Subject RE: [IBO] Open sourcing of IBObjects (or not)
Author Jason Wharton
Post date 2019-03-27T17:14:29Z

Carlos,
 
The change I am proposing would be to make it easier for people to be involved than it has been in the past.  I would continue as I do already to maintain and enhance the codebase, it would just be on public servers accessible to all, rather than on my private servers and available only on my permission.  And, so far, I have never denied anyone's request.
 
You are correct that it would require a rather steep learning curve for people to get deep into the internals of things and that it would be unrealistic to expect a thriving development effort to come out of nowhere.  I just want to make things more open, accessible and to give the usability of Firebird a boost. 
 
Also, I do not want the revenue that IBO sales generate to be diminished.  I really doubt it would be by making these changes.
 
Thanks for the continued input.
 
Jason Wharton
 

From: IBObjects@yahoogroups.com [mailto:IBObjects@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2019 11:04 AM
To: nimajo65@... [IBObjects]
Subject: Re: [IBO] Open sourcing of IBObjects (or not)

 

I have to agree with Magnus.

IBO is too complex to expect that just Open Sourcing it would make people to start helping in the development. More or less the same happens with Firebird, unfortunately.

IBO source code is already available even for Trustware licenses, and I never saw many people contributing with code and fixes.

[]s
Carlos H. Cantu
eBook Migration Guide to FB 3 - www.firebase.com.br/guiafb3.php
www.FireBase.com.br - www.firebirdnews.org


This emerged from other threads where Jason mentioned his thoughts about making IBObjects v5.x publically available as open source.
There have already been some replies and can possibly be a little discussion about this subject so I thought I start a new thread.
 
First let me say something about myself.
I have been on this train since the birth of Firebird and even though I do not have the habit of posting things either here or elsewhere I’m a regular participant on all Firebird gatherings so chances are that we have meet in person.
 
I have not yet decided what I think on this, but my first initial thought is NO in that I prefer the way it is now.
 
The source of IBObjects is rather complex and have many aspects to consider during development. Thus it requires a steady and firm hand to steer ahead. Not an easy task to enroll so if open sourcing IBO the repository has to be RO-access and Jason is required for the foreseen future as I see it.
 
Thanks to Jason’s openness and always thinking good things on people he has this Trustware License that at least I have never heard of elsewhere.
That’s how I started using IBO and later I become a full paying user.
All it takes is to ask Jason about it and you got, I have never heard of anyone that didn’t comply. 🖳📫✆
Along that, Jason has to my knowing always been willing to make the repository with sources available to who have asked, RO-access (with a few exceptions) of course but still.
 
So, even without having to put a dime for it, there has always been possible to get closely involved with the development.
I’m doing it since years, and I know others have as well. In fact I’m confident that Jason is encouraged by some of the discussions we have had, I remember that at one occasion the outcome was that a feature actually was reverted despite that it was a great deal of development involved.
I’m even preparing files with fixes and features for Jason to review as I write this.
 
With that said, I don’t see any difference how it is now except that Jason is taking a risk of losing income which in turn may affect quality of the code and future development and by that is affecting MY business.
Which leads to the question I would like to ask the members in this community using IBO for commercial development, how do you think this would affect YOUR business?

Regards,
Magnus Johansson