Moderator
Posts: 461 from 2003/7/22
Quote:
afxgroup wrote:
i think that the ktml part released as open source and the browser released as closed source (or whatever else) should be the best solution. even because the bounty was for the possibility to use the khtml engine in other projects too like YAM or AWEB.
Hi Andrea.
The KHTML engine code will be released, since it's LGPL. But reading comments 17 and 19 in the first page of the thread, I guess marcik decided to keep closed source even the MUI wrapper part, which would make the KHTML engine fairly useless (from the source code point of view, obviously). In fact he said that he only made 4 or 5 changes to the original source on that department, and basically it means everybody wanting to use KHTML would be better off downloading Nokia's Webcore code right now and make the small changes by themselves.
I don't think it's totally fair to change the distribuition rules at this point - not if he wants to accept the bounty -, since Sputnik wouldn't be "bounty compliant". If he decides to sell Sputnik and keep the MUI rendering code and the browser code closed, then he should resign from the bounty as soon as the decision is taken.
On the other hand that's his decision, and since the "custom" parts are those that are taking much more efforts and time, I might understand why he wants to keep 'em closed. There have been people who said are not in any case interested in Sputnik. Maybe they would like to see marcik's KHTML port integrated in IBrowse (and there's nothing preventing this from the licencing point of view - it would happen in a eye blink since IBrowse is already MUIfied, contrary to AWeb). Maybe 100 people would register IBrowse in that case and 200 would update it. Do your maths: someone would end up with like 10000 Euro doing nothing, someone else would have ported KHTML, wrapped it to MUI and should be happy with 2000USD...
Finally, one good shareware browser is better than no browser, but at least marcik should make up his mind soon, and decide wheter to resign from the bounty or to fulfill it.
@falemagn: no money have been transferred (yet). It works just like with AROS bounties: payment is made when the bounty is completed. So, if marcik resigns, either the bounty will be open for anyone else, or money might be transferred to other bounties. In this case the situation is more complex, because there have been a couple of donors that are not MorphOS users, so in that case they might like to have the money back...
Kind regards,
Andrea
[ Edited by guruman on 2006/7/28 14:14 ]
