Re: New open source UML tool including Ada support

[Markus E Leypold <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVETHIS@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de>]

> On Jul 10, 3:35 pm, Markus E Leypold
> <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
>> > On Jul 10, 6:08 pm, Markus E Leypold
>> > <development-2006-8ecbb5cc8aREMOVET...@ANDTHATm-e-leypold.de> wrote:
>>
>> > Well the Aonix press release states:
>>
>> >          "Under the new open source policy, Ameos is available
>> >           under terms based on the GNU Lesser General Public
>> >           License (LGPL) as OpenAmeos."
>>
>> > Which sounds promising to me! :-)
>>
>> Yes, _promising_. But at the moment there is only an executable, no
>> source. And I have been wondering about the license this executable is
>> under, since anybody getting it, can't resditribute it under the
>> LGPL/modified-whatever, because, well he hasn't gotten the source (and
>> probably not not LGPL license too, because that would guarantee him
>> the source).
>>
>> Murky legal questions are lurking there in the dark.
>
> It's not a big mystery unless people want to create one. We are simply
> making the sources publicly available under terms based on LGPL.

So there is no GPL version available. The available excutable is
free-as-in-beer and cannot be re-distributed. That's it. For the
moment.

>> I wonder why people do things like this, instead of just going public
>> when the source IS there. Or getting the press release right (saying
>> the're now free-as-beer but intent to go open).
>
> Are we evil or are we incompetent? One of the mysteries of life...

Ask me. Can you shed some light on the grammatical tense in the press
release: It's rather clearly present tense (Ameos is available")
whereas the source release hasn't happened yet (or didn't have
happened at that time), so should actual have been future tense, don't
you think so?

Actually I think (as much as I will thank you when the code is
available) that is a good reason not to get cute now ("are we evil or
..."), when I point out the apparent disagreement between press
release and actual fact.

>> As I interpret the terms of use: This version, presently available is
>> free-as-in-beer. What will happen in future, we will have to see and
>> the press release is at least 2 weeks early: "is available" should
>> better read "will be available" -- and I notice they give no deadline
>> for that either.
>
> We decided to put Ameos into open source, and we made certain sources
> available IMMEDIATELY to existing Ameos users on an as-needed basis.

Oh, I underststand. That wasn't what the press release suggested,
though.

> As such "is available" is not inaccurate. We also went ahead and

Look, I'm not intrested in a flame war at the moment, but a "well,
that was not quite right, sorry, but we're take pains to make it
happen as already announced" would perhaps be a better strategy to
handle that than trying to spin it as if you're just right and I
didn't just read or interpret the press release right. I hate it when
people try to distort the language. The press release unfortunately
says things that haven't happened yet. We all hope they will happen,
but until then I just _postpone_ judgement (instead of refraining
from it altogether).

> announced the open sourcing so other people would know about it. I
> don't want to debate press release semantics, but IMO this one is
> fine.

No, it isn't. "will be available soon" and/or "already has been made
available to selected users" would have be the correct
phrasing. Please don't argue about that: I'd hate to have to come to
the conclusion that Aonix had a general problem with veracity
concerning press releases, see our laster encounter in this group
concerning the "free availability" of the compiler. 

> Why the delay? The reality is that a couple components of the sources
> need to be "cleansed" of encumbrances before the sources can be put on
> the web site for general availability. 

You've my absolute sympathy and understanding conerning ther problems
in cleaning up and packaging formerly proprietary source. 

Please understand that my irritation is not related to the OpenAmeos
effort in itself which I find rather commendable and a big value for
the community, but rather mor with the (unfortunately again)
problematic wording of the press release,

> To be distinquished, this
> cleansed version is called OpenAmeos.

> This should happen within a few weeks. Unless you happened to have a
> burning need for Ameos sources RIGHT NOW, I wouldn't expect this
> interim period to be too painful for anybody. 

No, I can wait, as probably can most people.

> As you can see, the executable is provided for anyone with actual
> work needing to be done, and is indeed free as beer and will make
> you almost as happy as drinking free beer.

>> (Does anybody remember OpenDOS, the former DR-DOS: Should have become
>> available as open source, first they made a binary release, there even
>> was some (non-compiling) source code available for a very limited time
>> under a not-so-open license. Said they needed to clean up. And they
>> cleaned and cleaned and after a number of months (more than 12, I
>> remember), they (I think it even was Caldera) decided that OpenDOS was
>> an asset and they decide not to open it up. Wow. Cool publicity
>> stunt. Not that I say that is what Aonix intends, but after more than
>> 2 decades in the industry I believe only in deeds rather than
>> promises.)
>
> Quite frankly, I would not waste my time on such nonsense, but after
> two (and a half) decades in the industry, such cynicism doesn't
> surprise me. :)

I hope it doesn't surprise you in the sense of "I understand fromw
which precedences it comes from" instead of "I'm not surprise
considering the number of nonsensical talkers in the industry". After
all vapour ware press releases are nothing new and even well intented
open release initiatives run into trouble when cleaning up the source
(i.e. checking other peoples rights turns up deeply entangled
components that cannot be easily removed/replaced) and giev limited
resources and -- also not uncommon -- secondary priority get
postponed, first for a finite intervall, then longer, than infinitely
and that's it.

So you will understand that I believe in a source release when I see
the source (not earlier and I don't want to speculate about
probabilities) and that I believe in viablity of the project when I
see a community of 3rd party contributors forming around it. Not
earlier. (Indeed I'm mostly interested in how and wether it
is possible to add support for other OO languages to the backend).

> The OpenAmeos sources and LGPL license agreement will appear "soon" on
> the OpenAmeos.org web site. Please enjoy your free software, and free
> sources, which follow many, many years of hard work by many talented
> engineers.

Well -- I'm really looking forward to it.

Regards -- Markus