Is open sourcing a good idea?
Allen
I've recently finished a working draft of my game engine (my first)!
Looking at it now, since it's so big and I was the only coder on it, it
feels like 9 parts hack and 1 part good design.
I've heard a lot of support for the notion of open sourcing large
projects and for web sites like sourceforge.net. While I'm quite certain
that I've not written anything "new" or "groundbreaking", I'm hesitant to
open source my engine or even to share it online. It feels too much like
just throwing away all my hard work. At the same time though, it's tempting
to see how much improvement could be done to my engine with a lot more
people (and with some real skills ;-) working on it.
Is open sourcing safe as far as maintaining credit/control/ownership of
software?
--
Best wishes,
Allen
Noah Roberts
> I've heard a lot of support for the notion of open sourcing large
> projects and for web sites like sourceforge.net. While I'm quite certain
> that I've not written anything "new" or "groundbreaking", I'm hesitant to
> open source my engine or even to share it online. It feels too much like
> just throwing away all my hard work. At the same time though, it's tempting
> to see how much improvement could be done to my engine with a lot more
> people (and with some real skills ;-) working on it.
Is it throwing it away to open source or to keep it closed? Are you
going to try and sell it? Could you? Is it just going to sit there and
do nothing until you accidentally delete it?
I personally get a kick out of seeing my download ratio rise. This
means that some of those people are actually using what I made, possibly
some are actually enjoying it (I have had feedback that says so). This
is my reward besides just the joy of coding and of using the product I
created. Eventually I do plan on selling my program, and I know that I
will be able to even though it is free online...some people like to buy
the package or don't want to be bothered to compile, especially if you
are targeting something niche.
>
> Is open sourcing safe as far as maintaining credit/control/ownership of
> software?
Ownership yes, control - depends on your definition, credit the same.
Most of the time you will always get credit where due. People will be
willing to work with you and allow you to maintain control of your own
project but sometimes someone will decide to change it in a way you
disagree with and they will fork. This isn't a bad thing, you maintain
control over your own version and someone else takes it another way -
99% of the people out there are reasonable enough not to use your name
except to credit the origional.
You will always own your code. I am not sure what the legalese is when
someone contributes to your tree and you accept it, is it yours or
theirs. I would think it is yours even though they wrote it because it
is a derivative and is being given to you, but you may have to have them
do so explicitly. If you use an agreement like MIT or BSD it doesn't
even matter but with GPL you could get into trouble if you decided to
close source future versions - you might have to weed out all outside
contributions!
Now, on the other hand, I have run into trouble with rude and
inconsiderate people. I had someone fork from my project and use a name
that should have been reserved to said project without my permission or
even notifying me that they intended to do so. This was done simply
because I wasn't fast enough at comming up with that part of the
project; they even paid someone to write their code, which left me with
a pange of jealosy and general bad feelings. Such cases are very
dissapointing. Their project is not even on par with the popularity
mine gets though so I guess I "win" in the end; I did have to publicly
disavow their fork though because of repeated support requests for their
program comming to me - all because of the damn name issue...and of
course the fact that they advertized their program on my support forums!
I guess I am still upset :P
Most of the time this kind of crap doesn't take place but when it does
there is nothing you can legaly do about it if you have open sourced
your software. In my mind it is worth the risk because the alternative
is to not share and I don't feel that a few assholes should stop me from
doing that. I only mention the above because you shouldn't get the
wrong idea and think that the OSS world is all happy cooperating
programmers or that just because you are nice and give stuff away nobody
will try to bend you over. Most people are nice, most programmers are
cool especially in OSS, but you can't escape the jerks because they are
everywhere.
--
Noah Roberts
- "If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention."
Roy Klein
> going to try and sell it? Could you? Is it just going to sit there and
> do nothing until you accidentally delete it?
Hmm.. Good response! Especially this line, but everything in general.
I think that sharing your code can be truly benefitial to yourself and
others, especially if you're not planning on making any profit of it
anyways.
Besides, we all learn from others' codes, it is not 100% our pure invention,
so it is arguably based on the public's previous work, thus, should be
available back to the public... I don't really think this logic is
completely correct but it's interesting for me to think of it this way.
Roy
Noah Roberts
> Besides, we all learn from others' codes, it is not 100% our pure invention,
> so it is arguably based on the public's previous work, thus, should be
> available back to the public... I don't really think this logic is
> completely correct but it's interesting for me to think of it this way.
