Releasing the Source
April 3rd, 2009
As of today, the source of the e text editor is being released. This is the first step in the transformation into an Open Company.
Note that this is not just handing the development over to the community. I am still, and will continue to be, the main developer. Development of the editor will continue and it will still be fully supported in the future.
What the release means is that you can never risk ending up with a product that is totally abandoned, that many more eyes will be there to find and remove bugs, that companies and individuals can themselves add features only they need for inhouse use and that the community can help speed up the development of e and hopefully free me up to work on the more innovative features (of which there are many in the planning stages).
The Open Company License
The source is being released with a clear and very permissive license. It is essentially the well known BSD license with a single extra clause:
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
- Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
- Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
- Neither the name of the e-texteditor nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission.
- Any redistribution, in whole or in part, must retain full licensing functionality, without any attempt to change, obscure or in other ways circumvent its intent.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
I think that too many of us have been in situations where we had to review huge multi-page licenses, with no chance for understanding all it’s implications short of being license lawyers. By basing the Open Company License on a simple and well understood license, it is hoped to make community involvement much easier.
While the addition of the extra clause means that the license can no longer be termed an Open Source License, it is ideal for the open company. It is essentially an issue of mutual respect. If I fully respect your ownership, you will in return respect my right to make a living.
Linux version
There has been many questions about whether the release of the source would make it possible to build a Linux version. The answer is yes. The source does build under Linux, it just needs a Linux version of the ecore library which will be released shortly.
The editor could not have been build without the support of a lot of open source projects (most notably wxWidgets). So to give back, the Linux version will be totally free (as in beer).
So play with the source, and join us in the forum if you have any questions.
April 3rd, 2009 at 9:40 am
Can you go into more details of the point of a license which is not Free Software/Open Source compliant?
The reasoning is described in some detail in the open company article
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:00 am
Very cool. I look forward to building it on Linux!
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:16 am
I just tried to build it and got this:
http://cracky.pastebin.com/d258dd411
You need to have wxWidgets installed. You also need a few other external libraries (look in /external).
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:40 am
Cool, man!
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:41 am
Shouldn’t you be using trademark law to protect the name e-texteditor, rather than sticking it into your software license?
The reference in the license is not to e-texteditor the product, but e-texteditor the organization.
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:54 am
Cool idea! I’ll be following this closely. Shame you couldn’t just use the GPL though, you might catch some flak for that. Good luck to you!
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:56 am
Could you explain the additional clause? What is “full licensing functionality”? Does it refer to this license, or the “Buy License now - $34.95″ on your homepage? Did you get a lawyer to look at this?
The clause only refer the the licensing functionality in the program (which is all the license cover).
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:57 am
Isn’t the additional paragraph essentially a redefinition of the first paragraph?
If you are thinking of the second clause, it refers to binary redistribution, where the first refers to the source.
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:03 am
Wow, just WOW Alex. This is brilliant! Hope this will calm down all of us whiny types at the release sub forum
Cheers, and kudos on the program! I’m happy I contributed to the development by paying for the license
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:11 am
Just what the world wanted– yet another open source license. I think you should get a trademark, and just use the apache license or the GPL. Overall though, kudos.
Well, technically this is not an open source license, and none of the existing licenses fit the open company, so there was really no choice. There seemed to be a great need for a license to fill the middle ground between open source and proprietary.
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:15 am
Where is the source to the ecore libraries?
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:16 am
This is the best editor I’ve ever used. SO many original features! Can’t wait for a Mac port so I can use it at home too
Out of respect for the TextMate author, who was very supportive of e, there will not be a Mac port.
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:26 am
I love E on my work computer and I’m looking forward to running it on my home (linux) box!
Great news!
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:33 am
Not making a Mac port isn’t being respectful to the author of TextMate. You guys both do good work — but why not let the Mac users use the editor they want to?
April 3rd, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Josh, I believe that e was meant to fill the gap that TextMate left (ie. Windows and eventually Linux users). It was not meant to be competing product, which is likely why the author of TextMate supported the development of e. The two programs complement each other, on different platforms.
In other news, I’ve recently switched to Mac and have to say I’m not all that thrilled with TextMate. Liked e better. Maybe it’s a matter of getting used to it…
April 3rd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
This is fantastic! I’ve been in the process of switching from Mac to Linux as my development environment, and I’ve yet to find a text editor that really worked for me.
If E ends up filling that gap, I’d definitely like to donate some money to you as well as the wxWidgets project.
Thanks for all your hard work!
April 3rd, 2009 at 3:16 pm
I bought a license when you came out of beta, but cygwin integration made the app slow on my windows laptop.
somewhere down the line it lost focus and the aura
I currently use textmate on macbook pro and scite on windows.
