Closed front, open back (was Re: ...Encouraging open code...)

cpaul at telemetrybox.org cpaul at telemetrybox.org
Mon Feb 11 03:51:40 PST 2002


On Sun, Feb 10, 2002 at 10:50:16PM -1000, Rod Gammon wrote:
> Aloha-
> 
> Please stash away obvious inopportune comments from the title...
> 
> What do you all think about 'stealth' intro of open source?  Also open
> infrastructure and closed content?
> 
> 1. I'm working (still) on an open dictionary server.  Post Nuke, Apache,
> Java, MySql & Postgres server for educational communities.  But the people
> making the educational content [have |are used to] Access.  So I'm rigging
> it so they can develop content in Access, dump to delimited text and then
> load to the open sourced server.  Any comments on this?  Part of my approach
> is the conception that MS Office is highly entrenched and also a pretty good
> tool for this development content.

I am having MS Access use ODBC to dump rows onto a Python/MySQL "staging server", from there it's processed/scrubbed by a Python script and inserted into the database proper.  The reason for the staging server is because (from what I have seen and heard) MS Access does not have support for database cursors, so atomic inserts can't be guaranteed (ie, getting the last auto_increment ID for indexing the other table entries).  Delimited text would be easier (in the context of my workload), but it would put the data entry folks in a bad way.  


> 1a. How far to go with open source?  For example I have a bunch of Java
> interfaces for representing dictionaries in a linguistically proper context.
> But I want to be able to sell something.  So I'm considering LGPL for the
> interfaces.  This will allow PHP access to the interfaces for all.  But then
> a proprietary implementation of an enterprise Java bean that actually
> persists and serves the lexicon.  Heresy? Expectably profitable? (In my own
> defense I'll also provide full GPL default, in memory implementations).

I have always wondered about GPL "GuiltWare" (ie, "Send the developer money or in 15 Days we shoot this Puppy.", "14", "13", "...", "1", "New Puppy.").  To my knowledge no Free Software coder aside from the author of Vim uses that model succesfully.  Are you in a position to sell support for your software?  Or is your software that good, so support will never be needed?

Good luck,
Charles



More information about the LUAU mailing list