At one time I started writing a paper on this, the ethical reasoning to
"Intelectual Property". I never finished it though. But the gist is
similar to what you are saying. Without input from culture, previous
works, and other external public influences there is no creativity at
all. In fact, actual individual creation is a very small amount of what
goes into a new invention/song/program/whatever. So actually since you
contribution to your own ideas is minimal at best, how can you claim
ownership of them...especially at the detriment to the society that
/gave/ you that idea?
In reality, the idea of intelectual "property" is a misnomer created by
the people who want to engrain into society as a whole the conclusion
that they don't have a true ethical right to these ideas/"properties".
The process of copyright/patent is a grant, from the society that
actually owns the thing, the temporarily exclusive ownership of an idea,
sort of payment for the small amount of yourself that went into it. In
a society based on trade, which we are, this sort of thing is necissary.
But society is getting robbed and brainwashed into not only giving
away its own rights to its own culture, but also into the belief that
those rights do not in fact exist.
Brandon J. Van Every
>
> Now, on the other hand, I have run into trouble with rude and
> inconsiderate people. I had someone fork from my project and use a
> name
> that should have been reserved to said project without my permission
> or
> even notifying me that they intended to do so. This was done simply
> because I wasn't fast enough at comming up with that part of the
> project; they even paid someone to write their code, which left me
> with a pange of jealosy and general bad feelings.
Well let's face it, one of the main benefits of Open Source is not having to
wait on people who want to control what you can do with the code. If you
license stuff as open source, you can't reasonably expect people to march to
your timeframe. They have their business deadlines to meet that you don't
have....
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
Taking risk where others will not.
Brandon J. Van Every
> So actually since
> you contribution to your own ideas is minimal at best, how can you
> claim ownership of them...especially at the detriment to the society
> that /gave/ you that idea?
Because society doesn't sit around giving you ideas. Society sits around
ripping you off for having spent a lot of your own time and money coming up
with working solutions.
Brandon J. Van Every
--
Noah Roberts
> Noah Roberts wrote:
>
>> So actually since
>>you contribution to your own ideas is minimal at best, how can you
>>claim ownership of them...especially at the detriment to the society
>>that /gave/ you that idea?
>
>
> Because society doesn't sit around giving you ideas. Society sits around
> ripping you off for having spent a lot of your own time and money coming up
> with working solutions.
Using what knowledge? I assume you mean to say you created these
working solutions in a vaccuum? What are you building, stone wheels?
Gerry Quinn
>Hi all,
>
> I've recently finished a working draft of my game engine (my first)!
>Looking at it now, since it's so big and I was the only coder on it, it
>feels like 9 parts hack and 1 part good design.
>
> I've heard a lot of support for the notion of open sourcing large
>projects and for web sites like sourceforge.net. While I'm quite certain
>that I've not written anything "new" or "groundbreaking", I'm hesitant to
>open source my engine or even to share it online. It feels too much like
>just throwing away all my hard work. At the same time though, it's tempting
>to see how much improvement could be done to my engine with a lot more
>people (and with some real skills ;-) working on it.
Presumably you have something that people want, or something that they
don't. If they don't, they will hardly work for free on it, but
throwing it open costs you nothing. If they do, you might get help but
it hardly seems like a good way to get paid for your work, at least in
most spheres.
> Is open sourcing safe as far as maintaining credit/control/ownership of
>software?
Credit, probably. Ownership (in the legal sense), completely. Control
- you do the math.
- Gerry Quinn
Bent C Dalager
Noah Roberts <nrob...@dontemailme.com> wrote:
>
>Using what knowledge? I assume you mean to say you created these
>working solutions in a vaccuum? What are you building, stone wheels?
Oh, don't you know? Brandon invented binary logic :-)
Cheers
Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - b...@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
powered by emacs
Noah Roberts
>
>>Now, on the other hand, I have run into trouble with rude and
>>inconsiderate people. I had someone fork from my project and use a
>>name
>>that should have been reserved to said project without my permission
>>or
>>even notifying me that they intended to do so. This was done simply
>>because I wasn't fast enough at comming up with that part of the
>>project; they even paid someone to write their code, which left me
>>with a pange of jealosy and general bad feelings.
>
>
> Well let's face it, one of the main benefits of Open Source is not having to
> wait on people who want to control what you can do with the code. If you
> license stuff as open source, you can't reasonably expect people to march to
> your timeframe. They have their business deadlines to meet that you don't
> have....
>
1) Who said this had anything to do with business deadlines, or anything
to do with businesses in the first place? However, you point is correct
- you can't expect that people won't be in such a hurry that they can't
wait and need to come up with it on their own. But you can reasonably
expect some courtesy.
