is there any intention to make this open source?

[ochompsky]

this is a great product but you are only a single person, and i see lots of things that could be improved upon, at least for my own use if not the public. i'd love to improve the http server specifically, allow better login support (including ssl for one), more customization, e.g.

[void]

I am considering releasing the source code for Everything 1.4.

I'm also considering making the etp/ftp/html servers open source plug-ins for Everything 1.5.


To customize the HTTP server, please see:
Customizing the HTTP server.

[w64bit]

I am considering releasing the source code for Everything 1.4.

Please don't.
This is the way to ruin a great program.

[Stamimail]

Perhaps the question should be:
Does anyone have examples to Good open sourcing and to Bad open sourcing and what reasons made them like that?

[w64bit]

If someone needs an open source project, it can start it from scratch.
The source code of Everything is very good written and it will be a waste to give it for free to an unknown bunch of people to spoil it.

[ochompsky]

Please don't.
This is the way to ruin a great program.

If someone needs an open source project, it can start it from scratch.
The source code of Everything is very good written and it will be a waste to give it for free to an unknown bunch of people to spoil it.

Sorry to say but you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. The developer can still choose to continue on his original work and you are free to use it and others can improve/add features and the dev can choose to merge them in at his will.

I am considering releasing the source code for Everything 1.4.

I'm also considering making the etp/ftp/html servers open source plug-ins for Everything 1.5.


To customize the HTTP server, please see:
Customizing the HTTP server.

Thanks but there's still limitations in what that can do. I'd love to develop this out into a full fledged file manager with delete/rename/upload capabilities. Another sticking point is the lack of SSL, unless im missing something here. That's a huge security risk alone.

I mean, you don't charge for this program. Unless you plan to in the future, what do you have to lose?

[NotNull]

[...] what do you have to lose?

Generally speaking: Effort to make your code accessible to/readable for others, trouble integrating different coding styles (or even languages), discussions about vision and/or priorities, leading to fights, split up, forks, people not knowing which fork to choose.
And being a manager more than a coder ...
Just a few I've seen before. Of course there are positive sides too, but you asked for the negative ones

I don't have a horse in this race, but couldn't you just start writing your own file-manager/ https/ftp server /... and use the available Everything API's to integrate it's functionality?

Now I think of it, I *do* have a (little) horse in this race: I like utilities/tools that do "just" one thing and do it good. A lot of utilities start smart,elegant an "to the point", but after a while they start getting "featuritis": they try to do it all. If that happens, most of the times I end up searching for alternatives.
There are only a few that get away with "featuritis" and they (almost) all use some kind of framework for that, so other people can write plugins to extend the functionality. And that's a different league.

[ochompsky]

[...] what do you have to lose?

Generally speaking: Effort to make your code accessible to/readable for others, trouble integrating different coding styles (or even languages), discussions about vision and/or priorities, leading to fights, split up, forks, people not knowing which fork to choose.
And being a manager more than a coder ...
Just a few I've seen before. Of course there are positive sides too, but you asked for the negative ones

I don't have a horse in this race, but couldn't you just start writing your own file-manager/ https/ftp server /... and use the available Everything API's to integrate it's functionality?

Now I think of it, I *do* have a (little) horse in this race: I like utilities/tools that do "just" one thing and do it good. A lot of utilities start smart,elegant an "to the point", but after a while they start getting "featuritis": they try to do it all. If that happens, most of the times I end up searching for alternatives.
There are only a few that get away with "featuritis" and they (almost) all use some kind of framework for that, so other people can write plugins to extend the functionality. And that's a different league.

This is probably what im going to do next but I figured I would check if the devs had any plans to open it up internally so I could help others with the file manager I plan to build.

I suppose it doesn't stop me from releasing seperately but worth asking.

[sheppaul]

[...] what do you have to lose?

Generally speaking: Effort to make your code accessible to/readable for others, trouble integrating different coding styles (or even languages), discussions about vision and/or priorities, leading to fights, split up, forks, people not knowing which fork to choose.
And being a manager more than a coder ...
Just a few I've seen before. Of course there are positive sides too, but you asked for the negative ones

I don't have a horse in this race, but couldn't you just start writing your own file-manager/ https/ftp server /... and use the available Everything API's to integrate it's functionality?

