Re: [DotGNU]DotGNU Manifesto - Draft Version 0.3

[James Michael DuPont]

--- Norbert Bollow <address@hidden> wrote:
> > That should be also a clear roadmap as to what is useable 
> > from the dotgnu system from a lgpl perspective. What parts can I
> use in
> > a non-free system. 
> 
> As a rule of thumb, DotGNU should allow LGPL-style access to all
> functionality that one would reasonably expect a CLI+webservices
> platform to have.  Functionality which goes beyond that should be
> GPL'd.

That is fair. That is what I mean by a roadmap. We need to show what
the rules are.

> 
> The reason is that whenever that is possible without harming the
> viability of DotGNU as a platform we should do what we can to help
> Free Software apps increase their competitive edge in comparison to
> proprietary alternatives.
> 
> For a more detailed explanation, see
> 
>   http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html

I know all about this.

> 
> > What parts of the dotgnu can I use to work with even even a
> competitive
> > product to dotgnu? Lets say that I want to use a job queueing
> system
> > from microsoft. (bad example), but what interfaces are supported
> that
> > allow a plug and play exchanging of dotgnu parts?
> 
> If the vendor of the proprietary "job queueing system" that you want
> to use is unfriendly to DotGNU, then the only way to interoperate
> with
> it will be through any webservice protocol interfaces it may provide.

I dont think that many system provide any webservices. I am talking
about c interfaces.

> 
> Besides GNU policy reasons, there are also business strategy reasons
> why it would be a bad idea to try to support the use of a
> Microsoft-made
> components as a plug-and-play replacement for a DotGNU components: 
> With
> the next security bugfix for that component, Microsoft could easily
> introduce some code that relies on some undocumented quirk of
> Microsoft's platform.  This monopolistic company certainly isn't
> above
> such tactics.  According to [1], in the earliest days of the IBM PC,
> when Lotus was still more profitable than Microsoft, an internal
> Microsoft motto stated "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run", and
> they
> put some hidden bugs into DOS 2.0 that caused Lotus 1-2-3 to break
> down when it was loaded.

Ok. So the plan is to make a monolithic system? 
My point is just that we might want to put dotgnu into a non-free
environment. The whole idea of selling dotgnu means that it has to be
able to fit into a hostile environment.

mike



=====
James Michael DuPont
http://introspector.sourceforge.net/

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