Mr. Dean,
Mr. Dean,
Thank you for posting such reasoned and insightful responses to Mr. Trotter's questions. It is interactions like this that makes LinuxMedNews an invaluable resource. I agree with everything you said and I hope more "free software" users and developers will understand free/open-source as you do.
Your decision to use PHP does not mean you have to publish all your future work under an open-source license. On the contrary, your ability to set price and determine how you license your intellectual property is the crucial difference between open-source and communism. Communism takes away economic freedom while open source gives freedom. As the author of PhpMed, you should be free to decide what freedom you want to give to PhpMed users.
PhpMed users can decide for themselves whether to adopt FreeMed or PhpMed, or neither. There is no "dishonesty" involved since they can learn about FreeMed and PhpMed and review the respective licenses before they agree to the terms. If the relationship between you and your clients can be characterized as "control", then your clients also control you because you need their continued financial support to pay for food, mortgage etc.
In the end, all of us need to put food on the table. Some of us think free/open source methodology will help us become more productive, leading to more and better food etc. That's why some of us publish our work under open-source license(s). That, for example, is one of the reasons why you are now able to benefit from PHP.
So, sometimes people like Mr. Trotter and myself will enthusiastically propose that you adopt our methods and license your work under GPL. This generally comes from a genuine conviction that you will be more successful if you take this route. Of couse, we are not all that rich or famous yet so maybe our advice should be appropriately discounted :-).
Best regards,
Andrew
- Andrew P. Ho, M.D.
OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes
www.TxOutcome.Org
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