The term 'Open Source' has evolved over the last several years. Various groups have decided that the open source world needs both a steward and a multitude of rules to protect itself. Groups such as the Open Source Initiative have decided, by themselves, of course, that they are the only group capable of both defining and regulating this unruly community.

Unfortunately, I am apparently a heretic in this community, in that I wish to limit distribution to only my releases. The Open Source distribution sources, such as SourceForge and CodePlex, have drunk the KoolAid of Richard Stallman and his ilk, and refuse to host any Open Source projects which limit distribution in any way.

In a way, it's pretty funny, in that the very people who cry freedom to the high heavens are the very first to try and limit that freedom the second they acquire any sort of authority.

In my opinion, it really should be enough that I'm giving away the result of thousands of hours of programming for free, trying to help programmers complete their projects in the simplest possible manner, without having to give up all rights to the code and programs as well.

This is not a simple program, as anyone diving into the code will quickly learn, and I believe that I have the absolute moral right to guide the evolution of this program in the direction I desire. If, however, I agreed to the ceding of all rights of distribution, you could be swamped with many versions of BoB.NET, some working, some not; some heading toward my vision, some not. And guess who will get flamed when someone acquires one of these versions and it doesn't work?

As I state in the license, my name is on this program. This is not the result of a collaborative effort, but rather the pure product of my mind, my effort, my determination, and my experience, and I am not about to cede the future development path of this program to anyone else. I have a clear idea of what this will eventually be, and I am absolutely determined to get there. I guarantee to any user of BoB.NET, that all future versions will be of the same quality, fully documented and commented, and maintain the same philosophy of utility and ease of use that you will find in the initial version.

So while the self-appointed guardians of freedom may not like this much, I hope that any real-world programmer who uses BoB.NET will appreciate the huge increase in productivity that he or she will experience, and return something back to other programmers.