It’s not impossible to move all the licensing code into the compiler plugin, but I just don’t see it happening.
Thom, you’ve made a good point. If the IDE is all that Xojo is. Than yes by all means, no one wants to see what all they have for a profit model go away. It’s a shame if Xojo is nothing more. There could be such a huge after market in extensions and services. It’s what built other similar communities. Whereas, right now I see third parties (that really should be acquired or owned by Xojo) such as Monkeybread, xDev, WFS, and ARBP as too fragmented and not very integrated (as compared to say Microsoft was with VB and MSDN, or what Oracle is doing with JavaSoft).
If squashing bugs and having the software maintained by a select few really smart folks is their niche focus, I can’t argue with that. Sure the end of life and longevity/support question scares me but with any closed product that’s a given.
I still think we can all learn how the pizza analogy actually works if Stephen will just provide some details and an example with a product he presumably understands, like DesktopServer Premium.
Great claims require great proof. You have made a great claim, and provided nothing but quasi-religious arguments. And to your product… Presumably, this DesktopServer Premium is more than a package of other people’s stuff. Presumably, there is some code that you’ve written for it, code that doesn’t, for example, have an artificial limit of 3 virtual hosts. That’s what I want the source code to. But you say I have to download it to get directions on getting the source code. But your site won’t let me download “DesktopServer Premium” unless I pay $99. That’s the disconnect here. On your site, it says we can trust you because you believe in open source, or something like that. But in this case, you seem to have a standard paid license model. It’s pretty tough for me to help you fix all your bugs if you’re going to charge me for it, and can’t direct me to where I can download the source. That’s what I meant with the “obfuscation” sentence above, not that you obfuscate the code.
And you just did a backflip over that shark. Unreal. How about, it’s Xojo’s and those third parties’ respective business, not yours? That’s a “shame” that they can’t see the light, right?
Sorry Brad, you seem to be stuck on the $99 support and product availability like it’s some sort of firewall preventing you from compiling your own. Download the “Limited” (which is a misnomer that is going away -their will just be “DesktopServer” in the future).
Let’s talk about this “mysterious open source” bogy man for a second from a profit point of view (or just read http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/compliance-guide.html).
You charge for availability.
You charge for support.
You charge for updates.
GPL and MIT are the most popular lic. currently. GPL isn’t about “free beer” (which it sounds like you’re focused on) it’s about freedom to modify, enhance, and not get sued for doing so (freedom from persecution, think “free speech”). It’s about submitting enhancements back to the community. I.e. DesktopServer is XAMPP, it’s just our branded version of XAMPP that’s been optimized for WordPress (which is also open source). Just like MAMP (which they charge for) and just like many other OSS products. What we have built is a community of users, solutions, and services. That’s it. The product grows because of user feedback and user submissions (i.e. we’re adding better SSL support thanks to user submitted code, etc.).
Now I can understand the argument that Thom brought forth. Makes sense. But the title of this thread is about the Xojo IDE. I’ll save my breath and NOT argue about what Jim Shaffer has already pointed out. I was merely pointing out the benefits of OSS. Brad, I can’t say you’ve brought fourth as good a reason as others to oppose it.
In retrospect, perhaps “uh oh” didn’t property capture nor express the required sentiment…
The horse is still dead 
That they’ve invested time and money in Xojo, making it “theirs”, apparently isn’t a good reason for you? Unlike your product, they actually wrote some code. They own the code. They are monetizing it by selling licenses. See my comment way above about apples and oranges.
Wow Brad. You’re completely mis-directed the topic and are now simply being insulting. This is a discussion on thoughts of Xojo IDE under an OSS license.
I didn’t say it wasn’t “good enough for me” and I’m not insinuating that. Point missed entirely.
And while I’ve written code for my product, I have all the OSS licenses and attribution within it. -That’s not what we’re debating here.
You’ve completely missed the point of adding value (small or large) by simply being closed minded to OSS in any way, shape or form. It’s a wonderment that JSON and Webkit ever got included or that even runs on OS X (based on Darwin) with that attitude. Thankfully, you’re not at the helm
Now you’re just being an ■■■.
JSON is our own implementation of the spec.
WebKit is us basically dynamically linking to the installed libraries - but its not “included” in the sense of we statically link to it.
