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  1. #41
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Posts
    12

    Default Re: Update and news from Charles Moir

    hi,

    One of the lessons learned from this project is: Never ever publish your source code under an open license, if you need this code for earning money.
    i don't think so. i think, the community respect that xara don't want a fork and that xara dont want a windows version from the open xara projekt. but this offers two problems:

    1.
    the community don't want to work on a open source project, than't they can't port to the os that most people in the world use. i understand xara in this point, but i understand the community too.

    2.
    if the community integrate a alternative open renderer into xara, no one can control it, if someone want to compile a version for windows. xara and the development community can't control this. the community know this fact and don't want to open this way, cause they respect the fact, that the code was spend from xara.

    i know that a lot of developers like this software, but xara was starting with this project, without know how about, how a community project can work.

    i think, it's possible that the great workflow from the gui will be adapted to another project. but that have nothing to do with the source code.

    i hope, that xara and the community find a way to make xara a great open source project, but both sides have to find a way, that make this a good partnership for both sides.

    their are many kinds of limitation, that a community can respect. take a look at the openoffice project. for example:

    openoffice don't include a clipart gallery. their are a lot of artists in the world, ready to create this kind of free content for a project like this (take a look at the open clipart library). their is a seperate colection aviable for import the gallery, in low resulution png quality. but all this pictures are aviable as svg. their is also a seperate svg importer aviable for openoffice, but its not integrated in this great software, and this importer can not be handled to import the svg clipartls like a intern clipart library. so people they want to have this software with cliparts (and other stuff) have to buy staroffice. the community respect this wish from sun, and it works for both sides.

    regards,

    tarabaz
    IP

  2. #42
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Posts
    16

    Arrow Re: Update and news from Charles Moir

    I cannot code, but I have offered my help for the french translation, and I have also sent back the documents I was officially asked for, to allow the use of any translation I made in any Xara products.

    That is to say tat there is not only coding help that might be usefull : I saw the stats on Rosetta, and I am not alone having brought my 'stone' to this project.

    I do not regret any help I might have produced, even if Xara makes the Linux version a commercial one, because I deeply believe that Linux -and the Mac- need it.

    As a 'thank you' to Xara for deciding to opensource the code, I also bought the Windows version.

    Perhaps a 'subscription based' further development would be interesting for both parts, Xara and the community ?
    A subscription is started, and when an amount of money is reached, the development start at Xara, the subscribers are allowed to get the development versions before the final release, and they get a boxed version at the end (a simple aknowledgement of their support in the 'about' menu would do it also, for me).
    The code of the final version is released (without the 'special' bit of code that makes the competitive advantage for Xara, of course).

    What do you think about it ?
    IP

  3. #43

    Default Re: Update and news from Charles Moir

    Quote Originally Posted by remi View Post
    One of the lessons learned from this project is: Never ever publish your source code under an open license, if you need this code for earning money.
    That is an interesting conclusion. One that I'm sure Industrial Light & Magic, Apple, IBM, Sun, Google, Intel, and numerous others would be interested in hearing. Perhaps another lesson that could be learned is that you won't see significant benefits from an open source development model unless you play by the "rules", i.e. release your code.

    It may well be that open source is not commercially viable for Xara, unfortunately, I don't think we will ever know because it was never given a full chance. As it stands now, it looks like Xara will be nothing more than an open source footnote. Unless something changes dramatically, I don't see much incentive for anyone, other than die hard fans, to make significant contributions at this point. That is unfortunate because I would have loved to see Xara be successful. Of course if I were a cynic I might say that getting some free publicity before selling your company is being successful. Not that I'm not saying that, it seems clear to me that Xara did make a genuine effort. I think they just had some fundamental misunderstandings and perhaps unrealistic expectations.

    Best,
    Jed
    IP

  4. #44
    Join Date
    Sep 2006
    Posts
    20

    Default Re: Update and news from Charles Moir

    Quote Originally Posted by jedfrechette View Post
    That is an interesting conclusion. One that I'm sure Industrial Light & Magic, Apple, IBM, Sun, Google, Intel, and numerous others would be interested in hearing. Perhaps another lesson that could be learned is that you won't see significant benefits from an open source development model unless you play by the "rules", i.e. release your code.

    It may well be that open source is not commercially viable for Xara, unfortunately, I don't think we will ever know because it was never given a full chance. As it stands now, it looks like Xara will be nothing more than an open source footnote. Unless something changes dramatically, I don't see much incentive for anyone, other than die hard fans, to make significant contributions at this point. That is unfortunate because I would have loved to see Xara be successful. Of course if I were a cynic I might say that getting some free publicity before selling your company is being successful. Not that I'm not saying that, it seems clear to me that Xara did make a genuine effort. I think they just had some fundamental misunderstandings and perhaps unrealistic expectations.

    Best,
    I agree with Jed... It seems Xara approached this project with distrust and uncertainty from the beginning. Had they approached it with a more optimistic outlook, the project could have been a huge success. Gaining Xara huge market share in the Linux/Unix market and a good reputation amongst OSS developers. Imagine the support contract possibilities as more and more schools, businesses, organizations and governments move away from being Microsoft only shops.

    Xara's biggest mistakes:

    1. Trying to dictate whether or not Xara LX would be forked. This is a no-no in the open source world. Once you release software under GPL it CAN be forked, like it or not. If you have reservations about this, then open source licensing is not for you or your company. The fact that Xara made it known they didn't want it forked likely set off red flags in many developers minds. Clearly, Xara doesn't understand or appreciate the way OSS development works or they would not have done this.

    2. It's both forgivable and understandable that they didn't want to GPL CDraw, but trying to keep the project tied to CDraw and its commercial Windows counterpart was a very bad decision. Sorry, but a healthy open source project is going to diverge from its proprietary counterpart. OSS software usually has different goals and priorities than proprietary software. You can't expect an open source project to thrive under the constraints that exist for proprietary software development. Sadly, Xara could have gained some great feature ideas from this project to incorporate into their commercial Windows software. Unfortunately the project was not given the room it needed to grow.

    The best bet at this point to save this project is to turn a new page. Start by renaming and refocusing the project. Drop CDraw altogether, so it's truly GPL and forget what its commercial Windows cousin looks like and does. Set the project on a new course that is unencumbered and we may all be pleasantly surprised by the results.
    IP

 

 

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