“A fortnight after announcing plans to share the RISC OS 5 source code, developers Castle have slapped a 69 quid price tag on their latest OS upgrade. The news has lead to some confusion over the future direction of the operating system, and fuelled concern that crucial components of RISC OS 5 will remain closed source as chargeable updates.”
i do belive the original news talked about shared source, not open source. shared as in microsoft shared source most likely. so its fully in their rights to charge for an upgrade. hell, they could do that even under the GPL…
It was a non-commercial license giving access to the source. Doesn’t qualify as an open source license, yet is more open than MS Shared Source.
sorry, but i personally don’t see any problem here.
they’re a commercial company, they live from that money. i don’t know if support is included in that price, but i would imagine so. therefore i don’t see a conflict between selling software for money in shops [and/or combined with support], while still offering it free from a web site.
just my 2 euro-cents
I suspect the confusion may be over whether the no-source, paid-for upgrade means an end to their shared-source promises. We’ll just have to see about that.