A new license for Paint.NET v3.5

NetMage 2 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

Actually, I think FOSS does give strong gurantees:

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3773286/Lets-Move-FOSS-to-Its-Logical-Conclusion.htm

http://www.marcomilani.it/topics/freeware

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drash68 2 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

I’m not a programmer at all, and if Protecting some of the Code is what you have to do to keep your name being affliated with some dirt bag, then do it.

I love your Program, not only because it is free, but it is up there with Corel Photo Paint, and Adobe Photoshop. Your interface is great, and the ease of use overall is fantastic. If I had my choice, I would be using Paint.net at work , but I’m not the IT Guy that controls all of that.

I don’t see a problem with trying to protect that. The End Product is great, and I look forward to new releases in the future. My 10 year old daughter enjoys it as well, and to me that is a definate plus. It gives her and I quality time together, and the two of us learn from each other. She, all the time, is showing me a tool that I overlooked, and I work with Photo’s quite a bit.

The background code I have no desire to learn, but how to effectively use the software. To me that is the key.

Keep up the great work, and protect yourself as necessary. ... See all content Hide content

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noisynose 2 months, 2 weeks ago on Wordpress

Let me say that I’m very disappointed by this change.

Do you really think there was no value in having Paint.NET open source? First, FOSS gives strong guarantees about the fact that the software will be maintainable in the future and that it won’t be crippled in a future version for commercial reasons. Of course to you as the developer you don’t care about those guarantees , since these are guarantees that protect the user from the developer and ensure the developer plays nice. But to me, it meant I could feel confident that saving files in the .pdn format was a good idea and that I would always be able to read and modify them in the future. Now that Paint.NET is proprietary, this is getting a bit murky. Even if you did intend to publish the specs, it’s a legitimate reason to feel uncomfortable and to prefer similar alternatives like GIMP; I don’t care much for its interface, but retaining control over your data trumps interface improvements every time.

Next, you “don’t believe this will have an impact for anybody but those who wish to plagiarize or rip-off Paint.NET”. Wrong. Source code allows you to actually fix things in the code, here is a patch I sent you about an admittedly tiny problem:

http://paintdotnet.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=25391

Sure, this is a small bug, but precisely for that reason, would you have bothered looking into and fixing it if I hadn’t been able to read the source code, pinpoint the bug location, and write the patch?

Also, notice the last part of my patch: upon reading the source code I encountered a problem involving a subtle inversion of the red and blue color components in the luma calculation. Would I have been able to notice that without the source code? Would you have reread that code yourself and found out about it? Open source gives you many eyeballs, which definitely helps make higher quality software. Note that I don’t pretend that my patch was very important, but it’s a good example of precisely why and how open source is valuable. So if I were to use Paint.NET 3.5+ I wouldn’t be able to fix any similar itch I might have, and I couldn’t help the software improve.

Now of course this is your decision, but seen from afar it looks like a huge overreaction to make your software entirely proprietary in response to 2 or 3 dumbasses who don’t have a clue about intellectual property or even common decency. To me having an equally free yet more useable alternative to the GIMP was a major draw to Paint.NET. Maybe you didn’t license it as free software on purpose, but I certainly wouldn’t have bothered to use or advertise it if it was proprietary like the hundreds of freeware image editors out there. I sincerely hope you will reconsider your decision. ... See all content Hide content

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PornBisexualTV 2 months, 3 weeks ago on Twitter

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CuckoldXXXVids 2 months, 3 weeks ago on Twitter

Paint.NET » Blog Archive » A new license for Paint.NET v3.5: Nov 6, 2009 ... And, as many of you know, Paint.NE.. http://bit.ly/2FGRtQ

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GRinda 2 months, 3 weeks ago on Wordpress

Same problem applies to any open source software and it isn’t usually big problem. Especially talented developer like you shouldn’t have any problems.

After closing the source there is just developers word of freeware product. There is also no chance to see if this product is trustworthy as it could contain spyware or just major programming flaws which can compromise security of the computers of the users.

