jtclipper: until you understand the essence of the issue at hand, I will ignore your posts in this thread, since responding to them will only add to the noise. I recommend everyone else consider this.

-- CD

Yeees. It should have. And guess what Miriam is doing? He's coding fast and furious to add features that, eventually, will lead to an EncSpot alternative.

As far as format support goes, MrQ is already years ahead of EncSpot.

Since we both agree with that I would like him to be a little bit less of an egoist do the work first and then try to be a real author.

P.S
About punctuation I am at work right now answering phone calls of clients I have no time for that..
And about dignity nice word look it up sometime and share with the miriam guy.

JTClipper, I don't believe I've seen such an anxious and spirited series of posts such as yours in quite some time. I know that you yourself are a brilliant coder, and you have been so kind as to offer a great utility for all of our usage. The Godfather, however, doesn't appear to be released under an open source license. If this scenario happened to your program, it would be very understandable for you to feel this way, as this behaviour would NOT be permitted. Mr. QuestionMan, however, seems to be released under an LGPL license, which implies that the author had in mind others continuing the development of the program. This is allowed, and is in fact the entire purpose of such a license. You are not Gambit, and it's interesting to note that he has not yet said anything here.
Even your program, though entirely your own, borrows routines from other people, and uses libraries that you yourself did not write. You request donations on your website.

I believe you are justified in doing this. Do you?





Finally you actually offer somewhat constructive suggestions. These are ideas that could help Miriam out, rather than just piss him off, or the like. I appreciate this!



P.S.
I'm afraid my dignity is worth slightly more than 2 cents. And yes, I do plan on becoming involved in politics and law in the future, but I am currently woefully uneducated in such matters.

I don't see how asking for a few donated bucks can be considered egoism, but you have already proven your rationalization processes are different from everyone else's...



Go back to work then. It'll only do good to this thread.

And if you are working for an employer: shame on you for stealing him and using your work time to post at internet forums. That's very egoistical.

I am on the phone as i write this so I am still getting my money's worth.

maybe you should get a life or work as well ?

And yes it is rather egoistical or I do not know how to call it I have to use greek here... anyway

I have both, thank-you

And I worked on my attitude issues a long time ago. You, OTOH, should go see a shrink.

geez, someone splitt all this already

This is my last response to this topic. After that I will no longer comment on this issue ever again.

I'm deeply disappointed, personally offended and f*cking mad angry about all this.

I have released the sources in my deep belief that the community will prosper from that. That a community effort could improve it, that new coders can learn from the code like I have learned from open source projects in the past.

I did not release it, so that a single person can take advantage of it. I admit that was my mistake. I guess I'm just very naive, because I didn't expect that there is somebody who has the gall and arrogance to come and just cash on the YEARS of efforts of others.

It took me some time, but I accepted the existence of Mr QuestionMan ME. And I thought that maybe we could get over the bad start and things could improve in the future. But seeing what happened now is just mind boggling.

Of course, legally speaking, Miriam has all the rights to ask for donations.

But from a human, ethical, common sense perspective, this is just blatantly DISRESPECTFULL, OFFENDING and a smack in the face of Jurgen Faul, Böreck, ErikS, madah, jtclipper, vlads, sundance, e-w@re and Jean-Marie Prat and me.

Those people have spent the last FIVE years creating the code that is used in MrQ. I have spent the last two years maintaining that code and would NEVER EVER have the impudence to ask money for that code. I even moved it to SF so that there are no hosting costs that somebody would have to take care of. Of course it's OK for an author to ask for donations for his work. But the key word here is "his". I personally, can't ask for donations for my work, PayPal is not available in my country, that's why there is no Donate button on my Burrrn page. Will you, Miriam, split your donations with the other authors of the code you're using? I'm sure nobody minds if you get the money they deserve. Who cares about money anyway, right? It's sooo unimportant in our society...

And I have to defend jtcliper. Of course he is outraged, as anybody who understands the essence of this problem would be. He warned me of open source, and what could happen. Nevertheless I have convinced him to submit his own code to the ATL. And now his own code is involved in all this. So I fell guilty and I'm sorry that you got dragged into all this jtcliper.

Shit happens. I have learned from this. As a result, I'm done with open source. I don't know yet what will happen with the open source projects that I'm maintaining, but there will be no more OS code from me. God, if I imagine that I was considering to release the Burrrn sources...

I understand that users, don't care about all this. They just want a better product. But with all respect, this is an issue that only coders can understand.

