Compatibility and open source distributions While installing various mailers on may machine, I found http://cr.yp.to/compatibility.html

The problem is not that various distributors are making bad changes - I think the responsibility belongs to the package maintainers and authors to provide their own "official" binary distributions, and make it as clear as possible in documentations and web sites that any "modified" binary or source distribution is not supported and should not be used  (even if the GPL/MIT license allows people to do it - that doesn't require the original author to recommend the fork/modified version ).

I don't think using a non-open source the license is the right solution - but given the current behavior and fragmentation in distributions I respect and agree with the reasons behind it. It may be better if it would be possible to prevent distributors from using the name, while still supporting the open source principles of allowing redistributions of changes. I'm not an expert - but I always thought that trademark would prevent people from using the same name for their modified version. If distributors are prevented from using the same name if they make changes on how a product behaves  ( like the layout and names of commands ) - then maybe their customers will demand the real, official version.

First step would be for a project to remove all --prefix options and all options allowing layout changes without making modifications in the files. Or changing the main program to verify if it is installed in the correct location and at least warn this is an unsupported, altered version. Then make sure the site clearly indicates that any modified version should not use the same name - I don't know if this is enforceable, but at least it can warn users about "fake" versions distributed by different packagers. The most important step is to make sure the web site includes binary packages for main platforms/distributions and links to all valid packages.

If open source projects start distributing "real" binary packages, and start warning and fighting modified ones - a lot of the problems and fragmentation we see in linux world will go away. More important - it will be easier for the real maintainers of a project to support it. Some projects may also want this as a way to get resources/money they may need to compensate for the extra effort.

It would be nice if sourceforge will add another icon in addition to "donate" - something like "buy official binary package". This may change the way many projects distribute their code.  And may add an extra link with "buy support" - with some mechanism for project to get a percentage and redirect to various people/organizations. Open source requires you to distribute the source and give rights to others - it doesn't require free binaries or support, and it doesn't require you to help distributors mutilate your code and make your project harder to use.
Posted by costin at May 08, 2004 01:33 PM