Comments for Winpdb - A Platform Independent Python Debugger

Comment on Copyright and Delayed Release by nir

nir — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:13:32 +0000

matt,

Interesting interview - thanks for sharing.

Seems Peter Deutsch reached this scheme coincidentally because of a personal promise to Stallman to release Ghostscript as GPL. By using AFPL on the latest two revisions, he was able to commercialize with Printer manufacturers.

Those printer manufacturers could legally use the “year-old” GPL versions but preferred to license the latest AFPL version for a fee.

This indicates this approach can be effective!

BTW, the interview includes several gems, for example when Deutsch gives his prediction on the result of a back then hypothetical event of Netscape releasing their browser as Free Software. Excellent read.

Comment on About by matt

matt — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 19:05:33 +0000

@nir: ’saving the world’ link is broken

@Erigami: see http://winpdb.org/2008/11/tip-of-the-day/, though I agree it could benefit from higher prominence

Comment on Copyright and Delayed Release by matt

matt — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:35:26 +0000

This is the model that Artifex Software used for many years, almost twenty, with Ghostscript. The proprietary version was Aladdin Ghostscript and the free & libre version was GPL Ghostscript. GPL-G lagged behind Aladdin-G by 1 year or about two revisions. Artifex has moved away from that model now. I’m not sure why, but my presumption is that after two decades the business side was well enough established that it could forego the overhead of managing two streams. Here is an interview with L. Peter Deutsch, the author of Ghostscript and proprietor of Artifex Software, from 1998: http://devlinux.org/deutsch-interview.html

Comment on Copyright and Delayed Release by nir

nir — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 08:06:35 +0000

Jonathan,

Crossover Office is according to their wording “a core of free Wine wrapped by various proprietary utilities that make the product commercial-grade and consumer-friendly.” - http://www.codeweavers.com/services/wine/

They declare to release all improvements of Wine but say nothing similar regarding the proprietary components.

BTW, there is a curious thing with their license as it states CrossOver includes the GPL installer Loki. I wonder if this can be done legally, though I assume it has been reviewed by their lawyer - http://www.codeweavers.com/products/truth_in_advertising/license/

Comment on Copyright and Delayed Release by Ram

Ram — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:18:01 +0000

I think you should write a longer essay about this idea. I haven’t understood what you meant by it. What do you mean ‘modifications’? Do the developers guarantee that modifications will be open-sourced? I hope you have time to describe how your idea will work in detail.

Comment on Copyright and Delayed Release by Jonathan Morgan

Jonathan Morgan — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:57:21 +0000

From memory, Crossover Office does a similar thing with Wine: adding proprietary additions to Wine, and then progressively releasing them. I’m not sure if all of their additions are released, though.

Comment on Download by jdbosmaus

jdbosmaus — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 18:57:14 +0000

I am a total newbie to Python, just trying to get up to speed for a project we are doing at work….

Two days after downloading it, winpdb is already indispensible.
(Because it took 1 1/2 days for me to RTFM and figure out how to attach to my pitiful, lame attempt at a program.)

Damn! Great tool!

Comment on About by Erigami

Erigami — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:01:18 +0000

This is an excellent piece of software. Thanks for maintaining it.

(If you put up a donate button, I’d be happy to click it. =)

Comment on Google Beta Inc. by nir

nir — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 07:13:35 +0000

Indeed, jQuery moving away from Google Groups:
http://ejohn.org/blog/google-groups-is-dead/

Comment on Launch Time by nir

nir — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 20:10:46 +0000

yes, look at the timeout argument