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Closed 10 years ago.
I'm developing an application and am thinking about releasing it open source.
Is it good choice to open source it, even though it's not a developer API library, but an end user app?
When is it a good time to release the source code? Should I start the project open source from the very beginning or wait until it's v1.0?
If the source code is GPL, how do you prevent someone from grabbing it and illegally releasing a proprietary closed source application? In practice, how can this violation of copyright law be spotted and is the law enforceable?
This is all inherently subjective, of course...
Yes. There are many open source end user applications. Firefox, GIMP, Inkscape, Open Office, and many many (other) GNOME and KDE apps, for example.
You definitely don't need to wait until v1.0, though it might be good to wait until you've got some early proof of concept code to "announce" the project. If you announce an empty code repository you'r unlikely to get contributors, and it may be hard to drum up enthusiasm later.
Spotting a GPL violation of an app is probably easier than spotting a GPL violation of a library, on average.
If the code is GPL and you have evidence (or strong suspicions) that the GPL was violated you could try contacting gpl-violations.org or the FSF.
Here are my opinions:
1 - Yes. It can be a portfolio, an example app for others, anything... IMHO, it doesn't matter if it's not a dev-focused project.
2 - Since the beginning. One great thing about these open-sources repositories is that it holds the source code. And there, you can but some ideas about the direction of the project, maybe even discuss it with other users / developers.
3 - Thats tough. I guess you can't, but I'm not sure.
Related
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Closed 10 years ago.
Someone recently directed me to the W3C spec on widgets:
http://www.w3.org/TR/widgets/
Developers can make web apps work offline via a browser's application cache. I had asked how users were supposed to know they could use certain websites offline, which is when the the person brought up the widget spec. It makes sense to split the packaging of an app apart from its offline storage ability. However, after googling around and reading up on widgets, I couldn't find any recent articles on the subject (most articles seemed to be from around 2010). Eventually I found Opera's SDK, but there was a message at the beginning indicating that they were removing the functionality:
Starting with Opera 12, Opera Widgets will be turned off for new users
and completely removed in a later release.
source: http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/creating-your-first-opera-widget/
Are W3C widgets a dead technology? And if so, is there any cross-browser technology being developed for the packaging of web apps? I'm curious because I think offline storage is interesting, but don't see how users would know that even when they don't have an internet connection, they could browse to a particular URL and have it work, unless the browser told them which apps they had installed (or unless every site that supported offline storage explained it to them).
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Closed 10 years ago.
How much better would commercial OCR software be compared to the stuff that's available online for free?
More specifically: Reading text in pictures (things like book covers etc...)
I work with OCR quite a lot and can definitely vouch that the commercial offerings are much better than what you can find out there for free. Yes, you can make a free one 'work', but it will take a lot of effort for sub-optimal results.
I recommend finding a product that uses the ABBYY FineReader : It does a great job with little configuration.
You may want to consider whether you need to use an SDK provided by the OCR supplier or an end-user application. The SDK will provide position details, etc of what it finds and offer a lot more in-depth control, but will be more expensive. The end-user package will basically just read everything it finds, but you may be able to set it to automatic or control it rudimentally and it might be good enough for what you're trying to do, and may be a lot cheaper.
Get a trial version and give it a go!
Google's ocropus is free opensource and one of the best
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Closed 10 years ago.
As an amateur mobile developer, I feel dismay every time I have to fix, update or add new features to an application of mine.
I'm eagerly awaiting the moment you can just develop a web application for any kind of device.
HTML5 and new APIs like Geolocation API or Contacts API are a step forward, but what other APIs could be useful to move current mobile developers to the web? For example, some kind of Sensor API to access mobile accelerometers or magnetometers.
I am aware that future Flash and AIR mobile releases are coming, but I'd rather prefer web standards.
There’s an idea to add a general devices API to HTML5.
http://www.w3.org/TR/dap-api-reqs/
To be honest, I don’t think you can do this sort of thing generically (or at least it’s an impractical challenge). I think it’s down to the folks who make mobile operating systems — i.e. Apple, Google, and the rest — decide whether and how to provide JavaScript access to hardware.
It’s potentially a massive security risk. Go to a hijacked website, and suddenly Russian criminals are copying every photo you take? There’s a “powerful mobile web application” for you.