There are also some misleading comments from Miriam that I have to respond to.



What do I say about that? I say the truth:
Mr QuestionMan 0.6: 511 KB of .pas files
Mr QuestionMan ME 0.7 alpha 1: 573 KB of .pas files

And we know what kind of code that was, and how your code/bugs ratio is...



You have sent me a copy and a link to your post on HA. You have NEVER personally talked to me directly. I guess you can't see me straight in the eyes. I couldn't if I was you, but then again, I have a conscience...

That's everything I have to say. If anybody wants to respond to this, please go ahead. But please make sure you know what you're talking about and that you understand where the problem is. If you just want to reply because you have to be a dick and get involved in everything for the sake of it, please consider rather shutting up. And since I'm so honest this time, yes I mean people like you rjamorim. You are really good at getting involved in things you have nothing to do with, you are good at offending people and this board already lost enough valuable members because of you. So please think about what you say. Maybe there are some topics you could stay out of.

Gambit

I don't really understand Gambits response, I must say.

"I have released the sources in my deep belief that the community will prosper from that."
And so we have. That's the essence, the beauty of open source.

"I did not release it, so that a single person can take advantage of it."
I don't see it as a single person, he's just the first. There might come many more. Any citizen on the globe can do what he did.

"I guess I'm just very naive, because I didn't expect that there is somebody who has the gall and arrogance to come and just cash on the YEARS of efforts of others."
Well, yes, that was very naive.


If Gambit is as upset as it seems about this, then he has gravely misunderstood the concept of open source.

From the beginning. Misunderstandings are actually everywhere on his post. I won't bother commenting, but the curious ones will have several hours of fun picking up pearls there, guaranteed.

Well, I don't really understand why everybody is so upset. I mean, yes, it was crappy from Miriam to come, modify the program a bit and then ask for donations so soon, but what's the deal? He doesn't force people to pay the money. If you donate, fine, if not, still fine. From the legal point of view, he didn't do anything wrong.
I guess the reaction would've been different if Miriam spent some more time adding new features and then ask for money, but he did the mistake placing that button on his website now.

Anyways Gambit and other coders who worked on ATL and Mr QuestionMan... Please don't take this as an insult towards you. I do not want to defend Miriam since I am not on his side - in fact, I am on nobody's side. I think it is a bad decision to stop working on open source software just because one person done a mistake. It surely isn't motivating, but that's open source - the freedom to do whatever you want with the code. Some people make money off it, some people learn and give their knowledge to others.

Wow. I can't believe the sh*tstorm that resulted from all of this. One thing I can say for sure is that watching all this has been very enlightening for me. It shows some interesting examples of just what can happen with open source.

I guess it has become clear to me that if you want authoritative control of your code, and have ethical issues with it being modified and used for the gain of others, then open source is not for you. Also, one should be very explicit about the license that they grant others in regards to use of their intellectual property to prevent this kind of thing from happeneng, and understand the implications of this license in advance.

Miriam may be greedy... but our society tends to reward greed, so I can't blame him. If we aren't at least a little greedy, we will starve to death, and then we can't contribute a whole lot to society, can we? It's not like he's being destructive - he is offering free service to others. One thing that I hope Miriam, and all of you understand is that whatever you give comes back to you. If you give your time, others will ultimately give you theirs. If you give your money, you will ultimately receive more back. If Miriam does make any reasonable amount of money, I hope that he will see fit to help out the authors of the software that his work builds upon.

That is why I often donate money to others. Gambit did some great work, there is no question about it. The bottom line is that it was actually Miriam who implemented the features that made MQM useful to me. His willingness to listen to my suggestions, and his dedication to advancing the project has earned him some of my money.

There are so many examples from history like this, of great ideas that were very close to becoming viable products or business models, but someone else had to put that little bit of extra work or thought into it, or come up with that one groundbreaking idea before it was a success. There are many individuals who are brilliant engineers or inventors, but lacked people skills or didn't market effectively. I can't speak for the rest of the world, and I know that Miriam is not American, but this is kind of the essence of capitalism, and is how things work, like it or not. Sometimes it hurts, no doubt, but that is the way it is.

It will be very interesting to see, in the coming years, how open source software licensing schemes mix with new software business models and general business ethics.

Greetings again!


You are the one misleading, as you include the size of the ATL, which, judging from a wider perspective is just a component (like many others - e.g. the ones from Delphi itself) upon Mr QuestionMan is built.