Now I think of it, I *do* have a (little) horse in this race: I like utilities/tools that do "just" one thing and do it good. A lot of utilities start smart,elegant an "to the point", but after a while they start getting "featuritis": they try to do it all. If that happens, most of the times I end up searching for alternatives.
There are only a few that get away with "featuritis" and they (almost) all use some kind of framework for that, so other people can write plugins to extend the functionality. And that's a different league.

Agreed. To make everything open source is enough when the dev decide not to develop it anymore for some reason.
I'd not like to see ruining the identity of everything. None can do the same level of job as the original developer specially in such a case of exceptional work like everything. It has been proven over and over again in history. Once it is open sourced, actually it's time to the end of everything IMHO. Of course, there are always exceptions but it's really rare to see it happening. Everything itself won't be survived at all and cannot be managed properly.

[Stamimail]

Sorry for not having a knowledge in programming so much, but,
Theoretically speaking, in an ideal situation that everything goes right:
1. How releasing the source code can help to improve the "public" Everything project? What expected?
2. Why releasing an old version of the code or parts of the code or a buggy code can't be a solution?

[dlong500]

Sorry to bring this old thread back to life, but I would greatly appreciate having the source code available. For one, it would be awesome to look at the code of a well-crafted app and gain some insights into the intricacies of filesystems like NTFS.

The most important reason, however, would be the ability for those with time/resources to add useful features. Those added features could then be integrated back into the mainline release if @void deemed them worthy. But in any case that would make the app more useful to more people, and allow those with special use cases to maintain their own forks of the app.

One feature that I would greatly like to see would be the ability to have an agent running on Linux using inotify to get similar updates for those remote filesystems like the USN journal provides for NTFS. There are Linux search apps like FSearch that use inotify, but I'd love a solution that allowed aggregating an index from remote NAS sources to be viewed within the Everything UI on a Windows machine. This would allow storing data on a remote NAS without losing the realtime indexing currently only supported on local NTFS volumes.

Another useful reason for open sourcing an app is that it provides some safeguard against losing out on a very useful app in the case something were to ever happen to a sole developer (or they simply chose to stop developing). If an app becomes incompatible with a future OS (for whatever reason) then users are completely out of luck in that scenario. At least with the source code available an individual or group could continue the development without starting from scratch.

In terms of financial contexts, there are various mechanisms for donating (as voidtools already uses) that wouldn't change just because the app is open source. End users donate to open source projects all the time. In fact there might even be more incentive for an organization to donate if they know the source code would be available in perpetuity.

[therube]

(Certainly not up to me... I'll just throw a few "PM" posts out there for perusal... Not looking for any comments...
UXP and allied Project Contributors.. Your rights are being violated along with the MPL.
[BLOG] Manifestation of the Tribal Internet
The rat, the cheese, and the Windows XPs
[the saga continues] The fate of forks.)

[xer0x]

I would support the idea to open source it, for many reasons
Also, i do not see any drawback of that.
i can not imagine, how a project can be "destroyed" by opensourcing.
Opens sourcing does not mean just anyone can add/change code, how comes ?
The project owner/developer decides on that.
I amy also bring a great example.
See Vim of Bram Moolenar, Vim is open sourced for ages,
but Bram M. is the main and only architect.
Although, he is critisized for his strict policy regarding accepting changes in Vim,
there is no problem with that, everyone can make it's own fork, theoretically, but:
first, - no one actually does, cause it is hard to make it really better
and, second, - even more hard to gain popularity.

There is NeoVim, is the first and only successful fork of Vim.
But still, no one traumatised or offended from that, just peacefully coexisting.

[raccoon]

There are a lot of ways that a piece of software and its development can be, as you put, "destroyed."

Everything is very actively developed by at least a single lead dev as his own personal hobby horse. Bugs are fixed and feature requests are added with regularity. This cannot be said for 99% of open source projects that ever existed, nor can it be said for at least 90% of open source projects in active use today. The crux of the issue is that open source projects tend to fizzle out and development halts, usually permanently, with the occasional project being forked 5 or 8 years later to fix a bug or add a feature -- but that's rare.

If Void were to make Everything an open source project, there are a few things that could potentially happen:

- A commercial entity bundles and spins the software into their own product package, puts up a lot of ads, and attracts a lot of customers who pay considerable money. This causes Void to get annoyed, cynical, and ditches the project. Development ends.

- Somebody forks the project, makes their mark by adding a considerable number of features, some of those features backfeeds into Void's Everything, but ultimately people start using that New Everything Fork instead. Void discontinues development out of users' disinterest and shift away from his project to the sister project instead. The New developer bows also out after 2 years as well because he already accomplished what he wanted and moved on. Development ends.

