Reviews and Votes removed for SmoothGallery Mambot

[neo_fox]

I have a question about this whole commercial and not commercial discussion. I love open source, I real do. But most of people believe that Open Source == Free of Charge.
I think that the real spirit of open source is phrased in the story about Stallman and the printer driver 

But what do You thing what could happens if I develop an Open Source software and will sell it?
The people will stone me.

I think, I don't have to explain the idea about open source and good business idea and this can really work (Red Hat, Novell,  xtCommerce, .. etc ) 

Regards
Radek

[AmyStephen]

We have much to figure out in this community, don't we? 

You are right. The community needs to financially support Joomla! and all of its development work. We are not there. We have lots of questions and very few good answers. I hope we stick together. If we do, I think we'll get there.

I don't know the story about Stallman and the printer driver but I'll try to read up on it. Appreciate you sharing.

With respect,
Amy

Radek - Thanks for that - Free as in Freedom Chapter 12

[neo_fox]

In 1980, Stallman and some other hackers at the AI Lab were not given the software's source code for the Xerox 9700 laser printer (code-named Dover), the industry's first. Stallman had modified the software on an older printer (the XGP, Xerographic Printer), so it electronically messaged a user when the person's job was printed, and would message all logged-in users when a printer was jammed. Not being able to add this feature to the Dover printer was a major inconvenience, as the printer was on a different floor from most of the users. This one experience convinced Stallman of the ethical need to require free software. At that time, it became clear that he wanted people to discard proprietary software.[8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman 

I just mean, or I understand it so that the power of open source is that when you buy some software you can do with it whatever you want (so far some ethical norm allows it).
That when for example Microsoft goes bankrupt (I can dream or ... ?  ) that your product goes down too because there is no support for the OS you using anymore. There is no kind of this danger with open source.

But for me this ethical norms are, that you should not take some component (lets say something like friendly URL ...) and you remove the adverting from it, and trying to "sell" it to the community as some kind of "development". To be honest, I use this component on several pages and I had never removed this part of code. I think, that to leave this, or to pay for the author's acceptance to remove this part of code, is a good idea to support the author. And I think that this what this "developer" has done, is not fair.

So, if I write a good software and will sell it, probably someone will buy this component, modify it a bit and will give MY work free as his own, and I lose my possibility to make money.

Is it really so evil to make money with open source ?

[AmyStephen]

Is it really so evil to make money with open source ?

Not even sort of evil. Of course developers should be compensated for their work. How that is done is the only question.

Listen, I am the Notorious Queen of Off Topic Posts and we are in serious Off Topic soil - I know it because I travel here too much! So, Radek, I will certainly engage in this discussion with you. We can do it in another thread (PM me with the link) or we can do it on my blog (address in my signature - feel free to sign up - get an ID - and blog it - anyone can join in) But, we probably need to stop in this thread.

Don't take it I'm not interested in discussing it - I am. I just don't want to disrespect people here and I don't want to ignore you, either, I can tell you are sincere and I appreciate that.

Thanks very much for your contributions to our community,
Amy

[neo_fox]

You're fully right