We actually tend to avoid anything GPL as they may put us & our customers in a spot where they would be required to release their source code to comply with the terms of the GPL - and thats a problem.
BSD style licenses or Sqlite’s Public Domain are more to our liking and fit better with our expectations & our customers expectations.
Open sourcing the IDE is unlikely
AND FWIW keep it civil folks or we’ll lock the thread
Gotcha Norman.
BSD and MIT are excellent examples for OSS inclusion in Xojo. But I wouldn’t recommend it for just the idea of Xojo’s IDE
Keep Calm. It’s Just a Thought (on making Xojo IDE open source).
Wouldn’t suggest MIT for the IDE because competitors could just take the code without having to contribute, or worse, release a competing closed source product.
GPL forces the IDE’s advancements in code back to Xojo and prevents others from just running with it. The result is more users using Xojo and hopefully more revenue for Xojo’s compiler authors. Keep the compiler itself under a non-OSS license.
I could imagine a reality in which an open-source IDE existed for Xojo and we all happily contributed to the effort. Unfortunately, at the time being, the IDE is the product. It’s not that the compiler and framework couldn’t exist separately, it’s just that the genius of the IDE is the tight integration of those components. So for all practical purposes, there is only one product: the IDE. That’s all Xojo does. That’s the fact that makes the open-source discussion interesting, but very unlikely.
For every successful open source company there are thousands that are not successful. And to be successful you need a large user base. Thinking that just open sourcing any part of Xojo would solve the current quality problems is just nave. To be honest I don’t think it would change much if the IDE would be open sourced because there are not enough people to be able to fix bugs. Open sourcing just for the sake of open sourcing and because its chic in a perfect hipster world to open source stuff does not justify it.
Yeah, I wouldn’t advocate open sourcing to be ‘chic in a perfect hipster world’. That’s definitely not a very compelling reason.
:-/
Xojo needs to hire Natascha, in a nutshell she put the entire argument to rest.
Natasha wrote:
To be honest I don’t think it would change much if the IDE would be open sourced because there are not enough people to be able to fix bugs.
The real deal is to get more people to work on the product at Xojo. Everything else can be considered as garbage.
[quote=51770:@Stephen Carroll]Yeah, I wouldn’t advocate open sourcing to be ‘chic in a perfect hipster world’. That’s definitely not a very compelling reason.
:-/[/quote]
How come that I knew that you will reply with something like that. 
'Cause it’s logical and makes sense and I appreciate intelligent feedback!
I’d agree with everything you said. OSSing stuff doesn’t make it worth while unless the users can contribute and have a compelling reason to. I know I’d pay for a CLI compiler so that I could use an IDE of my choice (one that has git integration, project management, documenter, and dozens of plugins for it). But I digress from topic title Jim Shaffer’s already pointed how several people feel already. But Geoff has eluded to some future plans for catering to more professionals (something to look forward too).
[quote=51796:@Stephen Carroll]'Cause it’s logical and makes sense and I appreciate intelligent feedback!
[/quote]
You’re not in a position to judge whether it makes sense, Stephen. And before you call that insulting, please scroll up to your comment about how Xojo should buy the third party tools. I personally find that particularly disrespectful.
Perhaps relevant to this discussion: How IBM commercialized the Eclipse platform. http://www.dnaindia.com/money/report-ibm-writes-a-business-model-around-eclipse-open-platform-1117392
To put in my 2 cents: I find Stephens core argument compelling – Xojo periodically offered upgrades are charged, also when the IDE is open source – this is essentially the same model as today. I belief that a commercial developer wants to know that a core team is behind an open source product, and is willing to pay for that.
But, as Tim said, given the architectural integration of IDE, and other essential parts, its not likely to happen, unless perhaps there are compelling market forces that require Xojo to become increasingly more responsive. For example, there are more and more environments out there that offer some kind of cross-platform development environments, including web based ones.
I missed this. I offer plenty of code that I write and maintain for free under a BSD-style license. I offer free binaries, such as a database server that works well for small to medium deployments. I offer paid users source code that I write under a more restrictive license, including source to said database server. So your statement is incorrect.
The thing I object to is open sourcing other people’s products. I particularly object to the insinuation that Xojo must be stupid because they don’t embrace your Manhattan sized pizza poppycock.