Actually there are not quite much bugs and those who were, were generally minor.For an alpha stage, I find the application quite stable, bug-free. Keep in mind that for AI, alpha means feature uncompletely, not unstable.


Actually, I've sent you something like:
>Greetings Gambit!
>Actually, I'm really sorry about the situation created, and I wanted
>to publicly express my appologies to you.
>As I've stated in this topic: bla bla
I expected to receive at least a short reply: "Ok, I forgive you. Bye!", but, dissapointingly received no reply from you nor a reply on the thread regarding that situation.


I have a conscience too. You see, I didn't steal your work, I gave you all the credits needs to be given (About, Installer, preserved original © in files etc.)
I really don't get it - why are you so upset?
Open-source mean sharing, open-source mean progressing. I didn't perceived any fees for AI, as I stated on my page, it is open-sourced freeware and will stay so.
Now, what's the real problem? That donate button? Well, nobody holds you to add a such button on your webpage, if you consider so. Actually, I didn't make any noise about donation -- that's all, those who want to donate - donate, those who don't, don't. Clear as the light of the day.

In the final:
Gambit, I hope these were just some angry-spoken words.
I hope you come upon your decision and do not abandon open-source. That will be a loss.
As you see, open-source is good -- it helps software go on.
As you can take some ideas from AI and implement in Mr QuestionMan, it's a win-win situation.

Vlad.

Wow, you're very dense and arrogant, Miriam. It'd be very little effort to recognize there was an outcry as the result of your request for donations and remove the offending element.

And you continue to insult:



"Mr QuestionMan like". Now there's no mention that it's derived from MrQ.

Anyhow, I'm done with this. I have the desire to put the effort into backporting AI's code into MrQ and removing all of those asinine donation comments. I may just do so.

I just wonder, why some of you people start again talking about the same, which was discussed in this splitted thread:

http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....opic=32794&st=0

All this is just messing this thread...

He already explained his reasons, and lots of people judged the way he asked for donations appropriate. I don't see the point of removing it.



It's mentioned everywhere else (about box, home page, etc.). Quit your bitching and nitpicking already.



Just to remove anything related to donation and not improve the code in any way? What a worthy purpose!

Also, did you ask if Gambit wants that code in MrQ? From his several comments about bugs and unwanted features, I'd believe he's not interested in it.

Or are you interesting in creating yet another fork?

Can any of you tell me what the problem is?

Didn't Miriam include the original copyright notice? Didn't he said that his program is a fork and it's an addition to Mr QuestionMan? Didn't he use the name "Mr QuestionMan ME" to show that it's his version of the original Mr QuestionMan? Doesn't he continue to release the program as open source and under the same license?

The only thing which is wrong in my opinion is that asks for money so soon. But even that isn't such a big deal since donations are something you do because you want to. Nobody forces you to do so.

Like watching a car crash...

Gambit, I am a really fan of your work and I use it on a daily basis but you are really dellusional here. So is it ok to use someone elses code and advertise a program as yours (like you did with MrQM) but is not ok to use your code (apparently it isn't really your code since you stated in the quote above that you used code created by other people in your app) and ask for donations??

Doesn't make sense....

Anyway, enough is enough and a moderator should move these offending posts to the recycle bin....

If it isn't immediately apparent why the situation isn't ethical, then there's no way I'll ever be able to teach you. The people who'll best be able to empathize are fellow coders. I'd advise people without experience producing programs to avoid comment; they don't understand the nuance of it all.



And many people judged the situation inappropriate.



I would consider my actions ethically justified.

I'm graduating in CS, and produced lots of crap, so I guess I can grasp most of the nuances...



Right. So you have a deadlock. In that case, I would just let Miriam decide what to do.

I am a coder, too, and still don't get the point why everybody is so upset.

To both people who just quoted me: did either of you read the first sentence of that paragraph? The rest was just attempting to narrow down the scope of the commenting.

Yeees. And I don't think our ethos are precisely the same.

The confusion stems from Mr. QuestionMan being released under the LGPL license, which Gambit should have avoided if he didn't want such a situation to arise. This is the root problem. Nothing that can be done about it now.

Yes. So, could you be so kind and try to explain what exactly you mean to us normal mortals?

An alternate, somewhat simplified version is: the original coders expected no money to be asked for their work. Miriam is now requesting donations.

Although they have no legal right to request that he cease the donations thing, they feel angered that he refuses to ask their opinion, refuses to acknowledge their will over their code, and refuses to care at all about how the direction they feel the project should take. His frank disrespect for their position is what angers them. It is also what incenses me.

