Re: 1999 Swarm survey results: available online [extra bonus question!]

[Marcus G. Daniels]

>>>>> "WS" == William S Shu <address@hidden> writes:

MD> 4) We can arrange alternative licenses for groups that distribute
MD> (e.g. sell) models, but can't afford to distribute the source code
MD> to their models.

WS> How close to the LGPL would this be?

It would be a traditional commerical software license.  If you wanted
to enhance Swarm with proprietary features, and sell them, you could
do that.  (The LGPL disallows that.)

WS> and how easy would it be to acquire?

It would be easy to acquire: you just write a check.  ;-) 

In any case, we would not make exceptions for the [L]GPL unless it
meant we could fund significant development using the revenue (for the
public release).

MD> Whatever comprimises we (via the LGPL)
MD> make for industry users, it doesn't seem to be making a
MD> difference in terms of getting industry participation.

WS> My suspicion is
WS> that a java front-end reduces the (invisible?) cost of using Swarm; it just
WS> might pay off to hold out a little longer.

For clarity, I'm talking about two kinds of participation:

  1. Contributed development work
 
     The thinking with the LGPL is that industry participation won't
     occur unless there are no strings attached and no costs. 

     There are a few instances of bug fixes and feature additions
     being done by our industry users but nothing on the scale of new
     libraries.  (However, new libraries have been implemented by
     academic users.)

     Some industry users might continue to use a GPLed Swarm because
     their models are used only in-house.  Futher, the GPL lets
     industry users develop a product without an investment in Swarm
     itself.  Of course, the resulting product would have to be freely
     redistributable with source unless they paid their way out of the
     GPL.  E.g.

  2. Money

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