Where are you getting the idea that we're reneging on the decision to Open Source Lightworks? All we're doing is first meeting the immediate commercial priorities which is that the vast majority of potential users don't care about Open Source but do care about stable, installable software on Windows, Linux and OS X. It would be bad business if we didn't deal with the immediate demand first, and we'd be getting more criticism than we would be from the smaller but vocal number of potential users who want to get to the Source Code.

Dealing with good potential business before opening up the software is not reneging. It is still our intention, but we will do it in our own time, and on our own terms. Not having an open source version so far has not been a problem for the more than 250,000 who have already downloaded Lightworks.

As far as funding is concerned - we hope there will be a big take-up of the Pro version. But whatever happens, as I said, Lightworks is core to the business - but not the main part of it - and we're in this for the long term.

@lukus said:




No problem and much appreciated.

> Where are you getting the idea that we're reneging on the decision to Open Source Lightworks?

I think there may be a sort of lexical misunderstanding.

"Open source" is seen as a keyword, almost a trademark of a certain software production/dissemination philosophy. It is related to the slogan "free as in freedom".

Maybe the misunderstanding comes from the fact that the licensing terms to which you are referring appear, to some, to be more related to the other type of freedom ("free as in beer"), where the product can be obtained for free, but it is not available for modification by the (so called) "community".

However. as the OpenOffice.org experience shows, an *effectively* hybrid model is possible. Theoretically, all of the office suite is open source. Practically, the core part is essentially developed as if it were a proprietary project, while other parts (documentation, translations, plug-ins...) can be contributed by external developers. Moreover, I have the feeling that most popular "open source" projects work like this: GIMP/GTK, Inkscape, Scribus, KDE...

I see a very strong *commercial* potential in a project that is actually open source (a customer-friendly company), multi-platform (hardware- and software-environment-friendly), flexible in licensing (starting at cost=0.00, bank-account-friendly), flexible in usage scenarios, although specialized in function (pure editor).

In any case, I think it would be in the company's interest to take advantage of possible external contributions to the project itself, just as it has been for the documentation on this same website. Contributions could certainly be reviewed and not included if not up to standards, so it would not be a matter of quality.

@sterovetta

I think this is a very good post.

I think it helps if people understand our priorities. The main one is that we have to preserve the quality of at least one strand of Lightworks development. What I mean by this is that it has had twenty years of development into an incredibly capable, stable editing tool; one that can make Oscar-winning movies. That's a very high standard to maintain, and we don't want to dilute that.

"Open Source" does seem to be a very emotive term. At its most basic, it means that the source code is available for people to look at. Other types of permissions radiate out from that starting point.

Of course we're not averse to the idea that external developers might contribute to the software, but I think we have to avoid a free-for-all where we get a million different versions, none of which is actually viable as a product; so, whatever we do about Open Source, it will have to be very carefully managed.

We are not at that stage yet because we still have work to do on the core application. We will get there but it is difficult to be specific because we don't know when it will be yet.

We will always retain the rights to some versions of the code that we may spin-off in other directions. There will always be versions of Lightworks that are owned by Editshare and that are not available on an Open Source basis.

But we are totally committed to the original roadmap that states we will release the source code when we are ready to do so.

Meanwhile, we have had so much demand for installable versions of Lightworks on all platforms that we are concentrating on finishing these - because it would be commercially unwise to do otherwise.

Hallo
The debate on the "open source" expectations and LW on Linux is related with the fact that LW will be (hopefully!) the first professional editing software running on linux at an affordable price (or zero price).
Let's see that done (LW on linux and all conditions above).

The type of licensing is up to the developer and is about his intuition for the future.
However if they want to attract numbers of users they should look more toward a free licensing (anybody could have access to the source code). It's a win-win game.

A lower price (including all codec prices) is mandatory in my opinion in order to have a successful LW.

I vote again for LW on Linux.

warrickvdh wrote:

Absolutely agree, then why not "freeware" instead of "open source" ?