In principle I like using software which is really free which means releasing of the source code also. It’s quality is guaranteed by developer by releasing the source code as someone could really develop better product based on previous work if needed (and in this case you have great software and skills).

There is bad people out there which use this principle as their own advantage - and there is always stupid people who can be fooled. And if these people have hurt reputation of Paint.NET (thought my opinion is that these hoaxes are marginal problem) the decision of closing the source hurts it much more.

Since version 3.5 I quit using Paint.NET in my personal and company’s computers and won’t recommend it no more to anyone. There is other really free products with self-confidence available. Or if using closed source it’s same to use Photoshop as it’s just money. I have been happy user and used Paint.NET for many things, thank you for that ... See all content Hide content

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shamanphenix 2 months, 3 weeks ago on Twitter

J'aimerais être libre de pouvoir aller en Antarctique, oui : http://tinyurl.com/yztetts

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antoinefriteau 2 months, 3 weeks ago on Twitter

RT @framasoft Paint.NET n'est plus libre, mais l'a-t-il jamais été ? (fauxpen source ?) http://ur1.ca/fzo9

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t0_ny 2 months, 3 weeks ago on Twitter

RT: @framasoft: Paint.NET n'est plus libre, mais l'a-t-il jamais été ? (fauxpen source ?) http://ur1.ca/fzo9

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matt wilkie 2 months, 4 weeks ago on Wordpress

I never intended to download or peruse the source code Paint.NET, but the fact that PN was an open-source-like project appealed to me and was a major factor in taking the time to learn about it and pass it on to friends and family who might like it also. I use open source whenever and wherever I can even though I am not a developer. It gives me a sense of security for the continued life and availability of the program. Admittedly this sense is sometimes false as it doesn’t matter a whit if the code is available but no one understands it or wants to work with it. However with OS there is the *potential* of carrying on when the company/developer loses interest or heads in a different direction.

I fully support your right and desire to choose the sharing and distribution terms which fit your needs. I just wanted to bring into this thread the idea that open source licenses are important outside the developer community as well. ... See all content Hide content

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Adam 2 months, 4 weeks ago on Wordpress

While I fully support your right to control your own code, and am by no means a free software zealot, I’m nevertheless disappointed. It’s unfortunate that such an excellent piece of software is merely free-as-in-beer, not free-as-in-speech. I had been hoping that, as time went on, you would loosen restrictions and move towards something like the GPL, but it seems you’ve gone in the opposite direction.

Don’t get me wrong, the software is awesome, I use it, I will continue to use it, and I’m happy to have it. I had just hoped, and wanted to voice that hope. ... See all content Hide content

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Rick Brewster 2 months, 4 weeks ago on Wordpress

Galane, no.

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Johannes 2 months, 4 weeks ago on Wordpress

Alex: They do nothing to *prevent* this sort of thing. They merely make it so that if you do so, you won’t comply with the license anymore. And that’s has been the case before already anyway. Doesn’t make it much easier to actually go against such people.

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GoodThings2Life 2 months, 4 weeks ago on Wordpress

Rick,

At the end of the day, it’s YOUR application, YOUR code, and YOUR decision. I think you’re doing the right thing to protect YOUR work!

In my non-legal-guru interpretation, derivative work suggests that the code can’t be used in any type of “image editing” application. It doesn’t, however, exclude the use of code snippets for UI elements (like your use of DirectWrite or GDI for UI elements in 3.5) to improve application performance.

I have to assume this choice of wording is intentional (for those who care about it), because I’ve read through numerous posts, and it is clear to me you’re a pretty reasonable guy with a genuine interest in sharing knowledge. ... See all content Hide content

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Rick Brewster 2 months, 4 weeks ago on Wordpress

Glenn, I don’t think your comment sounds self-entitled. However, many comments I’ve seen in the past have been. “Why’re you taking away *my* source code?!” Erm … excuse me? *Your* source code? (’your’ doesn’t refer specifically to ‘you’, Glenn)

This was never meant as a diatribe about open source in general, mind you. This is absolutely a Paint.NET-specific situation and response. ... See all content Hide content

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Kris Janssen 3 months ago on Wordpress

Don’t worry about it! Focus on 4.0 I think I know what to do!