Well, if that's the problem, Gambit should really stop coding open source tools since it won't help any of us.

Synopsis: The inclusion of a donate button by Miriam on his page for his work on Audio Identifier, a fork of Mr QuestionMan, is regarded as offensive by some, including the original author, Gambit, since the program is largely based on the work of others who did not ask for money. Apparently, the wish for some financial gain by Miriam when the other authors, who have contributed much more than him, do not wish for it (or have not dared to ask for it), is a violation to an implicit vow of disinterested altruism: since they don't want money from it, nobody can, much less someone who has contributed so little in comparison. Given that the legal license does not forbid what happened, the issue is just moral in nature, and ultimately depends on the ethical values of the people involved.

Now, could someone please split-merge the off-topic comments into the previously split thread?

The code is released under the LGPL, which makes their will over it very clear.

They should know that would happen when they released it under the LGPL.



They gave up all will over their code when they released it under the LGPL.



<repeat>


Thankfully, such bru-ha-ha doesn't happen everywhere on the open source world. I can't even picture the eMule authors getting worked up and ranting over modders asking for donations (that happens a lot).

Why not let the users decide whether or not they want to donate? It is something voluntary. Miriam doesn't force anyone to pay. He doesn't offer a Pro version which is shareware or whatever. If you think that his effort is worth 5 €, donate 5 €. If you think he diserves 100 €, donate 100 €. If you think he is a bastard and his work isn't worth a Penny, either don't use the software at all or use it but don't donate.

Not necessarily. They weren't asked about anything, at all.

Yes, the LGPL allows for this situation to occur, it's just that the author didn't figure Miriam would be such a total asshole about it.

Let's put things straight: the author didn't figure absolutely anything about the LGPL. And that's the source of this huge mess.

He should have known stuff like that happens all the time in the open source world.

... some people just don't get license ...

Mr QuestionMan is NOT an Open Source Freeware ...

Mr QuestionMan was a Freeware EULA (End User License Agreement) Cardware & now Mr QuestionMan is a Free Software LGPL

An Open Source Freeware is very different from LGPL, for exemple HydraIRC is/was (last time I checked it was) an Open Source Freeware ... It's a proprietary software free of charge, & of charge only with its code freely available but not freely modifiable ...

If Mr QuestionMan was an Open Source Freeware Miriam would have no right to do what he has done ...

obviously Gambit should have made Mr QuestionMan an Open Source Freeware,
instead of LGPL that's his mistake because an Open Source Freeware is NOT a Free Software ... you keep all public control of your source ... Miriam's AI tweak would have been for it's own private use only without the agreement of Gambit if Mr QuestionMan was, like Miriam is saying, an Open Source Freeware ...

Don't mix Open Source with Free Software, a proprietary soft can be open source ...

Edit for rjamorim: Open Source here = code is free to download only ... here Open Source is not a synonymous of Free Software, that's why I say don't mix the 2 ...

An Open Source Freeware is a very rare thing ... generally developpers that are open to external contribution ask for an email before granting access to their code ...

There is not hundreds of licenses around ...

There is the window's world:
Proprietary Software - EULA Freeware For All Use
Proprietary Software - EULA Both Free & Shareware Depending On Use (Private Vs. Public Use)
Proprietary Software - EULA Shareware For All Use

There is the Linux' world:
Free Software - General Public License
Free Software - Lesser General Public License
Free Software - Berkeley Software Distribution
Free Software - Mozilla Public License
Free Software - Xiph's Variant of the BSD License
Free Software - Python Software Foundation License

There is no need to know them all by heart ... I don't ...
but there is 3 big type of softwares any developper should clearly differenciate :

1- Proprietary Software - EULA Sharewares
2- Proprietary Software - EULA Freewares
--------------------------------------------------
3- Free Softwares

Both Gambit & Miriam seems to mix everything ...
There is a BIG clash between Proprietary Softwares & Free Softwares ...
Don't underestimate it ... it's night & day ...

It's not like "Hey, today I am in a good mood, let's release MrQM & Burrrn as Free Software" ... it's either you trust in Free Softwares for good or you don't ...

I am bored of both Gambit & Miriam considering Free Softwares license as a toy you can play with !!! Free Software is a very serious thing ...

You're both insulting people who really trust in Free Softwares by giving open source a bad name with your child game !!!

