Community:Forums some clarification

re: Community:Forums some clarification

Eric Newton — Sun, 17 Oct 2004 20:15:00 GMT

I have to agree with Jeff on the complexity of setting up .Text, which I assume is the same for the CS:Blogs...

And the asp.net forums for the most part employed an interesting way to do things, but it always felt like a hack to me.

I dont really wanna attack anybody on the issue of making money, I believe if you like the software, you should at least contribute a little for the continued developement of it... I consider it to be a project that I dont have to bug-fix, and when a newer release is made, I try to install it.

Sure, there were a few problems, but hey, even Microsoft Office had some problems...

Community:Forums 2.0.1 released

TrackBack — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 13:23:00 GMT

re: Community:Forums some clarification

Rob Howard — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 18:25:00 GMT

> tell us if the Forums source is under a License
Yes. Originally it was the Microsoft Starter Kit license, now it is under a nearly identical license for the free version and a separate commercial license for the commercial version.

re: Community:Forums some clarification

Rob Howard — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 18:23:00 GMT

re: Community:Forums some clarification

Rolando — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 18:10:00 GMT

Frans commented: "If it doesn't have a license, it means NOTHING is allowed, not even redistribution." I used to think the opposite but since he's a comercial software author he should know about this legal/copyright stuff. Maybe Rob can help with this subject and tell us if the Forums source is under a License. then we can can go on with the discussion of what could be done with the source code.

re: Community:Forums some clarification

Rob Howard — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 18:01:00 GMT

This is a little bit of a paper-tiger...

Andrew's point is accurate:
> consensus of perception

We have a free version that comes with all the source code. There are 2 differences between the free version and the commercial version:
1. The commercial version comes with 30 days of support
2. The commercial version doesn't require the display of a 'powered by' logo at the bottom of every page.

The commercial version costs $129 (U.S.). We have retained, acquired, or have been granted all rights to the code.

We're not back to true OSS yet. We're trying to get there, but frankly there is a lot of organizational work to be done on our end to make that work again.

If you want to talk about hijacking, talk about Lucene (who we were considering using). We are not doing that -- we include ALL of the source in all versions.

We're trying to find the balance between paying bills and taking these applications to the next level -- somehow that seems to be getting lost in all of this :(

re: Community:Forums some clarification

AndrewSeven — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 17:17:00 GMT

I think I agree with Jeff and Frans

Scott's cv mentions the origins.
http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/ScottMitchell.shtml

I don't know what kinds of licenses there have been on the various versions, but the only people I have heard of (there may be many others, I dont know) working on it is Scott, Rob and the Asp.Net team.

I have no idea who is right, but MS has lots of lawers and even if we come to a consensus about feeling it is the legal situation that will hold up.

The flip side is that communities are more about a consensus of perception than truth or legality.

re: Community:Forums some clarification

Rob Howard — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 17:02:00 GMT

> DOES Telligent have the copyright of the code
> of asp.net forums

Excellent point! Yes, this is something we have taken care of.

re: Community:Forums some clarification

Frans Bouma — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:37:00 GMT

So who's the first to post this to Slashdot? :)

Please, people, READ something about copyright law. Unless Rob has copyright on all the code, he will get trouble when the code is sold as a package, i.e.: he will then sell stuff he doesn't own, something which CAN turn out to be the worst thing a company can possibly do.

So, the simple question is: DOES Telligent have the copyright of the code of asp.net forums and if not, do they have permission from the authors to sell the code? (f.e. when the code is BSD licensed).

If it doesn't have a license, it means NOTHING is allowed, not even redistribution. And before someone asks: why is this important? if everyone starts selling other peoples work without permission, we'll kill our own profession. As a persion who has suffered from code theft in a similar fashion in the past, it is very important this issue is solved and it's not solved by simply saying "they can do that" or "they have the right to do so because ..." and other BULLSHIT I've read in the reactions and blogs about this topic.

re: Community:Forums some clarification

Scott Galloway — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 16:13:00 GMT

Who said they *were* GPL? Also it's not as if GPL is not the only form of Open Source license around - far from it! For instance, WTL (the Microsoft C++ template library) is licensed under the Common Public License on Sourceforge http://opensource.org/licenses/cpl.php . Of course it's up to the guys at Telligent to determine which licensing model they want to support; personally, I think they *should* support some for of license which prevents people charging for commercial products based on the source wihout authorisation & inclusion of the original license since that essentially rips off all the contributors to the original projects - ASP.NET Forums 2.0 was, remember contributed to by a number of non-MS developers...but that's just me.