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Kris Janssen 3 months ago on Wordpress

I’m sorry to hear you feel that way. If I was only thinking about my own needs I wouldn’t even bother to post/Email/whatever. I have what I need already, useful bits of source code…

I just wanted to have a clear picture of what I could and could not do with the bits I have right now and how I should reference your work. After all that is what we do in science every day and it’s only proper.

I will most likely use certain things. I could just keep quiet and go ahead with it and nobody would ever know, but that’s not the way I like to work so that is why I started asking about it.

Given the fact that you do not provide a clear answer at all I figure anything goes, point well taken

Good luck with the rest of your work. ... See all content Hide content

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Kris Janssen 3 months ago on Wordpress

I have to agree to some extent with Jon…

I have grown a particular interest in the Pdn source since the availability of the last publicly available source release (3.36). The source obviously contains a lot of stuff that is generally useful if you know what you’re doing (I probably don’t times, but I like to think I do :).

Ever since 3.36 there was no available source anymore but since I was quite keen on learning more I continued using Reflector, going so far as to decompile and export the whole lot. It was a HUGE task, but I am now at the point where I can say that I probably have 90% of all assembly source files back in human readable, commented and compilable form. I even started to roll my own version of the native stuff for CPUID and the like. The installer is another matter maybe, but I don’t care much for that anyway…

Mind you, I have no malicious intent with all of this and I will keep these files locked down better than all the gold in Fort Knox (and would even delete them if you would ask), but if I can do this, then so can everybody else… I’m not the hottest C# expert on the block, really! It wasn’t until looking at the Pdn source that I thought it might be nice to figure out what all this fancy lambda/anon methods/whatever shenanigans were all about, go figure.

So in any case, if it is possible by mere mortals to do things like this in reasonable amounts of time then it’s certainly possible for the millions of talented programmers in poor/lawless country X or Y to make a quick buck selling Pdn as backspaceware anyway.

Getting your hard work ripped off by others is probably always a risk when creating software. Whether or not you ultimately like to share your source code with the rest of the world is of course your decision but might I respectfully suggest that the “backspaceware” issue might not be the best way to rationalize things?

Right now, even with a new license, the situation remains very unclear. 90% of the source is easily readable, it is just a pain to refactor the, some-, nay oftentimes dodgy reflector output. So in principle, one could use parts of your source code, but if one were to do so, for example in an app with completely different functionality… does that constitute a “derivative work” ? Probably yes. But then again, if you leave the assemblies de-compilable, people will always go look at them, will get inspired by them to some degree… and then where do you draw the line between “allowable” and “not allowable” use of that information? Especially since you somtimes post about the inner workings on this blog anyway.

Now here’s to hoping you will not obfuscate the crap out of your next release, but I just have lots of questions and a valid discussion about this might shed some light. ... See all content Hide content

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Jon 3 months ago on Wordpress

Sorry, I really don’t understand your reasoning. On the one hand you’re justifying the removal of the source code by saying people were distributing plagiarized versions, but then you also say it was an over-liberal licence that gave them permission to do it. If that is the case, why can’t you release the source but give it a non-commercial, attribution-required licence? Sure, some people might violate the licence, but if they’ll do that then they’re probably just as willing to decompile/recompile with reflector, or just hack the binaries to remove attribution anyway, and the availability of the source is no obstacle to illegally selling it. It is mainly an inconvenience to people wishing to learn from it, or port it to another platform.

With respect to protecting the Paint.NET “brand”, and not having a proliferation of different versions, why not just adopt the same approach web-browsers use, where source-compiled versions are named differently. If you download and compile a nightly of Chrome or Firefox, you actually get programs called “Chromium” and “Minefield”, that install and identify themselves separately. Only centrally released versions are allowed to use the “official” name. You could easily include a license requirement with the source stating that modified versions must display a prominent message saying they are based on Paint.NET, but compiled from modified source, and thus not supported by yourself.

