Are there any plans to make TextMate free and open source?
The benefits of this would include:
* Having multiple developers voluntarily fixing bugs * Bugs get zapped quicker * Features can get added faster (after volunteer developers are carefully chosen) * Everyone gets to see under the hood * If someone doesn't like something, he can create a branch of TextMate, and this can also serve as a test branch for the trunk release. * Being open source is the ultimate sign of self-confidence in your software's security and stability.
And how you can still profit:
* Google Ads * Popularity * Technical support * Donations and funding from individuals and organisations relying on TextMate.
I mean no disrespect to Aaron and the other guys at Macromates. I'm suggesting this because it might actually improve TextMate without incurring a loss on its developers. And after Mozilla Firefox's success, I believe that anything is possible.
Just my 2 cents. Please correct me if I'm out of line. Either way, I plan to keep on using TextMate after the demo runs out. :) Everytime I use TextMate I'm reminded why Mac OS X applications rock.
On 28/08/2005, at 12.13, Kris Khaira wrote:
Are there any plans to make TextMate free and open source?
There are no short term plans of making it F/OSS. It would be cool to have it free (as in speech, not beer) in the future, but currently there are too many reasons not to.
[...] I'm suggesting this because it might actually improve TextMate without incurring a loss on its developers.
If you're actually advocating free as in beer, then the loss is inevitable. I have no idea what business model you have in mind that involves making money off of popularity. Donations doesn't work for software (as has been shown time after time), I can't make money from Google Ads (ask around), and I have no idea what technical support you refer to -- and would you really like to see me do technical support rather than work on the TextMate code base?
As for the improvements, at present I think these would only be marginal, and I'd have to spend time supervising “external” development -- plugins is the better route for allowing other developers to improve TM.
Contributing to a project like TM is not like fixing typos in a book. I'm curious, are you involved in any F/OSS project(s) yourself?
And after Mozilla Firefox's success, I believe that anything is possible.
They get funded by Netscape, IBM, Novell and many other industry players who have strong interests in seeing a standards compliant browser/alternative to MS/IE. So I don't think you can extrapolate anything from the Firefox success and contribute that to it being F/OSS.
There are btw several F/OSS text editor projects for the Mac :)
I'd much rather see TextMate remain closed source –– the model currently in use is perfect. Allan works on the heart of TextMate (an extensible text editor architecture), then we (the community) contribute open source bundles that provide TextMate with features which are very focused to a specific language or market.
TextMate (to me) is already the perfect balance between a closed and open source. You can still contribute to TextMate's functionality (via the Bundles), yet Allan can maintain control over the main direction of the application.
Justin
On 28/08/2005, at 8:13 PM, Kris Khaira wrote:
Are there any plans to make TextMate free and open source?
The benefits of this would include:
- Having multiple developers voluntarily fixing bugs
- Bugs get zapped quicker
- Features can get added faster (after volunteer developers are
carefully chosen)
- Everyone gets to see under the hood
- If someone doesn't like something, he can create a branch of
TextMate, and this can also serve as a test branch for the trunk release.
- Being open source is the ultimate sign of self-confidence in your
software's security and stability.
And how you can still profit:
- Google Ads
- Popularity
- Technical support
- Donations and funding from individuals and organisations relying
on TextMate.
I mean no disrespect to Aaron and the other guys at Macromates. I'm suggesting this because it might actually improve TextMate without incurring a loss on its developers. And after Mozilla Firefox's success, I believe that anything is possible.
Just my 2 cents. Please correct me if I'm out of line. Either way, I plan to keep on using TextMate after the demo runs out. :) Everytime I use TextMate I'm reminded why Mac OS X applications rock.
--- Justin French, Indent.com.au justin.french@indent.com.au Web Application Development & Graphic Design
No, Allan, I didn't mean free as in free beer. I only mentioned price because it's what developers usually worry about.
I've been involved in free, open source projects myself -- not programming but usability and interface design. One of the ones that didn't really take off was Saskatoon http://saskatoon.sourceforge.net/
You can still contribute to TextMate's functionality (via the Bundles), yet Allan can maintain control over the main direction of the application.
Thanks, guys, I never saw it that way.
Now I'll go make some bundles!
On 29 Aug 2005, at 02:44, Justin French wrote:
I'd much rather see TextMate remain closed source –– the model currently in use is perfect. Allan works on the heart of TextMate (an extensible text editor architecture), then we (the community) contribute open source bundles that provide TextMate with features which are very focused to a specific language or market.
TextMate (to me) is already the perfect balance between a closed and open source. You can still contribute to TextMate's functionality (via the Bundles), yet Allan can maintain control over the main direction of the application.
Agreed 100%! (Very well put)
Another point that should be pointed out is that Allan is *very* good at taking/responding to your ideas/input, and implements many of them very quickly or keeps them on his ToDo list for future work. Having said that though, it would be even better if there was two Allan's working on TM all the time ;-)
Kind regards,
Mats
---- "TextMate, coding with an incredible sense of joy and ease" - www.macromates.com -
On 29 août 05, at 10:22, Mats Persson wrote:
On 29 Aug 2005, at 02:44, Justin French wrote:
I'd much rather see TextMate remain closed source –– the model currently in use is perfect. Allan works on the heart of TextMate (an extensible text editor architecture), then we (the community) contribute open source bundles that provide TextMate with features which are very focused to a specific language or market.
TextMate (to me) is already the perfect balance between a closed and open source. You can still contribute to TextMate's functionality (via the Bundles), yet Allan can maintain control over the main direction of the application.
Agreed 100%! (Very well put)
Ditto.
Another point that should be pointed out is that Allan is *very* good at taking/responding to your ideas/input, and implements many of them very quickly or keeps them on his ToDo list for future work. Having said that though, it would be even better if there was two Allan's working on TM all the time ;-)
OK! Let's code a second Allan then! ;)
-
Allan Odgaard -
Fred B. -
Justin French -
Kris Khaira -
Mats Persson