Post
Topic
Board Project Development
Re: Safebit Bitcoin Wallet - Bitcoin Evolved [UPDATE!!!]
by
Eli
on 08/08/2011, 12:06:07 UTC
It's not really open source in the normal sense of open source software unless you allow modification and re-distribution. The additional services can still be provided if people were to modify the software, right? And if people wanted to sue your additional services they'd use your version. I see no reason why you can't make this modifiable.

From Wikipedia.org:
Quote
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials.

It saddens me to see that people demand more when already given a lot.
Safebit is open-source so that people could validate that the code that powers the client is not harming them in any way. The reason that at this moment the license does not allow redistribution of the code is because I'm devoting a 6-8 hours a day on top of my regular day job in this project, and I don't have the resources or the manpower to launch this project properly before it is ready.
If the license would allow redistribution than someone else could use the code and invest the funds and resources that I cannot at the moment, and simply build a product out of something that I have started and trying to make a living off.

Open Source means only one thing - that the source is open for review and to play around, it doesn't mean that I should or must allow anyone to do what ever they want with it.

The other major reason why I don't think this project should have distribution rights to anyone but the main developers is the issue of fragmentation of software. I'm strongly against the notion of design-by-committee which in my eyes hurts the project in both the short and long terms.

The Safebit project is and will always remain open-source and free to use, if you really want to contribute to the project, and what you want is to make this project work, you can right now, without redistributing it. The only problem that people tell me about the license is that they can't create a new project using this code, and this is exactly what the license prevents.


I see no reason why you can't make this modifiable.

I'll say it again: You can modify it anyway you like, the only thing you can't do is post the code or your modified code under a different name or distribute it any other way than the main distribution channel for the project.