legal question

[eternal_sage]

since HERO Designer is coded in Java, i am presuming (without checking, since i don't know the answer to this question) that all of the source code is here, sitting on my hard drive. since this is not covered in the license, but i'm not an asshole, i figured i'd ask permission first (even though you'd never know regardless, its just not ethical, damn it!).

is the source code of HERO Designer considered Open Source? and i mean that with all the ramifications that would have. my gut instinct is no, since there is the restriction on giving copies to your friends, etc, but the license is pretty free otherwise. the reason i ask is because i'm interested in poking around the insides and possibly tinkering with it some, and want to make sure its ok. i would not be interested in releasing or selling anything i came up with (unlikely as that would be, since my Java is very very bad; this is more of a learning thing than anything), merely screwing around with it here at the house for my own purposes.

[Simon]

Well....a few things:

1. What you have with HD is _compiled_ Java. Java byte code/class files.

2. HD is not open source. As much as I like (and support) the open source movement, HD doesn't really fit into it terribly well. One day I may take it open source....but not quite yet (I'd need to do a LOT of cleanup before I did that).

3. Folks that are serious about working on new developments for HD are always welcome to contact me. If things work out, I can always give access to the source code (typically, this entails an agreement that your work would be bundled into future updates of HD).

[eternal_sage]

thats cool. as you can see, my Java is fairly terrible (mostly a C++/python man, really), so i doubt i would be of any real help, mostly i just wanted to dig around in it to see how it worked so maybe i could learn a thing or too. not every project should be Open Source. while not all FOSS'ers can understand that, i do. thanks for the answer!