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Off-topic / Re: Something I want to say on the downfall of SMF
Arantor « on January 20th, 2013, 04:42 PM »
Some interesting points on all sides, but one I'd like to kick off with: does anyone know why SMF wasn't open source in the first place?
OK, then, a quick history lesson. 2000, YaBB (GPL) kicks things off. 2001-2002, not exactly sure when off the top of my head, YaBBSE (also GPL) forks YaBB.
This point is still before SMF, of course. In that time, two forks of YaBBSE emerge. I forget the name of one of them, but the other was called ttForum and its principle method was to take YaBBSE, find/replace the developer names and release. Already sour, it turned out the version forked was buggy - and most of the bad will generated by ttForum reflected back on YaBBSE; even though they'd fixed the bugs already, they were getting a lot of people needing support etc. and very unhappy about it.
So, the general plan was to do a clean build of YaBBSE from scratch, which would become SMF, which would allow them to change the licence.
SMF 1.1's licence has two specific restrictions on it: it disallows forking and it disallows redistribution elsewhere. These restrictions were specifically put in place to prevent the likes of ttForum happening again.
It's funny, SMF's most active development was all under the restrictive licence, which suggests to me the dev team were not overly bothered by the restriction on the licence. 2007 is when the rot set in, after the transfer to SM LLC, but several years after SMF had been developing under the new licence. The issue was the politics, even then; it was not the licence that prompted Unknown to leave, as he himself has admitted in the past.
The need to go BSD was also borne out of politics, namely that the ex devs were not satisfied with the way things were going and as they'd never given the rights to SMF to irrevocably use their code (no CLA or DCO), they were threatening to exercise their rights to remove it.Quote It also encourages cowboys like Fantastico and Softaculous or whatever they're called to allow installation. Yes, it means they will install Wedge easily, but it does also encourage support issues because those cowboys never get it right.Quote That's the thing, with open source they wouldn't have to ask.
The thing is, you don't have to open the entire repository up in open source ;) You only have to allow open source rights on the code for it to be 'open source'.Quote I have a whole spreadsheet full of ideas ;) But knowledge is easily fixable.
OK, then, a quick history lesson. 2000, YaBB (GPL) kicks things off. 2001-2002, not exactly sure when off the top of my head, YaBBSE (also GPL) forks YaBB.
This point is still before SMF, of course. In that time, two forks of YaBBSE emerge. I forget the name of one of them, but the other was called ttForum and its principle method was to take YaBBSE, find/replace the developer names and release. Already sour, it turned out the version forked was buggy - and most of the bad will generated by ttForum reflected back on YaBBSE; even though they'd fixed the bugs already, they were getting a lot of people needing support etc. and very unhappy about it.
So, the general plan was to do a clean build of YaBBSE from scratch, which would become SMF, which would allow them to change the licence.
SMF 1.1's licence has two specific restrictions on it: it disallows forking and it disallows redistribution elsewhere. These restrictions were specifically put in place to prevent the likes of ttForum happening again.
It's funny, SMF's most active development was all under the restrictive licence, which suggests to me the dev team were not overly bothered by the restriction on the licence. 2007 is when the rot set in, after the transfer to SM LLC, but several years after SMF had been developing under the new licence. The issue was the politics, even then; it was not the licence that prompted Unknown to leave, as he himself has admitted in the past.
The need to go BSD was also borne out of politics, namely that the ex devs were not satisfied with the way things were going and as they'd never given the rights to SMF to irrevocably use their code (no CLA or DCO), they were threatening to exercise their rights to remove it.
- Anyone can redistribute the complete package. Because as everyone knows, it's so hard to go to the official website to download it... Moot point.
- Anyone can take some code and re-use it in their project. Well, if someone needs a bit of code, they can ask for it. See Elkarte discussion. Moot point.
The thing is, you don't have to open the entire repository up in open source ;) You only have to allow open source rights on the code for it to be 'open source'.
Now, I know that you, Pete and John are very much into developing plugins, something I'm afraid of doing for now (for lack of knowledge *and* ideas)
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You're probably right, but it seems such a shame that there are people so determined to drive it into the ground, apparently without even realising it.