On the issue of porting, surely that is exactly the case for making the source available? You don’t have the time or interest to port to mono, but other people obviously do. Perhaps the lack of activity on the existing mono port is due to the removal of source code meaning that new upstream fixes and features can’t be brought over to the port. Isn’t that strength of an open-source approach? That you can share labor, and people can focus on the bits that matter to them? So you can concentrate on the core of Paint.NET and the Windows version, and people who care about the Max and Linux can work on ports themselves, whilst still keeping up to date with the improvements you introduce.

Personally, I love Paint.NET, and I really appreciate the incredible effort you’ve put into it. But I also like the open-source model, and I don’t think the problems you’ve described require a closed-source approach to solve them. With the correct setup and licencing, as described above, I think you could easily manage to release both source and binaries, allow people to study and port the software, while requiring attribution, preventing version confusion, and stopping plagiarism. ... See all content Hide content

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drakaan 3 months ago on Wordpress

I’m not sure whether this license change would affect the specific scenario I’m thinking of.

I had created a thumbnail viewer using a small bit of code from the last source-code release (the code from the shell extensions that finds the thumbnail image…the entire .cs file is only about 170 lines). The main intent was that on a gallery site, users could upload .pdn files and see thumbnails magically appear as place-holders for the .PDN files.

If the file format doesn’t change significantly in v4.x, then I could just alter the “magicnumber” code, and keep it working, but if it’s something substantial, then am I allowed to reverse-engineer the new file format to grab the thumbnail image data? Is that considered modifying or adapting? ... See all content Hide content

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Rick Brewster 3 months ago on Wordpress

AA, well, any portability-with-no-work type of system will have compromises. For example, you won’t be able to use any Windows- or Mac-specific features. Just look at the typical Java client apps out there. They look pathetic and are difficult to use because they don’t use any of the native controls, etc. I don’t personally hold on to the portability-for-the-sake-of-portability belief . It’s a fun academic exercise, but not worth it. You end up with a least-common-denominator solution that nobody ends up being very excited about. ... See all content Hide content

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Jesper Eiby 3 months ago on Wordpress

Thumbs up!

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Matt 3 months ago on Wordpress

This is good to hear Rick. I hope this resolves all of your problems. The issues you were having were definitely ridiculous.

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BlueRaja 3 months ago on Wordpress

I’ve been hoping to take a look at the Paint.Net source for a while - especially the portion you say is written in C++ to speed up boot times. However, even the source code decompiled using Reflector (eg. not the startup code) is nothing compared to the original, well-formatted, commented code written by Rick Brewster

For a while now I’d also been hoping to teach myself a bit more about the .Net API, while helping you, by fixing the unintuitive right-click in Paint.Net (on the canvas it controls secondary color, while in the colors-window it does nothing. In some other windows, it acts as a left-click). This is fairly hopeless without the source.

Since strings like author’s name and program-name can be easily changed, even with just a hex-editor, it seems like withholding the source code only impedes us good guys. Don’t get us wrong, we really appreciate you offering this program for free… but you know what they say: If you give a mouse a cookie… ... See all content Hide content

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Stuart P. Bentley 3 months ago on Wordpress

“And the point is not to completely avoid any confusion — with legalese it’s honestly inevitable.”

Not with the OSI- monitored database of license compatibilities.

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uberVU - social comments 3 months ago on Wordpress

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ReneS 3 months ago on Wordpress

Hi, Paint.NET is great. But why not using a poluar license, such as CC-BY-SA-ND to prevent reselling, recompiling, and so on… would be less confusing.

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Dave 3 months ago on Wordpress

Bravo! Makes sense and nobody should complain unless they left their brain in the toilet somewhere. I love the results of what you’ve done and I’m sure most feel the same way.

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