[mythtv] License

Myth TV mythtvmythtv at gmail.com
Wed Apr 8 06:59:36 UTC 2009


I do understand the open source movement, in other case I wouldn't ask
anything on this thread. It would be easier to take the code, use it and
saying or asking nothing to you, like many (yes, many) companies are already
doing. So don't judge somebody only because he's made a question to know
more about something. We've thought about some way of splitting our project
in two or more parts, for example, one using mythtv and released under GPL
too, but other separated and independent one that could contain our real own
development (the part that really make us different and better than our
competitors) and released privately. My question tried to get ideas like
this, or ways to do something similar, and to know if it's possible, because
if it wasn't, we would try something different and not using mythtv at all.

Please, don't talk about "the community" as a group of people working with
the only goal of helping the others, without any kind of profit, that's not
like that in a lot of cases. The idea of a single person working at home
only because his love for art is very romantic, but not true at all. You
should know there are a lot of development groups working on open source
projects and receiving public or government subventions, and private too.

*'Stealing' from the community is the fastest way to lose the good will
of the people you want on your side...*

I agree. There is nobody here trying to steal anything, a thief doesn't ask
a house owner's permission before steal it.

*Continuing this thread here is fairly worthless.*

Sorry, I didn't know you were who decide which thread is worthless and which
not.


On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 5:38 PM, Rob Smith <kormoc at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2009/4/2 Myth TV <mythtvmythtv at gmail.com>:
> > Well....it matters if you are planning to develop a commercial STB, and
> you
> > dont't want your competitors to take any advantage from your work or your
> > ideas. That's the reason why I start this thread, we want to do things
> > right, we know and understand what opensource movement represents and we
> > want to respect GPL licenses. But would prefer not to release our changes
> > source code because of what I've said before and we were wondering if
> > there's any way to achieve it.
>
> I don't think you do understand the open source movement. You're
> asking to take something the community has worked years on for free
> and to use it to better your personal goals without contributing back
> to the community. That's quite evil imho.
>
> If you did things right, yes, you would have to open source your
> changes, yes your competitors would be able to use them, but you would
> also be able to use your competitors, *and* you would be able to
> benefit from the community.
>
> I look at it like this. If you have to close off or horde some code to
> make your product special, you really don't have a specail product
> anyway. There's a pile of companies out there that are very successful
> with their open source projects because they bring something extra
> beyond the code, and that's worth the money. It might be hardware
> integration, or just customer support/services, etc.
>
> 'Stealing' from the community is the fastest way to lose the good will
> of the people you want on your side...
>
> For specific license questions, you really should contact the FSF
> (licensing at fsf.org). They have people who would know how to answer
> your specific questions on what you can and can't do legally.
>
> Continuing this thread here is fairly worthless.
>
> ~Rob
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