- Utopia is realized and all users develop their own patches and pull requests and Everything and everyone lives happy ever after. But this hasn't ever happened yet for any other project... there's always a first time!

[xer0x]

- A commercial entity bundles and spins the software into their own product package..

Read the GPL license for example, the commercial entity will be sued and fined, enforcement here is working quite well

- Somebody forks the project, makes their mark by adding a considerable number of features..

Good luck to this somebody, but this just does not happen for reasons i already mentioned in the post above

- Utopia is realized and all users develop their own patches and pull requests and Everything and everyone lives happy ever after. But this hasn't ever happened yet for any other project... there's always a first time!

It happens all the time.
You really make me impression of some another world guy
Said that, i can stop here, i think.
i am sorry, i did not meant and do not want any heated discussion here. Thank you for your interesting comments!

[w64bit]

@xer0x
Please edit your post and remove the 3 letters in caps.
You are the only one on the forum who used these words.

[NotNull]

@xer0x
Please edit your post

Already done

--------------------

Since the first post in this thread, more on the business side of Everything became apparent:
Developing and maintaining Everything is a full-time job (actually: way more than full-time).
@void wants to keep Everything free and relies on donations to keep it that way.
Luckily, there are a lot of people that are willing to donate for this genius masterpiece (my opinion ).
Unfortunately that is still not enough to pay the bills, so @void falls back on secondary sources of income from time to time. (which by the way means that the development of Everything is paused during that time)
All this so Everything can stay free. I do have serious respect for this kind of dedication.

Bram Moolenaar works at Google (IIRC) and is allowed to work on Vim. So he has a steady income ànd time to work on it.
Different situation ..


Now that we are already discussing what someone else should do with his/her brainchild, time, money and intellectual property (which is easy when it is not yours ) ...

It is very well possible that making Everything open source has no negative impact on donations (= income), but it is a risk. A risk that could lead to (worst case) the end of development of Everything due to lack of income.
An economically more viable alternative could be making people pay for Everything. I have no idea how many people are actually using Everything, but let's say 200.000 (one in every 40.000 earthlings) are willing to pay 15 euro for it. That is 3 million euro. Repeat when version 1.6 gets released.
So I think Everything is worth quite a bit. I would not gamble with that kind of money. Maybe some "big tech" comes along, understands the excellent value of Everything, offers a couple of big bags full of money and hires @void to develop it further.


Long story short: The current way is a business model. Everything is much, much more than a hobby project on the side -- or "own personal hobby horse".
Not everyone is interested in the business side - selling, etc. - of developing applications
I am glad that Everything can remain free so more people can enjoy it.

i did not meant and do not want any heated discussion here.

That is a pity! You came up with some interesting points and I liked reading it.
Discussions arise simply because people care.


For reference

[Stamimail]

It looks like that making code to open source is a personal question and decision of the developer. I believe this means (among other things) that he will have to spend more time reading other people's code and ideas, and dealing more with code management, instead of just coding and implement his own ideas.

I think in general void should be very careful of ideas from competitors, or distractions they try to make. (I don't suspect anyone)

I do think, since no one lives forever, a developer should have a plan to keep the project alive in the event of some tragedy.

I also think, that void can indeed allow others to participate in coding, through plugins.

[NotNull]

I think in general void should be very careful of ideas from competitors, or distractions they try to make. (I don't suspect anyone)

What do you mean by that? Is this about suggestions that are made that deviate from what Everything is about?
(whatever that may be currently; things evolve)

I recently got a free life-lesson when reading a post by the Listary developer who let Listary "drift away", abandoned development and started again with new focus:

I have too many ideas, but hard to classify and drop any. As a result, I was stuck in the puzzle of product design - pile of features. What features might be useful? Provide it. What functions do related products serve? Provide it. What requirements did the users express? Provide it.
[...]
My experience [...] in both product design and development. This long and brief withdrawal also allowed me to reconsider what kind of product Listary is, what kind of product it will be, what is its weakness, and more importantly, what is its strengths.

The lesson here - to me - was to reconsider what I was doing and start focusing on the things that are important to me and just say "No" to lots of 'noise'. Works well for me.


I guess the same applies somewhat to @void: If you are *that* talented, the most important skill to have is to know what *not* to do.


