Thinking about LDCad 2.0 and open sourcing it

[Darren Carlson]

If I go open source I would also need to select a License (I would like to keep it non commercial only)., this is the thing I'm looking up to the most so if anyone has some pointers on that

Ok I did some reading and realized I can't call it Open Source with the 'non commercial' limitation in place, so I might have to drop that.

Although I really don't want people making money on LDraw based things without giving something back or having put in some considerable additional work themselves.

Anyone know how to address this issue?

In the meantime I'm thinking GPLv3 so at least modifications etc are forced to remain free/open.

But I must confess all this makes me hesitate a bit

ps: I do realize I'm not working on some sort of groundbreaking multi billion euro project here but it's my pet project after all

Although I manage a bunch of developers on a daily basis, I don't actually code myself. Other than teaching myself the conceptual basis of most of the languages my teams code in so that I can speak intelligently to them about how they do things.

I'm a business guy at heart and your postscript is what prompted me to reply.

Consider carefully what you do. This isn't a multi-billion euro project, but, with LDD support being dropped by Lego themselves, there is going to be a growing demand for other design software. They haven't update the parts library in LDD in ages and it's only going to get worse there.

My brief foray into LDraw design/editing tools let me to recognize that for the beginner, LDCad is by far the most friendly. If you added an option to drop a virtual baseplate into the design window, it would look and feel even more like LDD. But that's an aside.

My point is that I suspect over time you're going to see a considerable increase in the usage of your tool. Moving it to open source without clearly restricting commercial use and/or benefit could definitely result in some 'enterprising' individual to scoop up all your hard work and make dollars off of it in the manner that Redhat did with Linux. 

There is going to be a growing need for an LDD replacement and someone is going to fill it. I'd love for it to be this tool which I think is the best of the bunch available.