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[The following describes my reasons for giving out XmHTML for free]
Thanh Ma (tma@encore.com) wrote:
>
> Thanks for the reply. Here is another (dumb ?) question.
> I know there are quite a few commercial html widgets/help-apps out there,
> why yours is not ? Or because the motivation for writing these packages is to
> 'give out' ?-)
>
That's a good question. I can think of a bunch of reasons, starting
from idealism to ``let's make a better world'' ;-).
The idea for creating the HTML widget originated when I started
to read NCSA's distribution policy quite carefully, and I decided
it is a completely ridiculous policy (you might have read that on
the XntHelp pages somewhere). And NCSA's HTML widget is a rather
resource hungry one (not that all of NCSA's is bad, they have done and are
doing some pretty nifty pioneering). So I decided (IMHO ;-) that I
could do it better. I'm hoping that I can make that true. But
that doesn't really answer your question.
Let me sum up some of my reasons:
- First of all, the habit of giving out programs for ``free'' is
historical in the Unix world. It is one of the reasons what has
made Unix what it is today. And I would like to see it grow more
in the future.
- Second, I have seen a number of commercial programs which are
just too expensive for what they offer, and often I wonder how
these companies are able to get away with this. One of the answers
is that there is no competition (or not fierce enough), or that
these companies are soo damn big that they _can_ get away with
it. By giving out my own applications for free (but copyrighted),
I can offer users/programmers a cheap, but high quality, alternative.
And maybe some day this will be noticed by companies, persuading them
to pay more attention to the quality and price of their own
applications. (I now sounds a whee bit naive ;-)
- Third, (and this is a big reason), I am a huge Unix fan, and I
hate m$ for what they have done with Win95. They make it seem like
they have invented the wheel, while the truth is that what they want
win95 to be has since long existed under the name Unix. This
is something I have to live with. Now, one of the ways to persuade
people to switch over to Unix is to offer an OS that is easy to
use (easy adminstration tools), has a number of usefull applications
(including a desktop environment, word processor, spreadsheet and
a consistent help) and is cheap. (you might want to check the eXode
homepage: http://www.linux-kheops.com/line/html/exodeenglish.html).
Currently, the cheap OS is named Linux (or FreeBSD), and there are a number
of people busy with all of the above. And XntHelp is an application that
fits right in.
- Fourth, there is a small part in me that wants people to notice me and
my company. Writing and distributing quality programs for free might
persuade people and/or companies to do business with us.
- Fifth, the reason that I have choosen the LGPL/GPL is that
[the LGPL/GPL] is a license which cleary states what you can and can't
do with the library/application. The copyright is mine, other people
can modify it as much as they want (but must make that clear), and
it can be used in commercial programs (although no fee may be asked
for my library/application). Also, the LGPL/GPL are an almost standard
as it comes the Linux (and the FSF for that matter).
I think the above fairly well describes my reasons for giving out
my programs for ``free''.
Friendly Greetings,
Koen D'Hondt.
--
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