Or did you mean something else entirely? (then I would be focusing on the wrong things again )

[Stamimail]

I have no problem with posts making noise around, trying to pull Everything in all sorts of directions, as long as the poster intention is for the good of Everything. If the poster acts with bad motives towards Everything, that is the problem to be very careful about.

I agree that the noise you have when trying to "keep your mind open", can lead to the kind of problem the Listary developer had.

I guess the solution to this problem is to recognize that managing a project is a job in itself, to stay in touch with the audience/forum to do research and order things and decide which feature is inside and which feature is outside, what to do first and what to do after.

So that ideally (maybe it's like that in proprietary software), it was correct to divide the development into 2 roles:
1. A project manager
2. A programmer who implements the features.

But I think that's the whole point for void to make this project like that (freeware and one person), that's all the fun. Yes, less money, but more fun and more good feeling.

[NotNull]

If the poster acts with bad motives towards Everything, that is the problem to be very careful about.

Do you have any indication that this is happening right now?

[Stamimail]

No. But you don't need to look for an indication either. Just to be aware and take things with caution.

[Thy Grand Voidinesss]

I am considering releasing the source code for Everything 1.4.

Please don't.
This is the way to ruin a great program.

For me, assuming version 1.5 will be greatly improved after a lot of work, releasing its inferior version has not drawbacks

And I have a question to you: what happens is the sole developer of not-yet-open-source program like Everything has an accident and dies? Will such software continue to be developed right away - or will it die with its creator?

[xer0x]

@xer0x
Please edit your post

Already done [/quote]
Thanks anyway, but i cant remember, i guess i said some curse or blasphemy ? if so, i will try to avoid such

Since the first post in this thread, more on the business side of Everything became apparent:
Developing and maintaining Everything is a full-time job (actually: way more than full-time).

I have no doubt ant that.

@void wants to keep Everything free and relies on donations to keep it that way.

Well, many opensourced projects enjoy these fruits

Unfortunately that is still not enough to pay the bills

(sighing) open-sourcing will not make it better or worse

so @void falls back on secondary sources of income from time to time.
(which by the way means that the development of Everything is paused during that time)

again I am not surpised

All this so Everything can stay free. I do have serious respect for this kind of dedication.

Here i lost u, my bad. Still i dont see the link between "Everything staying free" and "developing ET is his parttime voluntary job".

Bram Moolenaar works at Google (IIRC) and is allowed to work on Vim. So he has a steady income ànd time to work on it. Different situation ..

Bram allowed to do more, @Void allowed to do less, this is quantative per se, but to mee it seems unrelated to opensourcing, both ways @Void is not going to become rich from the Everything

Now that we are already discussing what someone else should do with his/her brainchild, time, money and intellectual property (which is easy when it is not yours ) ...

Everyone is should do whatever he want and whatever is not illegal, so .. ?
It does not answer the question which actual negative impact opensourcing have.
Again, owner of the project does not have to bother even to answer to anyone on any subject, just ignore the entire world, while the code can be opensourced.
As i said before stealing is strictly prohibited by law, any business company knows not to mess with opensource.

It is very well possible that making Everything open source has no negative impact on donations (= income), but it is a risk. A risk that could lead to (worst case) the end of development of Everything due to lack of income.

Probably u are right, who knows, this may be a legit consideration

An economically more viable alternative could be making people pay for Everything. I have no idea how many people are actually using Everything, but let's say 200.000 (one in every 40.000 earthlings) are willing to pay 15 euro for it. That is 3 million euro. Repeat when version 1.6 gets released.

Probably, i am hard to believe though.
Any licensing creates a huge mess also for creators also for consumers.
It can be managed, but that is a decent effort though.
Geeks will find an open-source alternative, non-geeks will not get into those boring details on purchasing.
(probably i am wrong)

So I think Everything is worth quite a bit. I would not gamble with that kind of money. Maybe some "big tech" comes along, understands the excellent value of Everything, offers a couple of big bags full of money and hires @void to develop it further.

Nah, them coming when u already gained enormous popularity (client base), excellense per se is not intersing for enterpises..

Long story short: The current way is a business model. Everything is much, much more than a hobby project on the side -- or "own personal hobby horse".
Not everyone is interested in the business side - selling, etc. - of developing applications
I am glad that Everything can remain free so more people can enjoy it.

