OS X Notifier App Growl Goes Closed Source

First time accepted submitter para_droid writes "Version 1.3 of the popular open source notification system for Mac OS X, Growl has surprised its users by going closed-source and only available for purchase on the Mac App Store. Any users who provide links to bugfixes and source for the previous version 1.2 are being banned from the discussion group, and their messages deleted. Could it be time for the community to create an OpenGrowl fork?" The linked post above about bugfixes and source ends "Hopefully the Growl 1.3 branch from the official Growl maintainers will eventually become open source again and get straightened out so that it works for most users, but if it doesn't, a fork of the project will be able to provide a working Growl to Mac users."

Comments

Whoever posted this "news" should be shot

[Theovon]

Growl is not going closed source. They just don't have releasing the source EARLY as a priority. That's their choice. As long as the source is eventually released, that's all most of us care about.

The way I judge this, this slashdot story is grossly slanderous and was posted by an asshole whose sole intent was to spread FUD and stir up trouble. There's no way they couldn't have been ignorant of the FAQ. Probably what happened is that they felt entitled, were refused, and got mad, so they decided to make up this bullshit. And the slashdot editors are not competent to filter out this kind of crap.

The main summary needs to updated.

Re:going open to closed

[BitZtream]

This is an oversimplification of the issue. BSD protects the freedoms of only the next entity using the source code; GPL protects freedoms of all entities that might use the code.

Wrong.

BSD protects the freedoms of the source code it covers for ANYONE using it. It does not drag all the other code someone else creates down with it. That is what GPL does, it covers itself, and forces itself on anything else thats anywhere remotely close to it.

If I take a copy of BSD source and make changes and do not redistribute those changes in source form you have lost exactly nothing, nodda, zilch, zero.

You have not also been given rights to the NEW work I did, but you have lost nothing, all of the old stuff is still there for you to do whatever you want with.

One is CLEARLY more free, unless you're a zealot ... which you are.

BSD allows you to do the exact same thing as GPL, GPL does not allow you to do the same thing as BSD licensed software. Its really not difficult to understand.