Content-Type: RST

Here at the `Polytechnic Institute of NYU`_, all freshmen have to take
the "Innovation & Technology Forum" course, a 1-credit course about
innovations today, yesterday, and teaching us how to be innovators,
inventors and entrepreneurs in the future as part of the `i2e`_
program, which NYU-Poly prides itself for. Part of this course
includes biweekly lectures by leaders in today's world, one of which I
have already `written on`_ once. 

.. _`Polytechnic Institute of NYU`: http://www.poly.edu
.. _`i2e`: http://www.poly.edu/about/i2e
.. _`written on`: http://blog.opensourcenerd.com/why-ubuntu-fails

Last week, Tom Rolander attended and talked about his experience as an
innovator and inventor, including his most recent venture with
CrossLoop_. CrossLoop is a peer-to-peer screen-sharing application
designed to connect those with knowledge of how computers work with
those less enlightened in order to provide live help for tech
problems. For example, as their front page advertises, you can find
someone to help with the upgrade to Windows 7. This person would be
certified to help you, unlike others (like me) who would just stick an
Ubuntu 9.10 CD in your drive and pat you on the back.   

.. _CrossLoop: http://www.crossloop.com

.. figure :: http://blog.opensourcenerd.com/upload/crossloop-logo

   |CrossLoop (TM)|'s logo

.. |CrossLoop (TM)| unicode:: CrossLoop U+2122

The reason CrossLoop seemed interesting to me, though, is because of
how it was built. Sure, it's a desktop application that allows
connections between two computers using the VNC_ standard in order to
allow one user to help the other out, but it does something
special. It isn't using its own VNC client/server application. What
CrossLoop essentially is is a layer around TightVNC_ - a wrapper to
utilize TightVNC for other uses, if you will. 

.. _VNC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VNC
.. _TightVNC: http://www.tightvnc.org

But wait a minute, what gives? TightVNC is an open source VNC
client/server, licensed under the `GNU General Public License`_ (GPL). Why is CrossLoop closed
source, pay-for, and not even available for Linux? What the heck! 

.. _`GNU General Public License`: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html

.. figure :: http://blog.opensourcenerd.com/upload/angry-cat

   For open souuuuuurce!!

Before anyone goes bananas, though, I would like to point out that CrossLoop
does *nothing* wrong with regards to licensing. The GPL requires that
*derivative works* be also GPL'd, and CrossLoop is technically not a
derivative. It uses TightVNC in unmodified form, while only working
with the connection between two TightVNC instances. I'll explain it
with images. Here is what usually happens when using plain TightVNC:

.. figure :: http://blog.opensourcenerd.com/upload/tightvnc-connection

  Plain TightVNC connection.

Of course, there will be some readers who point out that I'm showing
just the simplest TightVNC solution ever, and that it can work with a
VPN or go through firewalls using port exceptions, etc. I know. But
I'm talking about out-of-the-box (or download). If you tried running
TightVNC across two arbitrary computers over the internet, you
wouldn't even know where to start, because of firewalls on both sides,
routers not allowing each computer to have a unique IP, and other
problems. This is where CrossLoop comes in. It wraps around the
TightVNC connection, and allows it to pass through all that stuff with
no problem:

.. figure :: http://blog.opensourcenerd.com/upload/crossloop-connection

   CrossLoop connection.

The reason the GPL doesn't affect it is because the TightVNC source
and binary are *unmodified*. CrossLoop does nothing to modify it or
make a derivative work out of it, and does nothing to prevent its
distribution of binaries or source code for free. Therefore, it is an
independent work, and it can do whatever it wants with its license.

This leaves a bittersweet taste for open source advocates like yours
truly. While it's nice to see that open source software is being
appreciated as a building block by closed source solutions, especially
*because* of its cost (nothing) and the fact that its inner workings
are laid bare, it sort of hurts to see that they basically take the
ball and run with it, producing something the community can't build on
further, filling their proverbial coffers while not contributing to
the collective knowledge.

What `other <http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxgames/>`__
`projects <http://qt.nokia.com/>`__ of the same sort do is contribute
back to the host project by either monetary aid, or releasing
semi-open libraries for others to build on. I hope CrossLoop does so
too, even if it's not advertised on their website.

It doesn't take compromising business secrets for today's innovators
to help tomorrow's innovators out. Just a little consideration, and
community thinking.