I would love to see a linux version, I hate the Java based IDE’s
April 3rd, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Erm, you have no “right” to make a living [wage] (you do have a right to try, of course).
April 3rd, 2009 at 4:46 pm
The business model of selling the product for Windows, and giving it away for free on Linux is very interesting to me. It says a lot about the Linux community and how supportive you are. At the same time you should still make a profit from the Windows world which has many more users by far. I doubt you will make any switchers to Linux, but its another plus in the right direction.
April 3rd, 2009 at 5:38 pm
About the license. I understand you’re trying to protect your living with the additional clause, and I support that. But doesn’t the clause contradict one of your stated goals: “you can never risk ending up with a product that is totally abandoned”? If you should at some point stop selling e licenses, the project is as good as dead on Windows, as the community won’t have the right to fork, remove the licensing code and restore e to full functionality.
My suggestion: add a clause to the license to the effect that if your organization should discontinue support, the fourth (”licensing functionality”) clause would no longer apply, essentially reverting the project to a plain BSD license. This clause wouldn’t affect your income, but it would help our peace of mind.
April 3rd, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Great open source license choice!
April 3rd, 2009 at 6:22 pm
So what is to stop anyone from building this for Windows and giving it away gratis?
Also I can’t immediately see the added sentence and why you think this deviates from an open source license. Are you attempting to preclude distribution to Windows users? If you are, which seems fundamental to your Open Company plans, then why not write that into the license? You might also want to write in there a retaliation clause against people who post howtos. But really policing that will be a full time job! But if you make it clear that you want people on Windows to pay, then norms may make that work.
Is it the sentence about your trademark? Yes, handle that with a trademark, just as Mozilla does.
April 3rd, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Okay, after reading your Open Company blog entry, I see the problem…
You believe this
“The central dilemma of Open Source is, and has always been, how to make a living doing it.”
That may certainly be a concern, and as someone who believes in Free Software more than Open Source I may not be the best person to speak on their behalf, but I don’t think that’s been a central dilema. Smart people find a way to make a living, whether it be on their own, working for a large company, a university or other arangement.
This statement leads to you trying to “make a compromise” which is really code for “Try to get other people to work for you”- just as you state in this very article that I should “respect your right to make a living”- as if this was every questioned. Everyone has the right to make a living- the question has been how. Can you make a living as a Free Software programmer? Sure! Can you make a living as a programmer or sys-admin (as I am), sure! Can you make money dumping waste into our streams and rivers? No.
So let’s throw this whole “make a living” argument where it belongs, and not in our streams and rivers.
What you want to do is make a non-Open Source, non-Free Software license that lets you make money, but limits other contributors. That’s not fair and generally these arrangements fail and the person or people in charge of the project cry that it’s the community’s fault they failed, rather than see that people just didn’t like the arrangement.
Beyond that, I don’t see any innocation here. Even your OpenCompany has been done before, it was called FreeDevelopers.
April 3rd, 2009 at 7:26 pm
I love e-texteditor. I use it rather frequently for any job that’s too big for VI. This is a wonderful step for OSS. Thanks for the great editor.
April 3rd, 2009 at 7:35 pm
If it’s the BSD license with an extra (restrictive) clause, then it is no longer the BSD license, so to say that it is “essentially the BSD license” is misleading. It gives the impression that you’re a more “open” company than you really are. What you mean by “open company” is essentially “you fix our bugs and don’t break our rules,” and THAT isn’t in the spirit of any of the projects that you’ve used to build e.
April 3rd, 2009 at 7:45 pm
While the idea of free for Linux and pay for Windows is intriguing, this attempt at the subverted license is worrisome. By closing the license via that clause, but making it otherwise look like BSD, it might slip by people’s notice. I’d hate to see a later claims of “stolen” code from this project, because some other project doesn’t have the pay-ware part and in some way casually resembled this code. We’ve all seen various proprietary vendors take BSD stuff, rebrand it, and then claim other code was copied from them (SCO, anyone)?
Nearest I can tell this is an honest attempt to open things up, yet still make money off of it, but it falls short. It’s not really safe from being abandonware, because that clause closes it back down to being dependent on the company. Really the only result is maybe other people will put their work in, while it still being the property of the company. A fair bit of effort (time, money, etc) has gone into the existing FOSS licenses, and I don’t know if this attempt at hacking on commercialization really works.
April 3rd, 2009 at 7:47 pm
I mean open is open. If you really want to open it up, then do so. You may even be able to make it pay with a nice simple pay to play binary, that comes with support. The ones that are going to build it themselves might be the the ones that wouldn’t pay anyways?
April 3rd, 2009 at 9:39 pm
looks like a cool product, can’t wait for the linux version to show up, though I’m quite a fan of geany, this looks like something that can compete.
