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Old 09-22-2013, 07:03 PM   #30
Hitch
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rkomar View Post
Sure, but this was always true, even when the sigil team was in full swing. Forking your own private version and trying to keep it up to date with patches from other versions is a pain in the neck. It doesn't take long before the conflicts start appearing, and then you need a programmer who is expert in your and all versions that the patches are coming from. You also don't get any patches from those private versions others have forked for similar logical reasons. And you're probably not going to get much help from those working on the free code, since they'll resent you for not giving your improvements back. So, you're going to end up paying for a lot more programming than just the private changes you wanted. It doesn't make sense to me, unless it's really important that your private changes aren't shared.
{sigh}

I am not discussing forking Sigil for private use for private special reasons. I am simply discussing a fork of Sigil for the private use of my company, should a) Sigil stop being viable for my purposes, which are commercial, because it i) is not kept current with the changes in the industry or ii) user_none gets tired of being the flag-bearer on very difficult code and cannot find anyone to continue to contribute time/hours/whatever to keep the program up to date, and b) for my own purposes, on my own nickel, if needed, with no obligation to provide the code, or support therefor, to anyone else.

Your assumption, rkomar, is that the public team--the folks working on the free code--will continue to do so. My assumption is that the more likely outcome is that they will not. user_none has already made it pretty clear that he personally will not. On his blog, he's stated that no successors in interest have shown up, and the donations (of code) made by persons so far have achieved what those individuals wanted, and they've now moved on to other things.

Thus, given the terms of the GPL, which are fairly restrictive, my options, it would seem, as a person who owns a private company are to support Sigil entirely, or largely, with my own funds, to keep donating all the code to the public, and thus being open to the rather endless demands for support, changes, improvements, etc., which I have zero intention of doing, or spend my own money to support the code for my own company. I've already donated a chunk of change to Sigil over the past few years--as I've said bluntly, far more than I would have paid for commercial software in enough licenses for all my crewmembers thus far. And, in fact, other than PCRE, I don't believe I've asked for a single feature.

If other (code) supporters show up, I'm perfectly delighted to continue as we have--my company will continue to donate heavily to the OS code that we've all enjoyed to date. In hindsight, I'm sorry I ever mentioned forking; I should have just gone about MY business without saying a word. Other than my usual contributions to the forum, this is my last word on this topic. OS Sigil can live or die on its own. If it lives, I'll continue as I have, as I said. If it doesn't, what I do, in this matter, from this moment forward, is my own choice, and from this moment forward, I shan't be discussing it publicly.

Hitch
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