Source Code

[Uwe Keim]

You control looks nice to me.

Bevor I even starting to think about integrating into a (commercial)
product, I would like to ask about to make source code for the project
available.

The reason for this is as following:

We relied heavily on VistaDB database in several commercial products
(http://vistadb.net), just to see the vendor cancelling the product
this august.

Now we stand here, having to remove all VistaDB support from our
applications again. This was really a bad day for us.

To avoid such a scenario, I want to ensure that I have at least access
to the source code of other components I integrate.

Hope you do understand.

Thanks
Uwe

[Christopher Wells]

Uwe,

Thank you for your email.

I think that the best thing for this project would be for me to
continue it: which may require me to make some money from it, perhaps
by selling it, by selling support contracts, or by doing custom
development.

I therefore don't want to give away the source code at the moment: in
case that would make it less attractive to an investor or a buyer.

If you would like to suggest a support contract, please email your
questions or proposals to in...@modeltext.com

Otherwise, if you need me to do some work on it for you now, I am
available. If you want to do some specific work on it it yourself,
then (if you ask) I may be able to help with that as well.

I have noticed that, for example, the "GOLD Parsing System", which I
am using to help parse CSS, is a well-established, long-lived project
with an ecosystem (many contributors, who developed grammars and
run-time engines and so on), but the core of it is still closed
source. Its author says, in the FAQ,

"I will continue to develop and release new versions of the GOLD
Builder. If, for any reason, I cannot continue to maintain the
software, I will release the full source code."

Does that seem like a reasonable, usable model to you?

Regards,
Christopher Wells