Re: [XaraXtreme-dev] Ping

[Alex Bligh <alex@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jed,

> I can certainly understand the frustration that I sense in your email but
> I  think Rob is right on all points. I can't foresee a lot of community
> support  as long as you or MAGIX or any future owners of the code can
> essentially  cripple the project by deciding to halt distribution of the
> binary.

To be clear, Xara or Magix could NOT do this (as I understand). The binary
is out there in the wild. It has a "free as in beer" license on it, which
as I understand it is irrevocable. What they could do (I'm not saying they
would do, but they could) is not distribute further changes to the source
code for the open source bit, or not distribute further binary changes
to the existing CDraw binary, and/or develop the source code in such a
way that it became incompatible with the existing binary. But the current
GPL version is out there, and will always be out there - it can't be
"unreleased".

For what it's worth I am a bit frustrated too (my code contributions are
done on a volunteer basis, in case that isn't obvious). There have not been
a plethora of similar volunteers coming forward to contribute code. It is
less fun working on a project when there are few others working on it. I
appreciate that for some people this down to the CDraw license, though I
don't think that's the only issue for everyone. On a personal basis, I've
had far less time recently, though that situation is slowly improving.

Alex