The trunk

Some days ago I was looking for something related to AJAX and I was, as always, looking for it on SourceForge.

The Ajax.NET project came up to my eyes: reading something in the forum, it seemed to be a good work but suddenly I read THIS.
It seems that the developers have built a library for integrating the AJAX method to their web projects and that they released the BINARY on SourceForge.
Wait a moment: the binary? Only the binary? And the source? Well, no, there is no source code… and even no license at all.
They say they are having trouble with the CVS and so the small community around the project suggested the simple upload of a zip archive, together with the binary version.

Silence.

Someone decompiled it (CLI, as well as Java, is a bytecode and so can be easily decompiled to an understandable code) and put a link to a zip.
The authors thanked him.

I was wondering: should I (or someone else) open a new project and create a fork of this one, license it under a LGPL and care to make it usable both with the free Mono and M$ implementation of the CLI? Is that legal?

Anyway, this is probably the latest demonstration of the hype around “open source” and the way it makes focus away from free software.

What’s your answer? For me, it is: no, not always, but sometimes it is.

UPDATE:
I admit I repeatedly asked the developers for advice about the missing source code: the developers reacted in quite an interesting way that you can read HERE.
They tried to play the community for a fool and they are now searching for “legal advice”: too bad, another cheater has been shut down. Bye bye!

Something like 2 years ago, I changed my job and I was hired by an advertising company (will omit all names).

As I’ve always done, I try every day to learn something new and to share this fresh knowledge (could be a programming technique or a tool) with my colleagues and my tech chief. Goals are improving company base knowledge, improving software development and management quality and (why not?) improving my career. This lead some of them doing the same: they taught me many different things.

But not every colleague likes my behaviour.

Someone even plays me when I do that.

Of course I understand I’m speaking the wrong way: probably they think I do not really know what I’m talking about; probably they do not like the topics; probably they don’t have time; probably they don’t trust me as much as I think (or I should say “hope”?); and (let me say that, as I’m too proud of myself) probably they fear I could really change something.

Until now, I’ve spoken even if not asked to: I’ve just learnt something, I teach you what I’ve learnt.

But this friday, I was played for the last time, and the relationship between me and my tech chief is broken and un-recoverable.

I decided to speak only if ASKED, and I hope I won’t hurt somebody anymore.

Anyway, this is not the job I want, and I will leave them as soon as possible.

I hope I’ll find again a team who really likes to share its knowledge, as I share it every day and as I see others sharing it on mailing lists and usergroups.

Wire your mind to a p2p network.