Message-ID: <6NEZZFAw7gK2EwXr@talula.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 16:53:20 +0100
To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
From: Shawn Hargreaves <Shawn AT talula DOT demon DOT co DOT uk>
Subject: Suggested change to the Allegro licensing terms
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Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

The current Allegro "swapware" licensing terms have IMHO outgrown their
usefulness. They were designed for a small, one-coder project, where I
wanted my work to be completely free but also wanted to encourage people
to contribute things and to give me feedback about it. For that, I think
they worked brilliantly: it was hugely rewarding to get so much response
from people, and to see all the wonderful programs that were written.
Many thanks to everyone who sent me things: this was probably the only
reason why I went on developing Allegro beyond the very limited 320x200
video mode that it originally supported :-) 

Today, however, Allegro contains contributions from hundreds of
different authors, is being ported to several other platforms, and has a
thriving userbase of its own. I no longer need or want to see so much
individual feedback, and it doesn't make sense for people to send
individual gifts to me when Allegro contains code written by so many
people. The original license actually mentions sending money: although
that hasn't happened yet, it would be terrible if it ever did, because
although I couldn't in fairness keep it all myself, there are far too
many Allegro contributors for it to be practical to track them all down
and share it out! 

With this in mind, I propose the following modifications to the
licensing terms: 

- To reflect the fact that Allegro is no longer entirely my code, the 
  wording should be changed from first person singular to first person 
  plural. 

- For the same reason, instead of asking for things to be sent to me 
  personally we should ask for them to be made available to the entire 
  Allegro community. 

- It isn't always easy to find things that will be useful to a whole 
  group of people, so the wording should be relaxed from a required swap 
  to an optional exchange of gifts. 

- To avoid confusion with the previous distribution terms, I suggest 
  that the label be changed from "swapware" to "giftware". 

Here is my proposed new wording: 

    Allegro is gift-ware. It was created by a number of people working 
    in cooperation, and is given to you freely as a gift. You may use, 
    modify, redistribute, and generally hack it about in any way you 
    like, and you do not have to give us anything in return. However, if 
    you like this product you are encouraged to thank us by making a 
    return gift to the Allegro community. This could be by writing an 
    add-on package, providing a useful bug report, making an improvement 
    to the library, or perhaps just releasing the sources of your 
    program so that other people can learn from them. If you 
    redistribute parts of this code or make a game using it, it would be 
    nice if you mentioned Allegro somewhere in the credits, but you are 
    not required to do this. We trust you not to abuse our generosity. 

I would very much appreciate any comments or suggestions that you may
have. If nobody objects too violently, I will adopt these distribution
terms for all future Allegro versions as of the next work-in-progress
release, and then from Allegro 3.1 onwards. 


--
Shawn Hargreaves - shawn AT talula DOT demon DOT co DOT uk - http://www.talula.demon.co.uk/
"Miracles are nothing if you've got the wrong intentions" - Mike Keneally