Can an open-source application restrict download only to a specific category of users? There's one such major application, in non-profit circles, that does just that. Access to the binary is restricted, though the source can be checked-out via Subversion (hosted on SourceForge). I wonder what their motivation is. saidi
* Access to the binary is restricted, though the source can be checked-out via Subversion (hosted on SourceForge).* The source is available under some license I suppose, so that's open source. The binary need not be 'freely available'. Have a look at their licensing. It might be informative. -- Josiah Mugambi Mike Ditka <http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/m/mike_ditka.html> - "If God had wanted man to play soccer, he wouldn't have given us arms."
On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 3:25 AM, saidimu apale <saidimu@gmail.com> wrote:
Can an open-source application restrict download only to a specific category of users?
No .. not for the source. if you notice most oss repository hosting providers (sourceforge / launchpad / googlecode) do not allow restricting source access (i.e. private hidden branches)
There's one such major application, in non-profit circles, that does just that. Access to the binary is restricted, though the source can be checked-out via Subversion (hosted on SourceForge).
binary releases are not really covered by the OSS license since the source is freely available as you mention. very many oss projects dont make binary releases since there is a great deal of variance between different linux flavors, and as the source is being constantly updated they may not have the resources to make constant binary releases ... which makes it easier to have source releases ...
participants (3)
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ashok+skunkworks＠parliaments.info -
Josiah Mugambi -
saidimu apale