Open Source

[StickMan]

I was wondering what the disadvantages would be to opening the source of teamspeak and getting the cvs hosted on sourceforge.net. I think the development cycle would be much faster with more eyes looking at the code. Just wondering if there are any particular objections by the developers or if they just havent had the time to investigate the benefits of open source...

I'd also like to throw my brain at the code for a while to squash bugs in the upcoming release, as i'm sure many others would too. There are currently no open source programs of this type, and the publicity from all the open source press(slashdot, etc) would certainly help the popularity of teamspeak.

StickMan

[StickMan]

my post wasnt even worth a response of some sort?

[T. Boonstra]

We've been asked about opening up the source several times and answered those already, we didn't see a need to answer it again..

but to answer your question.. we aren't going open source because simply put we do not want the coörperations like GameVoice/Microsoft and RogerWilco/GameSpy to steal our code.

It is almost impossible to detect it if they rip off code, and its almost impossible to fight it in court due to the legal cost involved..


As soon as they steal our code they throw a couple thousends (if not more) bucks at it to change there own code.. and voila.. they now have a program which works just as good as TeamSpeak but has more functions..
Result: noone wants TeamSpeak (except maybe a select few because they hate ms/gamespy)

Sure you would get alot of developers back from the opensource community maybe allowing it get the same "programming hours" as MS/Gamespy programs do, but you're still stuck with the fact that they copy our code. And they (MS) has the mayor advantage of have access to the windows source code for better integration..

plus it would feel as if you "lose" your program by giving it to the open source community, we've spend alot of time working on this program, and then all of a sudden alot of other programmers go work on it and change your code... It just wouldn't be our program anymore :)


Who knows, if we ever decide to quit developing for TeamSpeak (probably due to time issues) we might release the source.. but i wouldn't hold your breath..

[Grim]

I think the biggest respect are in order to thoose who develop,
I can understand how you guys feel and i know for one thing
if I had any coding skills I wouldnt wanna release my code
since its you guys that have put down all the hard work getting it
where it is today, why giving it way then, when it have gotten
you so far?

Just my 2 cents and to show my support :D

[troc]

Regarding the the open source issue all I have to say is ---Where is that spirit of the gaming community now ?---

You might think you are freely giving your software away. You are not. You are giving away a one-way of using it. Your software is not free, it is not free for inspection, it is not free for modification nor is it free for enhancements. In fact the only way it is free is the way you dictate it to be ... and where is the freedom in that ?

The most important reason to make TS2 open source in my opinion is to get TS hooked up with users and hackers (http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/hacker.html) who create open-source software the likes of the linux kernel, apache, openssh, perl, gcc, mutt, gimp, yak and lex; all of which have the kind of user base and a reputation that TS can only dream of.

[Peter]

Hey,

if you use an appropriate licence modell (like the GPL), you wouldn't allow MS or whatever to steal youre code legaly ! OpenSource doesnt mean take it and sell it, thats not allowed with licences like the GPL. I expect you would neither bee torn away from youre programme, you could still bei the project maintainers, and you would get patches from time to time by some good programmers that had a look and fixed a bug or added some nifty feature... If you knew e.g. how Linux Thorvalds handled the Kerneltree his "baby", he was very restrictive, being the maintainer and everything, he made the major decissions on what would make it into the kernel and what would not - and this is speaking of a much much bigger project than TS will ever be (so you will have to "fear" much less coders wanting to help you).

All together I would say youre objection towards open source are mostly founded on lack of profund knowlege on the subject, and dont realy hit the point.

The advantages of open source would be clear:
a) From time to time you would recieve a patch of some friedly people that found+fixed a nasty bug (I just remember the diconnect issue).
b) coders could do some "experimenting" on the cause of the problem, which would help in giving you guys better bugreports.
c) youre image, userbase, and especially _experienced_ userbase would increase dramaticly. (Meaning better and quicker, more to the point bugreports)
d) I would love you twice as much :D
e) TS could be ported to some platforms (like PPC, alpha, sparc, FreeBSD, Solaris, Irix and others), which would be to much trouble for you guys, but for some PPC freak-hacker it would be some fun !
...[there surely more :D]

pwk.linuxfan

PS: How about an experiment ? Make TS-1 Open Source, you cant loose much there, as TS-2 is a complete re-write right ?

[R. Ludwig]

Hi Pinguins,

teamspeak will NOT go open source, never ts1, ts2 or
protocol or whatever...

if u want open source software create your own or
join one of the existing projects...

stop telling us what todo with our project....

regards,
ralf