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 Originally Posted by manorton
I was thinking along the lines of Open Source too, but I'd rather have the drivers then not due to issues with open source code.
How many of us are really going to do anything with the source other than look at it? Yeah, we'll all stick out our chests and go "ME PROGRAMMER, NEED CODE!". But lets be realistic, one of the motivators would be that the bounty is potentially a small part of the money to be made from the drivers.
I want the drivers, I really don't care about the code.
The developer can keep the code, and reuse it to make more money. Nothing stops them from doing that. We're a TreoCentral community, and since I expect the community as a whole to get the drivers, not just those paying to stimulate development, the developer gains nothing by keeping the source closed. Meanwhile, the open source will continue to stimulate BT and other driver development, which is good for everyone. The BSD license, unlike the GPL, does not require any further actions by anyone (even if they use the original source in a trivially derivative work, the source of which is then kept closed).
 Originally Posted by manorton
Anyway, why aren't the general specs in the Bluetooth Bounty enough? Besides any developer can submit questions to the group if it's not clear enough.
We will possibly have several contenders for the bounty. The first delivered might not work well enough. Developers benefit from a little active project management, especially in specifying acceptance criteria. Not only is it easier and more reliable for developers to write to a more specific spec, but it's more attractive to bounty contributors who know what we're getting. And we'll be able to compare our "homegrown" drivers to any that Palm actually might suddenly deliver. The TC driver might be better than the Palm one, even if takes a little longer. A specific spec will enable us to decide to continue to develop our own, or to fold our bounty because Palm has "won" - or possibly to send the bounty to Palm (unlikely to reward the teasing laggards, tho .
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