2) When you are writing something on a voulanteer basis in the time not
speant trying to eat, some things get placed on a back burner. Had this
person come to me before hiring someone to implement something I was
going to anyway, I may have altered my priorities. This seems like
common decency to me, you at least offer - then if they don't want to
put a rush on hire some outsider to do it.
I think you are making a lot of assumptions about something you know
next to nothing about.
Gerry Quinn
>Roy Klein wrote:
>> Besides, we all learn from others' codes, it is not 100% our pure invention,
>> so it is arguably based on the public's previous work, thus, should be
>> available back to the public... I don't really think this logic is
>> completely correct but it's interesting for me to think of it this way.
>
>At one time I started writing a paper on this, the ethical reasoning to
>"Intelectual Property". I never finished it though. But the gist is
>similar to what you are saying. Without input from culture, previous
>works, and other external public influences there is no creativity at
>all. In fact, actual individual creation is a very small amount of what
>goes into a new invention/song/program/whatever. So actually since you
>contribution to your own ideas is minimal at best, how can you claim
>ownership of them...especially at the detriment to the society that
>/gave/ you that idea?
You are distributing your closed source program, to the benefit of
society. The only ideas you are keeping secret are precisely those you
have contributed yourself (you are of course keeping your own
expressions of many ideas secret too). After all, the ideas you took
from pre-existing public culture are still there - you have not removed
them!
In fact, the result of expressing these ideas is visible too - people
can see the finished program.
>In reality, the idea of intelectual "property" is a misnomer created by
>the people who want to engrain into society as a whole the conclusion
>that they don't have a true ethical right to these ideas/"properties".
On the contrary, IP is the most important kind of property, and not much
different from any other kind. Your ownership of a house or car
effectively just means that society grants its exclusive use to you - if
squatters or joyriders can use them anytime, you have no effective
ownership. Of course this is deeply ingrained in our biology, too,
although it is ownly in modern complex societies that our primal
instincts become applicable to IP.
As people who argue along the lines you propose usually do, you conflate
patents and copyrights. Only patents protect ideas, the protection time
is very limited and the ideas have to be adjudged novel (the last bit
needs improvement, I agree). Copyrights protect only the expression of
ideas, and prevent nobody from using the ideas - that's why long
copyright periods do no obvious harm that I can see. You can't use
Mickey directly but you can create an animated mouse of your own any
time you want. Mickey is not the idea of a cartoon mouse, but an
expression of that idea.
Gerry Quinn
--
http://bindweed.com
Kaleidoscopic Screensavers and Games for Windows
Download free trial versions
New screensaver: "Hypercurve"
Brandon J. Van Every
> Hi all,
>
> I've recently finished a working draft of my game engine (my
> first)! Looking at it now, since it's so big and I was the only coder
> on it, it feels like 9 parts hack and 1 part good design.
>
> I've heard a lot of support for the notion of open sourcing large
> projects and for web sites like sourceforge.net. While I'm quite
> certain that I've not written anything "new" or "groundbreaking", I'm
> hesitant to open source my engine or even to share it online. It
> feels too much like just throwing away all my hard work.
Congratulations, you've discovered one of the pitfalls of Not Invented Here.
Yep, you can definitely waste a lot of your time and money on technology
that, in hindsight, turns out to be utterly pointless. The thing to do next
is to consider what parts of your business model are right, and what parts
are wrong. You have to let go of what you've done wrong and move on.
For instance, I just spent most of last year overengineering my 3D planetary
rendering code for Ocean Mars. I've now got some kewl spherical hexified
icosahedron planet code, and there's no way in hell I'm ever turning that IP
over to anyone. It only represents, um, the complete and utter destruction
of my personal finances. It was built very solid, I'll just pick up the
project again at some point in the future when I'm ready.
On the other hand, I went through lotsa gruntwork bullshit to get to that
point. A lot of generic 3D engine stuff that is of *no* proprietary value
at all. I've now realized how stupid it is to do all of my own 3D gruntwork
from scratch. I won't anymore. Putting ego aside, and eschewing perfection
for nominal notions of quality, I've cast my lot with The Nebula Device
crowd.
http://nebuladevice.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Nebula/WebHome
Gruntwork is where open source is going to fit into my business model. If
it's gruntwork, we can share it, get it over with, ease our mutual pain and
suffering. Really, how many people like dealing with Microsoft technologies
anyways? Let's wrap 'em all up so we don't have to !#@!!# deal with 'em.
