter
> > > could "embrace and extend" the former, effectively co-opting this
> > > work and potentially draining open Aldor of its user and
> > > developer base.
> 
> Do you mean that volunteer developers should somehow be protected
> from competition with commercially-oriented developers?

I don't think he means that.  If I understand correctly the terms of
this license, any commercial activity around the code base can be
undertaken ONLY by those with the exclusive rights to do so.  With GPL,
it is possible to sell services related to the use of the software. 
Also, the provision "you grant Aldor.org a royalty-free license to use,
modify or redistribute your modifications without limitation" would
seem to be a blanket grant to Aldor.org exclusively to take everyone's
work and incorporate it into some future Aldor that shifts to a closed
source license again.

I understand why they have these terms in the license and that is their
right, but for me it is a non-starter.

> We do not know exactly what form a commercial license for Aldor would
> take but my impression from talking with Stephen Watt is that he is
> open to suggestions and proposals.
> 
> What prevents work contributed to Axiom right now from being abused
> in this way now?

The difference with Axiom in its current form is that ANYONE can make a
closed source product from the Axiom codebase.  That in turn makes it
less likely, because any commercial company who tries it may find
themselves up against a competitor tomorrow with almost the same
product to offer.  Aldor.org, in contrast, wouldn't face any such
competition because they have exclusive rights to take any work on
Aldor and incorporate it into their own commercial product.

The benefit to Axiom's current licensing setup, in my eyes, is that
ANYONE can use the code for anything they want to do.  With Aldor, only
Aldor.org may use the code for anything they want to do.

>From my standpoint, if the Axiom project starts to achieve results that
are new in the CAS/mathematical community it is to everyone's interest
that that work be used as far and wide as possible.  Anyone trying to
duplicate it would be an artificial waste of effort imposed by
licensing restrictions.  If MathCAD wanted to use Axiom as a foundation
for symbolic operations, that's great!  It would mean better quality
results for users of MathCAD.  It would be nice if they would
contribute back any fixes, and GPL/LGPL advocates would select that
license because it would guarantee those fixes would come back.  I'm
divided in my mind whether wide use of the mathematical abilities of
the code and trusting to a common sense of purpose is better than LGPL
- we want both wide usage and community involvement.

> > > The copyright holder  can argue that they earn the moral right
> > > to this option with the initial source release, but the point as
> > > I see it is that no volunteer should consider sinking in large
> > > quantities of time and labor in scaling a steep learning curve
> > > and improving the system for free if the system isn't effectively
> > > guaranteed a very long lifetime as a vibrant open source project.
> 
> Isn't that a problem with any open source project (even Axiom)?

Yes, but the licensing terms can kill that spirit from the outset. 
With Axiom, whatever happens, the original code base will be freely
available and can be worked on by anyone with the interest, ability,
and time.   Suppose the Aldor.org organization ends the community
version of Aldor, takes all modifications made to date, and beings
selling Visual Aldor or some such.  The community would be stuck,
because they would have to work only with the last open version of
Aldor and any work they did on it could go straight into the
proprietary version.  Aldor.org has no obligations to the community,
and the non-commercial clause means that no one can even try forming
their own commercial Aldor to help support the community version.  In
the case of Axiom, the latter is still possible.  And if a company
tries such a stunt, the open version of Axiom can shift to the GPL and
cut off the commercial company from any further community support if
they get too antisocial.  There's a balance of power.

> Ensuring that Aldor has a long (or at least longer) life is one of
> the motivations for making it publicly available in the first place.
> As far as I can see distributing Aldor freely for non-commerical use
> is the best possible guarantee of this.

Free for non-commercial use doesn't have too many examples of success
in the open source community.  Rather than worry about what constitutes
commercial use and how to get users when THEY need to worry about what
is commercial use, at least some people will just find a tool without
those complications.  For me this license is out of the question.  I
wish them well but I personally won't use Aldor with these terms.

> I think there are many possible motivations for volunteers and
> certainly sharing and collaborating with others is one of them. I do
> not really understand why you think the APL2 non-commercial use
> clause would make that any less likely.

A lot of open source work is funded by companies like Redhat that do
commercial things with open source software while giving all
modifications back to the community.  Aldor.org's license would prevent
any of this sort of activity, as I understand it.

It's about being part of the community, not just making use of the
community labor pool.

Cheers,
CY


       
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