21 Nov 2004 yeupou   » (Master)

AlanHorkan:

"For one thing the Inkscape developers are no less independant than the Sodipodi developers."

Someone working at the OSDL, publishing an article about his fork, clearly is less independant than the other and clearly got a more important advertising power. That's a fact, isn't it? The question is more *was this advertising power used to screw sodipodi or not*.

" It is unfair to claim the Inkscape developers have screwed Sodipodi. They have forked Sodipodi exactly as GNU General Public License (GPL) entitles them to do"

Nobody said they have no right to fork.

"Inkscape is not in competition with Sodipodi"

This is not the point of view of the Sodipodi authors. I was not convinced either by what I read on Inkscape website. But I am not so interested about this conflict; so you may well be right.

"It is not surprising that any project bemoans the existance of a fork because if your project has been forked it makes you look really bad. [...] The Inkscape developers are very much aware that they would not be where they are today without having the solid base of Sodipodi to build on. I can understand Lauris Kaplinski's disappointment at Sodipodi being forked but you shouldn't hold that against Inkscape. "

1. I have nothing against the concept of forking. 2. I hold nothing against Inkscape.

Inkscape or the right to fork was not really the issue I was wondering about. I'm not sure it is necessary to continue a discussion focused on that here (or an article should be published) and I am frankly not really interested in the specifics.

I'm just wondering about the risk that "the ones with more advertizing power [can] screw independent [free software] developers" -- but is probably true in many others areas, so maybe it is not even software this issue is about.

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