Canar, that is wrong, and totally uncalled for. Apart from the few initial mistakes (which can be attributed to inexperience, and he promptly fixed them), Miriam has come across as decent, level-headed and full of integrity. His posts are also polite and far more mature compared to the many flames thrown at him.

I suggest you reconsider your judgement.

That is an opinion. Nothing more.

"code freely available but not freely modifiable" = the Qt license. Just that.

"Open Source freeware" makes no sense when refering to a particular licensing mode.



That is NOT being open source, no matter if by the OSI definition or anything else. If you must need developer permission to obtain the sources, it's not open source, period. It's actually somewhat similar to Microsoft's "Shared Source" model (you only get the sources after obtaining developer's permission - that is, after signing several NDAs)



Just link here:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/



Honestly, you're the only one making things more confusing and mixed up than they need to be.



Yadda yadda. Proprietary software is also a very serious thing. You just gifted us with a glimpse of the obvious.



Really, man, you're the only one seeing open source get a bad name here. Get a grip...

...such as your's.

The solution to this whole stupid issue would be if Gambit released his sources under the Qt license, since it specifically disallows branching the code (take a note on that, Matus, might be useful for you in the future).

But it's too late to look for solutions now. Let's get along with what we have, and stop this pointless quarrel.

God speed, Gambit, Miriam, and whoever else is involved in this software.

Peace.

OggZealot, I don't really get what you are trying to say...



True, I aggree with you in this point.

Anyways, Mr QuestionMan is FLOSS (free libré open source software) and that gives Miriam the right to do whatever he wants with the code, as long as he keeps it FLOSS. LGPL also gives you the right to use free code together with proprietary code, as long as the free code remains free (so Microsoft could take LGPL code and use it in Windows, as long as everybody could have free access to the source code and also use it, too).

OggZealot:

Dude, stop picking on Miriam's language barrier and churning the muck that's already here. Yes, we know "Open Source Freeware" is a different concept from GPL-open source. Miriam just mistakenly used the term in hist post.

Miriam:
"Open Source", "Freeware", and "Open Source Freeware" are different.

There are GPL-compatible licenses, allowing redistribution, derivatives, and is "viral", meaning all derivatives must apply the GPL license.

Freeware usually refers to closed source programs.

Open Source Freeware usually refers to No-Derivative, but still allow source viewing, licenses, like the nd-Creative Commons.

Edit: Link

for the same reason I didn't answer when you first attacked me on the previous topic, I won't answer you here ... the situation between Gambit & Miriam is complicated enought to avoid adding a rjamorim Vs OggZealot fight ...

I just want you to know that I feel the same toward you as Gambit, you're a Mr KnowIt All guy that endlessly wants to show his might ... & that should better shut up sometimes ... I know you most likely consider me as a Mr KnowNothingAtAll Guy & you're right your knowledge his higher than mine on audio ... but I don't care
& as I don't care about ya, plz don't care about me ...

It doesn't matter to dig very deep in license ... the only thing that matters is that Gambit & Miriam realize what free software means ... cauz it was becoming obvious that for coders from the Windows world it doesn't have the same meaning than mine ... a simple guy slowly switching to free softwares ... & it's a pity developers like Gambit & Miriam care less about license than a simple end user like me does ...

Edit: Well I decided to shortly anwser ...
Quote rjamorim:
"That is NOT being open source"
I KNOW ... but I am explaining that other people obviously don't know ...
indeed Proprietary Soft EULA Freeware + Open Source = non-sense ... you cannot be proprietary & really open source in the way free software uses the term "open source" ... still some people use "open source" just to mean the code is free to download ... it's not my fault ... open source has 2 meanings one wrong, one right ... that's a reality ... that's why I favor using "free software" ...

Gambit seems to mix free software with freeware ... (use LGPL & complaint ???)
Miriam seems to mix open source with free software ... ("open source freeware" ???)
... which results in a happy mess ...

There was no need to argue ... really ...

Nah, I just consider you the Mr Zealot guy. It's in your nickname, FFS

Thread-split?

- Lyx

^^

I mean, come on - pushing the previous thread-split to the trashcan seems like a strange move. It just puts the "discussion" out of view so that people begin again to discuss that stuff in the "visible" thread. There should just be one visible thread where they can do the deathmatch, and additionally this and gambits thread to focus on the apps themselves. Just my humble opinion.

- Lyx

I'd rather a banana-split.

That is a useless comment. It's full of arrogance and prejudice...

I understand, your arguments simply don't stand for themselves so you have to attack...