unperson (Thursday 24 February 2005)
For the legal aspect
---> TCL and TK comes with a BSD licence. Thanks 81.174.184.11!
The ethical aspect: a word on the human aspects of a commercial TCL/TK app
Of course beyond the legal aspects there are human aspects attached to a commercial TCL/TK app.
Since TCL/TK has developed such a strong community of coders who kindly help each other, it is clear that one's success is everyone's success. If a commercial TCL/TK becomes a success, it is only fair to the TCL/TK Community that the programmer does kind gestures to the community who has helped him in the first place: gestures such as publishing TCL/TK books for children, paying for the wikit connection for 5, 10 years and so on.
Gratefulness, giving back to the Community are the key words here.
RS agrees. I've taken great software (and advice) for free, and I'm trying to give back software and advice for free. I can't compare much, but I feel there's a special spirit in the Wiki, the Chat, and (maybe a bit less) in c.l.t. - friendly, relaxed people with inspiring views, occasionally.
RHS My favorite form of people "giving back" is when I see a "this is how I do that" description and think to myself "Wow, thats slick. I love that". Using the [info level 0] information to find out if someone actually supplied a value to a defaulted arg is one of those.