If it's a competitive advantage, it stays closed. I ain't sharin' nuthin
with nobody! I'll worry about sharing stuff like that when I'm out of my
prolific debt. When ahm rolling in megabucks and y'all eatin' mah planetary
debris, bhwwaahahahaahah!!!
Time for your self-assessment. How much of your engine is novel technology
that gives you a competitive advantage? Keep that stuff, keep it
proprietary. How much is crap that any old schmoe could have done, has been
doing, is doing over and over again? Throw away your Not Invented Here
crap, abandon your "I've gotta do everything myself" ego, and move on. The
farther and farther you get into true indie game development, the more you
will realize there is no other way. You *CANNOT* build everything, you
*SHOULD NOT* build everything. There simply aren't enough hours in a year.
> At the same
> time though, it's tempting to see how much improvement could be done
> to my engine with a lot more people (and with some real skills ;-)
> working on it.
That's your ego talking. Are you some kind of godsend of a project manager?
If not, don't sign up for the headaches. Don't waste your energy. You are
better off just scrapping what's not worth anything, taking a deep breath,
and starting again on some real workable goals. That could mean, for
instance, contributing to someone else's project that's well under way,
rather than trying to get overweening control or limelight credit.
Limelight credit has no commercial value anyways. All that matters is if
you can convince some suit to pay you $100/hr for your technical expertise.
You do that by a combination of skill and charm, not your exact marquee on
some project. And I do believe your charm is the more important factor
here.
A word on morale: a failure of this magnitude can knock you out of
commission for several months. That certainly happened to me. But you will
get over it. I'd say I'm only getting over it and moving on about now. My
tailspin lasted 4 months. Big doubts about whether, after 11 years, I was
even in the right field. But I got over it, because I love game design, and
there are games I must make.
Realize also that even if you keep no code at all, your effort was not in
vain. You are now a smarter project architect. You are not likely to make
exactly the same mistakes next time. Of course, that means you will make
new ones. :-) Keep trying to get done what you want done, and eventually
you will figure out the way. Part of that way is figuring out when to work
with other people, and when to ignore them.
Floris van den Berg
news:bn5dum$s6u$2...@tyfon.itea.ntnu.no...
> In article <bn5d9v$cpc$1...@quark.scn.rain.com>,
> Noah Roberts <nrob...@dontemailme.com> wrote:
> >
> >Using what knowledge? I assume you mean to say you created these
> >working solutions in a vaccuum? What are you building, stone wheels?
>
> Oh, don't you know? Brandon invented binary logic :-)
I think Brandon tries to say that when you spent a lot of time and money to
write a program, you open the source, and instead of people inputting new
ideas and improving the program they just take your code and use it, there's
nothing in it for you. So why open the source? That's not my experience
though. I have one open source project i worked for 2 years on
(freeimage.sourceforge.net) that's now being developed without much of my
input. And the developers do a pretty fine job so far.
Floris
Noah Roberts
> In article <bn5d9v$cpc$1...@quark.scn.rain.com>,
> Noah Roberts <nrob...@dontemailme.com> wrote:
>
>>Using what knowledge? I assume you mean to say you created these
>>working solutions in a vaccuum? What are you building, stone wheels?
>
>
> Oh, don't you know? Brandon invented binary logic :-)
Well even so, he probbably used over 3000 years of advances in math,
which I highly doubt he managed to create wholely on his own :P He
probably wrote it down on his paper invention using the pens that he
invented and manufactured using a language he created for his own
benefit. Of course he also invented all the crap the led him to the
idea of binary logic because we all know society had no part to play :P
Brandon J. Van Every
> "Bent C Dalager" <b...@pvv.ntnu.no> schreef in bericht
> news:bn5dum$s6u$2...@tyfon.itea.ntnu.no...
>> In article <bn5d9v$cpc$1...@quark.scn.rain.com>,
>> Noah Roberts <nrob...@dontemailme.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Using what knowledge? I assume you mean to say you created these
>>> working solutions in a vaccuum? What are you building, stone
>>> wheels?
>>
>> Oh, don't you know? Brandon invented binary logic :-)
>
> I think Brandon tries to say that when you spent a lot of time and
> money to write a program, you open the source, and instead of people
> inputting new ideas and improving the program they just take your
> code and use it, there's nothing in it for you.
More to the point, if you are too generous with your R&D, corporations
*will* rip you off, *will* productize your R&D, *will not* compensate you
one penny for it. Patent Law is for protecting the small inventor from
greedy corporations like Microsoft.
