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On 23/03/2019 01:41, Matt Harris wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:a002fba7-19b3-6bcb-7e88-d6f45e18d814@gmail.com"
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 23-Mar-19 8:15 AM, Mark Rousell
wrote:<br>
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On 22/03/2019 21:31, Mihovil Stanić wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:b6dce195-21d8-e81a-2ad1-c29771cae0ee@miho.im"
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<font size="-1"><font face="Liberation Sans">Why just don't
transfer ownership of add-on to another willing developer
under certain rules?<br>
Making this up, but something like this:<br>
</font></font>
<ul>
<li><font size="-1"><font face="Liberation Sans">add-on must
have open source licence</font></font></li>
<li><font size="-1"><font face="Liberation Sans">original
developer is MIA for lets say more then 6 months</font></font></li>
<li><font size="-1"><font face="Liberation Sans">ATO/ATN
staff tried to contact original developer at least 3
time in period of 1 month<br>
</font></font></li>
</ul>
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<br>
This approach would also require a fourth prerequisite: That the
original developer would need to sign up to these terms at the
outset (as a condition for hosting their addon on ATN).<br>
<br>
Will developers be willing to sign up to such a term, i.e. that
their project could be 'taken away' from them? I would think not
for two reasons:</blockquote>
Option1. Agree to loosing control if you abandon it.<br>
<br>
Option 2. We will delete it from server if option1 is not
selected and there is no version for the current release.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Option3: Just don't build for an ecosystem that imposes
unnecessarily onerous rules, regulations and conditions. Knowing
that your hard work may be deleted if you don't keep up with a
schedule over which you have no direct control is hardly an
encouragement to begin work. We surely want to lower barriers to
entry, not erect new ones.<br>
<br>
Open source is enough in and of itself. It provides all the
flexibility with none of the unnecessary imposition of conditions or
rules.<br>
<br>
For the avoidance of doubt once again: My only suggestion here was
to provide a way for authors and/or reviewers to indicate which
existing addons(s) new addons could be considered as an upgrade to,
and for this to be shown/offered programmatically to end users
within Thunderbird and within ATN. There's no need to add all sorts
of extra rules and regulation to the ecosystem on top of basic open
source licences to make this user experience improvement happen.<br>
<br>
And I think it would be an user experience improvement given that
forks happen and, in my opinion, should happen in a healthy
ecosystem.<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Mark Rousell
</pre>
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