Hoi,
I have read your mail and it does not address the point that I am making at
all. What you write is not relevant as it does not address the central
issue. The central issue is that you accuse another project of infringement
on the GPL and you assert that it is proprietary software.
Given that YOU stated that other implementations have to comply with what
"your" project does, you are as a result in breach of the GPL yourself and
you make what you do proprietary. The fact that you acknowledge that you did
not look at the code is a long way from an apology. The way you tried to
gloss over your notion of proprietary is pathetic.
When you fail to find satisfactory collaboration, there are many reasons why
this happened. They are not really relevant because at issue is issuing FUD
and making representations of the other party that are ill considered and
manifestly wrong. The best you can do is publicly apologise.
This is the last time I use this mailing list for this subject.
Thanks,
GerardM
PS I feel strongly about the proper understanding of licenses, if you want
to know why see my Wikimania presentation about testing.
2009/9/3 Manuel Schneider <manuel.schneider(a)wikimedia.ch>
Hoi,
I already agreed that I haven't seen the code which is available today
under
GPL.
We are in touch with Linterweb since more than a year (Emmanuel with Kiwix
even longer) and it took us several months to get useless patches - at this
time Okawix was NOT GPL and NOT available in source code (but yet published
and being sold on DVD).
Concerning your other rants you seem not to have read or understood my
mail.
openZIM does not prublish offline content and does not provide reader
software
except it's reference implementation.
It is perfectly okay for me and everyone else I know when they fork Kiwix
to
Okawix. Kiwix is not openZIM, though. So I can not speak for Kiwix and
localisation is no matter to openZIM as well.
ZIM is a standard file format used by many offline readers and ongoing
efforts. There is no sense in "forking" a standard. As I pointed out
Linterweb is unable to come up with any reasons why the keep changing
things
and why they are "unable" to just use ZIM and the library which is already
there. It would make their lives easier!
For the openZIM team I guess it is pretty irrelevant if Linterweb uses ZIM
or
not. I have pointed out that the openZIM team and Tommi tried to start a
collaboration and where it went.
/Manuel
Am Donnerstag, 3. September 2009 09:19:42 schrieb Gerard Meijssen:
Hoi,
You make accusations and they fall flat. You say that the Okawix software
is not GPL and it is. You say that the software is proprietary and,
because
of a lack of communication with YOUR project you
call them proprietary...
I
call it preposterous. When they want to fork,
they have every right to do
so. Given that by your own admission YOUR code has a file format that is
not fixed but you ask people to conform to your standard ??? By the
definitions of the GPL it is exactly your actions that make the software
you champion proprietary!
Really, you should know better then spout FUD in this way. The sad thing
is
what you are saying is enough to land you in
court because it looks to me
like slander.
When I read your story, I find that you insist on other people doing as
you
say. You may have the best intentions but you
cannot compel people in
this
way. They are a fork, they are GPL software, they
care about
internationalisation and their localisation is done at
translatewiki.net .
At that they are ahead of you.
In my opinion you owe the list an apology for your inacurate and
inconsiderate accusations.
Thanks,
GerardM
2009/9/3 Manuel Schneider <manuel.schneider(a)wikimedia.ch>
> Hoi Gerard,
>
> it is indeed a huge improvement that finally the source code was made
> available. This has not yet came to my sight. So GPL violation does not
> count
> here.
>
> Anyway, it took a long time to actually become free. When we were
trying
> to work with Linterweb it took us months to
get some patches of the
code
> they took from us, and the patches were
actually not usable.
>
> Concerning proprietary format:
> Zeno was kind of proprietary, but at least it existed some
documentation
> and
> DirectMedia was willing to answer questions.
> ZIM is completely open and freely documented, so if you don't like our
> implementation or you think that C++ is not the language of your choice
-
> feel free and go ahead with your own
implementation.
> As long as you follow the standard!
>
> Of course the file format is not fixed until good right now, so if you
> have suggestions you could name them on the openZIM mailinglist or file
a
> bug at the openZIM website.
>
> What Linterweb did was just changing random thing without documentation
> and very bad communication towards the openZIM project team. So I do
> consider it
> as proprietary - as it is incompatible with both ZIM and Zeno and there
> is no
> willingnes to collaborate to fix this issue.
>
> Both Tommi (the openZIM main developer who has also delivered his
> Zeno-related
> code to Linterweb) and Emmanuel (from whom they took Kiwix to make it
> Okawix)
> have a long story to tell about this.
> As well as I have, because I am being addressed regularly by Linterweb
as
> they
> still try to get code and support, but never really get into the
project
> by telling us what they really want and how
we could integrate that
into
> openZIM.
>
> We had a Wikipedia Offline meeting in Buenos Aires and someone named
> Linterweb. Surprisingly for me they are also quite wellknown to the
> foundation and more surprisingly they have quite similar views as we
> have.
>
> I would love to see them using ZIM in Okawix, even if it would require
> some changes if they feel we had to make it more usable for them (even
> though I see currently no reason why it was not perfectly usable right
> now). Of course we invited Linterweb to our first developers meeting
and
> two people
> from them actually registered (one of them was Pascal Martin, the CEO)
so
> we
> book rooms for them from our project's budget, but they never showed
up.
A side
story though, but it is an excellent example how collaboration
with Linterweb is going on.
Regards,
Manuel
--
Regards
Manuel Schneider
Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Wikimedia CH - Association for the advancement of free knowledge
www.wikimedia.ch
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Regards
Manuel Schneider
Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
Wikimedia CH - Association for the advancement of free knowledge
www.wikimedia.ch
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