On Wed, Mar 12, 2008 at 12:46 AM, Simon Large
<simon.tortoisesvn_at_googlemail.com> wrote:
> It is TortoiseSVN which is GPLed. The installer executable does not
> need to be, so the fact that TSVN is combined in a single installer
> executable should not be an issue.
It does not need to be, I agree.
But it is GPL'ed now, and to become non-GPL it needs a re-licensing.
Anyway, i think the (most|only) sane way is to
host a toolbar installer separately and
have TSVN installer download and run it (if the user selects the option).
This has many advantages:
1) Naive user, who is expected to be fooled into installing the toolbar,
would not know a difference -- thus the advertising revenue
would not be harmed.
2) The whole licensing issue goes away.
3) Toolbar version can be de-coupled from TortoiseSVN version,
so, for example, you will not be forced to issue a new version of TortoiseSVN
with a wonderful changelog of "Fixed a critical security hole in the
bundled toolbar".
3a) Conversely, users will not be forced to re-download toolbar
installer with each
TortoiseSVN upgrade.
4) Users who elect to not install the toolbar will not
pay the price of additional download size.
5) The (potential, but not insignificant IMHO)
problem with SourceForge hosting policy for non-free software will
be resolved,
the installer can even be downloaded from advertiser's site directly.
6) Corporate admins can easily disable toolbar installation
by blocking it's download URL.
7) You can bundle as many toolbars as you want, and even make it
configurable ;-)
8) Seriously, if the relationship with this particular advertiser will turn out
to be unsatisfactory, the cost of switching will be less.
9) The mechanism can be re-used, e.g. for downloading spell-checker
dictionaries.
--
Alexander S. Klenin
Insight Experts Ltd.
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Received on 2008-03-11 16:53:12 CET