Jim Roepcke writes about how he would like to purchase the source to some of the applications he uses for personal use, including VoodooPad. I've thought about doing something like this before, and he gives some good reasons as to why he wants it. I know I've wanted the source code to applications I used, if only to study them and see how the stuff's done.

It is a little scary for a programmer to do that though- my main fear is some little punk taking my code, compiling it with a different name and passing it off as his own. There goes my hard work.

I think I've pretty much decided that I'll give out the source to older versions of VoodooPad, like id does- but probably with a BSD license instead of a GNU one. I just don't know at which point I should start doing that- after it's 2-3 releases behind? After a year? I don't know yet.

But I do have a feeling I'll go ahead and do what Jim suggests, but probably with version 1.1 of VoodooPad (That's not a promise though!). Why version 1.1? Well... another reason I think alot of people don't open source applications is because they are embarrassed by some of the code. Nasty hacks, stupid mistakes, stuff that obviously needs to be refactored, non-existent documentation. Not that VoodooPad has any of those problems... no, of course not.

I'll just have to come up with a pretty good license first- personal use only, can't redistribute it, if you willingly allow the source to get out you default your eternal soul to me, etc.

It would be an interesting experiment anyway.