Tunes ballot

[Francois-Rene Rideau]

>> Dear Joyous Tunespeople,
>>    I know it seems ridiculous to talk about that
>> when the project is not advancing,
>> but after an exchange of articles on comp.os.misc,
>> I was convinced that the project could benefit
>> from being released under the GNU Copyleft
>> (General Public License, version 2),
>> as this would prevent any further problems
>> with possible money sharing among distributed members,
>> and would allow us to freely steal code from, say, Linux.
>
>   Just my two cents - I wouldn't use the GNU license if my life depended
> on it.  Richard Stallman's philosophy is explicitly Communist - don't
> sanction his ideas by having anything to do with GNU.

   I admit I profoundly dislike many aspects of RMS' ideas,
though more on technical grounds than on political ones.
In any case, I would not call his political ideas communist,
but rather libertarian (as for the GNU manifesto).
   Now, the GNU GPL has proven a good way to distribute software
that is used far beyond the "GNU project" itself,
by people whose political views are completely different from M. Stallman's.
And even if it wasn't used by such people, there isn't any reason
why we should be the first such people to do so:
we use the GNU GPL as a technical way to distribute software,
and not as a rally flag to the GNU project.



>   As to borrowing code from Linux, if you're thinking in terms of
> using Linux code to write a "UNIX Emulator" for Tunes, then there's
> nothing stopping you from doing that.
   Yes, but not only:
it would be stupid to think plpenty of people will be rewriting
yet another driver for every single hardware board in the world,
just because there are good ideas behind Tunes.
My intent is we use the Ctranslator subproject to steal all
the device-driving code from Linux, BSD, VSTa, et al,
because there's so much of it, that already works well.
Of course, whoever uses blindly translated code
will have to be aware of potential bugs.
Nevertheless, code will potential bugs is better than no code at all,
you can modify it thanks to the GPL.

> And personally, if it were
> me writing a new OS from scratch (and when I have a steadier income,
> it will be :), I wouldn't use any code from any existing OS - it's
> hard enough breaking the mold of outdated concepts without trying
> to borrow them to make your work easier. For something like you're
> trying to do, you need to (even though it's more work) forge ahead
> with a clear, consistent vision, unmuddied by remnants of the past.
   I half-agree with your statement:
the general design should effectively be a clear, consistent vision,
that doesn't make any concession just for the sake of "compatibility".
Still, we shouldn't *systematically* call remnants of the past "mud";
sure, most of it sadly is,
but if we reached the present point in civilization and technology,
it is precisely because in this mud lie diamonds
that appear as the mud is cleared away by time.
   So as for borrowing code, particularly from device drivers,
this doesn't frighten me, all the more as it is meant as an expedient way
to quickly provide support for various hardware,
while developping more generic tools to recycle all code into
code usable on the new platform.

>   What I might do in your case is contact a lawyer and have a different
> legal document written up, something to handle disbursement of revenue.
> Since you're in charge of the project, and you will presumably write
> the most code and be responsible for supporting and advertising it,
> you should get the responsibility (and benefit) of handling the income.
> If someone wants to freely donate time to you, then that's fine. Once
> you have a working (even simple) system up, a much better solution
> (IMO) would be to seek venture capital to hire full-time staff
> to develop the system further.
>
>   Millions of dollars are being made off of Linux - but Linus, the main
> force behind the system, is getting none of it, except the occaional
> table scrap of a donation.  Don't make the same mistake.
   You sure may be right about this.
However, at this stage of the project, I feel doing all these
would be "Vendre la peau de l'ours avant de l'avoir tue"
(selling the bear's hide before to kill the bear):
let's rather write something interesting and prove we're on the right way,
before to share the millions that don't exist yet,
and engage any lawyer expenses about it.
When the project is advanced enough, sure it may be time to change
the distribution policy for part or all of further releases...

   Thanks for your fine suggestions. Please tell me if I missed some point,
and if any interesting legal document other than the GPL already exists
that we might want to use.

--    ,        	                                ,           _ v    ~  ^  --
-- Fare -- rideau@clipper.ens.fr -- Francois-Rene Rideau -- +)ang-Vu Ban --
--                                      '                   / .          --
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