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Opinions sought: should I open source Auspex?

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timns:
 :Thmbsup: great to hear. Anything else you'd like to see?

kyrathaba:
I love seeing this sort of thing. This is what makes DC so great (one of the things, anyway): someone has a slight problem with a months-old app, and lo and behold, the developer is still around, and willing to fix it!

Kudos to you, timns!

f0dder:
The project is written in Delphi and I would open all sources except the keyboard hook which will remain available only as a dll.-timns (April 04, 2012, 03:36 PM)
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What's the reason for that?

And if so, what sort of license model would work for this? I don't want some clod lifting the source code, re-badging and selling it on.-timns (April 04, 2012, 03:36 PM)
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Most open-source licenses don't really stop people from doing this - and even if they technically did, good luck enforcing it when you have a relatively small and unknown product. I think there's a lot of DC'ers that can remember a particular GPL ripoff happening here...

timns:
Well! Thank you for those kind words  :-[

40hz:
Seriously, why exactly would you want to open source Auspex? If it's for any reason other than to turn it over gratis "to all mankind" then don't do it.

I'm big on open source and the concepts and philosophy behind it. But I'm also a card carrying child of the 70s so my political and moral values reflect that - and, quite frankly, may not be as relevant to today's realities as they once were. Especially when it comes to computing and software.

One problem may also be it's written in Delphi. I don't know what sort of license goes with Delphi, but there may (or probably are) terms in Delphi's license that precludes you making it "open." As the FSF often reminds people, there's nothing in the GPL that overrides any other license terms you may be under as a developer. Which is why they try to keep the "tool chain" squarely within the realm of the GPL as much as possible - to avoid any issues down the road.

Best suggestion I could offer would be to find somebody who may be willing to take your project over,  work out your own deal or license with them, and forget about open sourcing it.

And if you ultimately do decide to "go open" with it (and Delphi's license allows you to), make it a point to assign ownership of your code to the Free Software Foundation. At least if you want to have any hopes an open license will be enforceable on it. As f0dder pointed out, a software license is only as good as your ability to enforce it is. Without a champion in your corner you, as an individual, have little hope of doing that.
 8)

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