I still agree with you, i still dont see how opensourcing may hurt that

That is a pity! You came up with some interesting points and I liked reading it.
Discussions arise simply because people care.

thank you for your patience, so i gave an another piece of my mind

[dlong500]

I'm pinging this thread again because I would really love to see the codebase for v1.4 open sourced. I think this project is in a unique position to benefit the community by having the source available for a lot of reasons. On a personal level I'm interested in being able to add support for agent-based indexes so a linux NAS could run an agent that Everything could use to provide similar real-time results for a remote filesystem.

On a financial level I myself would be more inclined to donate (possibly even on a recurring basis) if the source was available. There are many financial avenues to explore that don't go away just because project is open-sourced. First, I see no reason to believe that any existing donations would dry up. What would be the reasoning for that anyway? The vast majority of users would continue using the software as-is and would never even look at the source code. The small percentage of users who are developers interested in the code would have more incentive to donate to get valuable feedback from @void and potential assistance with development. Then there are avenues like Patreon, commercial support licensing, etc.

I really see no reason to be afraid of how an open source license would hurt Everything as long as the proper type of open source license is chosen. If you don't want someone to be able to package up the functionality into a commercial product that might somehow compete with Everything down the road (or cause reputational damage) then just don't choose a license that is permissible in that regard.

As I mentioned before I also would just really love to see the code for a well-crafted app from an educational perspective.

[anmac1789]

Dont make it open source it would kill this program and too many people would customize it too much and itll get messy and disorganized if the source code is realeased. For once, please dont fix whats not broken

[ovg]

2anmac1789

Indeed!!!

[dlong500]

Dont make it open source it would kill this program and too many people would customize it too much and itll get messy and disorganized if the source code is realeased. For once, please dont fix whats not broken

I don't understand the almost spambot-like replies from people who don't give any rational reasoning whatsoever about why they are sure open-sourcing an older release of an app would "kill" the program. Because I know that @void is an experienced and thoughtful developer he doesn't need any education on the topic, but for others visiting this thread let's restate what has already been made clear in other posts. Open sourcing software doesn't mean that anyone can make changes to the original author's code repositories and make things "messy and disorganized" or "break" the code. No one can force @void to alter the program or make it so existing users are forced to download a modified release of the software.

Sure, someone can fork the code and make their own release at a different website, but that has virtually no bearing on the original project. Users who don't look at source code can continue to download from voidtools and things will work just as they always have. Someone who attempts to release code that doesn't conform to the open-source license will get hit with legal issues (as would anyone who attempts to pretend to release a version of the software even without having access to the codebase).

I think there a bunch of users who have no idea what open-sourcing software actually means and are scared that somehow an app they love is going to get killed off. There is a difference between a developer who open-sources an app and then hands over the original repositories to a new maintainer versus one who is continuing to develop the software but still allows others to access/use the code and/or accept reviewed and approved contributions to the codebase.

[anmac1789]

Dont make it open source it would kill this program and too many people would customize it too much and itll get messy and disorganized if the source code is realeased. For once, please dont fix whats not broken

I don't understand the almost spambot-like replies from people who don't give any rational reasoning whatsoever about why they are sure open-sourcing an older release of an app would "kill" the program. Because I know that @void is an experienced and thoughtful developer he doesn't need any education on the topic, but for others visiting this thread let's restate what has already been made clear in other posts. Open sourcing software doesn't mean that anyone can make changes to the original author's code repositories and make things "messy and disorganized" or "break" the code. No one can force @void to alter the program or make it so existing users are forced to download a modified release of the software.

Sure, someone can fork the code and make their own release at a different website, but that has virtually no bearing on the original project. Users who don't look at source code can continue to download from voidtools and things will work just as they always have. Someone who attempts to release code that doesn't conform to the open-source license will get hit with legal issues (as would anyone who attempts to pretend to release a version of the software even without having access to the codebase).

I think there a bunch of users who have no idea what open-sourcing software actually means and are scared that somehow an app they love is going to get killed off. There is a difference between a developer who open-sources an app and then hands over the original repositories to a new maintainer versus one who is continuing to develop the software but still allows others to access/use the code and/or accept reviewed and approved contributions to the codebase.

You sound biased and wanting to create your profit just saying how I feel

[dlong500]

You sound biased and wanting to create your profit just saying how I feel

Of course I'm biased toward my opinions. I don't even know what you remotely mean by the "create your profit" rant. Most open source licenses explicitly forbid any type of selling or bundling of code into a commercial product. How would that even make sense when this app is already free? I'm not going to continue a pointless argument especially with you confirming a complete lack of understanding of the issue at hand. I've stated my opinions regarding the value of an open source license for Everything and appreciate the fact that @void has been considering such a gift to the community. He is free to do as he likes but I don't appreciate the drive-by baseless comments that several users have made casting all manner of aspersion on those who have a legitimate interest in an open source license. You can certainly disagree, but without presenting a rational argument posts like yours just amount to trolling.