April 3rd, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Thank you for open source… e has been my fav editor since i cant afford a macbook right now, so im running linux on my desktop at home, and windows at work and i bought the e license for work since i liked the demo so much… now i can use it at home… ROCK AND F***ING ROLL
April 4th, 2009 at 5:32 am
Congratulations Alexander - I feel very positive about this (great to see it hosted on github, too), and wish you the very best of success. I will continue to help in whatever way I can, of course.
April 4th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
How are you going to stop an interested party porting it to OS X?
April 4th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
I’m happy to see this. Very interesting license.
I bought a license for windows use and can’t wait to use it on linux! Do we have an ETA on ecore?
April 5th, 2009 at 2:46 am
I left a comment of the GitHub blog post this topic. I’m genuinely happy about the move, and I shared a little concern about the licensing.
http://github.com/blog/401-e-text-editor-on-github
April 6th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
This is real good news.
April 7th, 2009 at 6:17 am
terrific!!! looking forward to the Linux version!
April 7th, 2009 at 9:04 am
While E saved my butt when I was forced over to Windows I look forward to running the Linux version inside the “Portable Ubuntu” (as seen in LifeHacker) so that the linux integration will not depend on the Cygwin — which I find a little bit of a PITA.
April 8th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
So, the source code for most of the application is now in the wild, we can build it an modify it.
But we can’t run the resulting exe without a license. We can’t fork it or integrate other projects into it. If something happens to you or your company the source becomes useless. We can contribute code as volunteers, but you are the only one who gets paid. Worse, those contributions are covered by your license agreement and are effectively locked-in.
The people who use Linux get a “free version” of the application, which doesn’t make sense after reading your license. Also it will make Windows users feel picked-on. Myself, I use both, but I run Linux in a Vbox for development anyway.
I respect everyone’s “right” to make a living. I’m a software developer by trade, as are many of the people I know. But if you’re going to go “open” then go open, don’t go halfway.
As mentioned earlier, I very much recommend that you read the open company article, which goes into more detail on the reasoning behind doing it this way.
While it is true that you can’t run the exe (on windows) without a license, you are fully allowed to fork or integrate other projects into it (as long as the other projects licenses allow it). Nor are outside contributions locked in. Participants just give shared ownership, which means that they still have all rights to their own contributions and can do whatever they like with them.
Linux users will still be able to buy a license for their software, if they want to support the project, but it will run just fine without it. So the licensing functionality is still there in the Linux version, it just no longer limits your usage.
The whole point of the open company concept, is to try to find a middle ground between open source and proprietary, where the participants actually get paid for their work.
April 9th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Alexander,
I am very keen that you will be releasing TextMate on Linux. The lack of multi-platform support is largely what’s kept me from migrating to textmate from my older editor in the past. Now that you’re multi-platform, I’ll be able to switch to TextMate.
However, I must advise you against this “not an open source license”. First, I don’t think the additional clause will actually hold up in court (IANAL, of course). Second, if you’re not going to really open source TextMate, then why not just keep selling it as proprietary software? Trying to do something in-between proprietary and open source isn’t going to gain you any more users, and it’s just going to make people angry.
Or to put it another way: if Microsoft couldn’t make Shared Source work, what makes you think you can?
Stick with regular old Shareware TextMate. It’s worked, it’s popular, and there’s nothing wrong with proprietary software. This weird license gains you nothing.
April 10th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
I like how this license make the software free in a transparent perspective but not free in an economic perspective. It’s a new interesting perspective on openness.
One important aspect of open source transparency which this license also give. The fact that usual open source also is free in an economical sense isn’t at all equally important I think.
If a license like this could create a better and more free economical environment for transparent software then it would certainly be something that I would be interested in keeping track of.
April 10th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
Now when I’ve actually read all of the comments and seen the people who are fearing a single person in control of the company - wouldn’t a suitable form of company be a cooperative?
The board members could be the most trusted members of the cooperative and all members with a certain level of trust has voting rights on the annual meeting? In the bye laws it could be defined that a license of some form always need to exist.
Sure - that way one can’t guarantee which way the project is heading - but you can guarantee that the community is always able to license the code and that no single person can ruin it all.
I’ve no idea about how cooperatives work in Denmark, but in Sweden they are very easy to establish.
Also - a link to an European initiative for a cross border form of cooperative: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Cooperative_Society
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:58 am
Apart from the early versions i see that E has developed very much.
I switched (for a short time though) from TextMate to E and i have
really almost no problems running and coding on E.
The Open Source switch is definitely the right move so the app
can be extended fast and easily. I fear that it might outrun
TextMate in some point.
It would be ULTRA cool to see a linux version too, since in Linux
there isnt a editor like E or TextMate.
take care folks