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Closed 10 years ago.
This is the first time I'm creating an open-source project, and I've decided (based on this question) to host it on Google Code. Now, I'm asked which of several open-source licenses I'd like to use. I'm not interested in digging into them to figure them out, so:
Which one should I pick?
From what I understand, BSD, MIT, and Apache licenses all allow another person/company to use the source code in a closed-source, commercial project, as long as they provide acknowledgement. GPL requires that any project using the code will also be released as GPL. GPL will reduce the number of people who can legally use your code, but it helps to keep improvements in the public. Those are the most important differences in my opinion. Your opinion determines which one is best for your project.
(Edit: You really should read through the licenses, though, in case "what I understand" is incorrect.)
Assign each one to a number on a dice and give it a roll. If you don't want to take the time to read each one and decide for yourself which one fits you best, there's really no difference between rolling a dice and using the one someone suggests for you.
Of course the most important consideration is to choose a license that is compatible with your project goals and philosophy. If your software is intended to be used in conjunction with some other open source software, prefer to use the same license if possible, or at least a compatible license. If you do not wish your code to be used in non-free software without your permission, prefer GPLv3 (or GPLv2). If you want your code used as widely as possible, even allowing others to distribute it under a different or closed license, prefer Apache v2 (or MIT or new BSD).
A summary of open source licenses can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_free_software_licences. Read the Wikipedia article on any license of interest to get more details. Once you have tentatively chosen one, read the license itself to ensure that there are not any surprises. If there is some part you are not comfortable with, pick a different one.
You should really read about each licence and select the one that suits the most. Read and read again, to understand well. There is no other easy way to select a licence.
Take a look at this
It's contains pretty much every thing about open source licenses
This question is one which is likely to result in numerous differing and quite heated answers from various camps. Some believe that the BSD / MIT license is the best way to go, others believe that the GPL is the best license.
Suffice to say it really depends on what the goals of the project are and how you feel personally about the restrictions or lack of restrictions that the license imposes on third parties.
Only you can really answer this question.
If you forced me into an answer I would most likely choose the BSD license.
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Closed 9 years ago.
Having witnessed in various open source projects, in which I have been involved, several more or less significant totally anonymous contributions, I am wondering what could be the possible rationale behind such anonymous contributions?
Occasionally, there are contributors who quite obviously prefer to remain completely anonymous - i.e. by just posting to a mailing list using an obvious nick name for months (whereas everyone else would use their real name), or sometimes even by submitting completely anonymous patches to trackers on sourceforge, where there wasn't even the slightest comment about the origins/authors, usually just a license header or a header stating that the code in question were to be released into the public domain.
Often, the code in question was obviously written by fairly competent programmers/developers or even software engineers, who presumably do code for a living.
I am wondering:
What's the motivation behind such contributions?
Have you previously witnessed such and similar instances in open source projects?
Have you, yourself possibly contributed to an open source project in such a fashion?
If so, why?
Can you provide any other insight into this?
After having read another question here on SO, and also after having read two related discussions (at slashdot and perlmonks) about potential work-contract related issues when contributing to open source projects, I am wondering whether some contributors could possibly prefer to remain completely anonymous due to their contract requirements, in order to avoid potential legal issues.
Thanks
I can think of several reasons:
some people simply value privacy - I know that I usually do not post on most forums with my name - SO is the exception for me (and even here it was only after a couple months);
many programmers work at places where part of the employment agreement is that any code you write (whether on company time or not) belongs to the employer. Whether or not these agreements might apply to the submissions, the programmer may be wanting to avoid 'tainting' the submission or may want to avoid going through the bureaucratic hoops to get permission from the employer;
the submitter may not want to be contacted for support;
the submitter may not be particularly proud of the code (rightly or wrongly);
I own two reasonably popular open source projects. I have accepted such contributions. The rationale is simple. They are using the project and want a problem resolved or feature implements sooner rather than later.
The contribution benefits them!
The most likely reason I can think of is they have some sort of contractual binding preventing them from contributing openly, such as working for a large software corporation that views open source projects as a potential liability. Or they just don't want to be bothered with people asking for more information or more support.