[NotNull]

Stop discussing each other!
Discuss the subject.

[w64bit]

Everything should not be made open source.

I checked the forum and the earliest posts are from 2009.
This means there are at least 14 years of development. 14 years of void's life consumed on this project.

We all know what open sourcing software means in the first place. The code can be seen by anyone. The code can be used by anyone without loosing 14 years of life.

[meteorquake]

My two cents -
The work and its ethos is a masterpiece, and continues to grow apace. I think we are all in awe of the work.
The response time is amazing. Suggest something simple but essential for firefox or libreoffice and they'll still be discussing it 10 years later.
In my experience, it's best not to adjust something that's doing really well, odds are that changes are going to impact negatively.
I also find in life that committees are never as good or efficient as individuals when the individual is doing a good job. The result is generally far more coherent from an individual. (If someone wants to develop something to work with or in it I would think their recourse is to privately contact and arrange something, usually something should be possible.)
Regarding people just knowing and probably forking the code, I would anticipate this would be an income loss (as would having multiple developers) - the project though free is an income earner for void, and so that should be encouraged to continue.
In terms of the project's longevity I suspect it's good to have a plan for releasing it if anything unfortunate befell the development, with someone trained on what to do.
David

[raccoon]

If this project were made open source, you'd have dozens of people hissing over the fact that it's written in native old-fashioned Win32 API C++ and that it needs to be ported over to cross-platform Qt6 Toolkit which only works on Windows 10/11, and Windows support will basically become a "you should be so lucky we even bother with a Windows build, kid." Others will bemoan it should be ported to JAVA or Python instead, as Desktop PCs are old hat.

At least that's my experience with, say, Bittorrent clients.

[NotNull]

For anyone interested in the inner workings of Everything:

SwiftSearch is an open source search tool based on the same principle.
Code here


Or a similar program, written in the AutoHotkey language : ListMFTfiles

[dlong500]

If this project were made open source, you'd have dozens of people hissing over the fact that it's written in native old-fashioned Win32 API C++ and that it needs to be ported over to cross-platform Qt6 Toolkit which only works on Windows 10/11, and Windows support will basically become a "you should be so lucky we even bother with a Windows build, kid." Others will bemoan it should be ported to JAVA or Python instead, as Desktop PCs are old hat.

At least that's my experience with, say, Bittorrent clients.

I don't know how many times we have to go over the same basic facts. Open sourcing the code doesn't mean @void has to do ANYTHING AT ALL in response to anyone's complaints or criticisms. It doesn't mean he has to modify his own code or allow access for anyone else to modify his own code repository. It simply means others can see and use the code according to whatever license terms are specified.

If someone else wanted to create a fork and port it to whatever other language or platforms they would be free to do so, though unless a fork was well maintained and stable it's hard to imagine any number of forks being even remotely successful, much less impacting the original Everything project in any measurable way.

The most likely scenario is that a few developers would use the code for very niche use cases that wouldn't be useful for most people, and a few more would manage to offer useful contributions that @void might deem worthy of inclusion in his well-maintained codebase. The remaining "forks" would be the kind that are only enthusiasts trying to play around with the code and wouldn't really be of interest to anyone else. Most importantly, in the event something ever happened to @void, there would at least be a chance that another developer/team/foundation would continue the work and it would live on in perpetuity.

The idea that it would turn into a "you should be so lucky we even bother with a Windows build" kind of thing is utterly nonsensical, both from the perspective that @void would have no obligations to do anything at all in response to any demands and from the reality that the whole project is largely centered on NTFS filesystems using the USN journal for change tracking, so Windows will always be the primary focus (as it always has been). Any porting to other platforms would have to use other mechanisms for different filesystems.

Let's please discuss the actual technical merits and/or pitfalls of open source licensing and stop with the already debunked idea that a change like this would somehow force @void to destroy his own project. By and large the single biggest issue to me is that Everything would basically go away if something ever happened to @void. There would be no more releases/fixes for any future Windows changes that might make things incompatible. That's just the reality when you are a sole developer.

[anmac1789]

I'll read that later hold up