Personally I think if you're going to patent something in software, it
better jolly well be worthy of patenting. I am opposed to frivolous
software patents, which is to say, most of them. I am opposed to legal
prospecting in general. But there are people and companies who legitimately
need the protections of patent law.
Patents are an incentive to progress. Without patents, few people would
have the economic incentive to create new processes. I've rarely met an
anti-patent person who was (1) self-funded, (2) capable of producing
anything worthy of a patent.
Timothy J. Bruce
patents.
Many argue weather Open Sores facilitates competition, but given the way
patents are being abused now (Yes, Virgina, you can patent IDEAS!) Open
Sores certainly does facilitate technological growth.
Open Sores vs Closed Source? I am a firm believer the originator of any
work should decide what is done with it. If my employer pays me to write
software for them, then you bet your ass it is they who decide what shall
be done with it. By the same token, if Allen writes a program it is only
fitting HE decides what is done with it.
Publishing the source code implies a lot of things. I used to assume
people understood 1) the word `imply', 2) those things. Publishing the
source means the originator has lost a monopoly of it's use. Since I
can't do anything correct until I've done it wrong a few times I kinda
welcome the public critique that comes with Open Sores development. Since
I also hate casting pearls before swine I don't like arming morons with
Secrets of The Universe. I'm obviously torn between the two models.
I think this all comes down to what the originator would like. If my
business model depends on service contracts for support of my product I
would probably welcome and benefit from an Open Sores initiative. By the
same token, if my business model depends on selling shrink-wrapped widgets
I might find my niche in copyrighting the binaries only, sealing the
source code from public eyes.
Allen: go ahead and open up the project. Someone might help you out with
the rough edges you mentioned, and only another programmer can appreciate
the beauty and elagence in the poetry wrote, that merely by coincidence
only happens to instruct an x86.
I hope this helps, and I hope it doesn't start any flame wars.
</RANT>
Brandon J. Van Every
How on Earth did I become a strawman for someone's pathetic concerns about
binary logic? If there was ever a patent on binary logic, it expired a long
time ago. Patents aren't forever, they are a delay. You get the benefit of
the societal delay because you risked the $$$$$$$ for the societal speedup.
Brandon J. Van Every
>
> As people who argue along the lines you propose usually do, you
> conflate
> patents and copyrights. Only patents protect ideas, the protection
> time
> is very limited and the ideas have to be adjudged novel (the last bit
> needs improvement, I agree).
Actually, I don't think patents protect ideas, I think they protect ideas
embodied in concrete processes. But I am unsure here.
Timothy J. Bruce
Archemedes's `The Method' was recently uncovered in a palimpset. Since
the US Patent Office now accepts algorithms could the Heirs of Archemedes
patent integral calculus (he was doing it before N&L)? Could the Heirs of
Archemedes claim a patent on programming (I define `programming' as
`solving a puzzle', not `typing')? Are these notions patently offensive?
This obviously points to serious flaws in the current US patent
procedures, which may not be entirely incidental to objections many
altruists have with the concept of `Intellectual Property'.
Careful: I said `altruist', not `socialist'; This is not flame-bait.
Brandon J. Van Every
>
> 1) Who said this had anything to do with business deadlines, or
> anything
> to do with businesses in the first place? However, you point is
> correct
> - you can't expect that people won't be in such a hurry that they
> can't
> wait and need to come up with it on their own. But you can reasonably
> expect some courtesy.
Clearly, courtesy ends when definite need begins. Nobody's going to sit
around endangering their own projects in order to "be courteous." Just as
the original author isn't going to "courteously" march to the schedule of
someone else's need.
> 2) When you are writing something on a voulanteer basis in the time
> not speant trying to eat, some things get placed on a back burner.
> Had this person come to me before hiring someone to implement
> something I was
> going to anyway, I may have altered my priorities. This seems like
> common decency to me, you at least offer - then if they don't want to
> put a rush on hire some outsider to do it.
Did you have an obvious business model where they knew if they contacted
you, you could provide features for them for such-and-such a rate? Like, a
website pitching your services?
> I think you are making a lot of assumptions about something you know
> next to nothing about.
I think you're too biased in this matter to see the general point of view of
the other side. You think open source is supposed to automatically revolve
around you, the author. It isn't. That's why it's open source. If you
want it to revolve around you, the author, license it differently.
Floris van den Berg
bericht news:bn5fud$ss5iu$1...@ID-207230.news.uni-berlin.de...
[snip]
> > I think Brandon tries to say that when you spent a lot of time and
> > money to write a program, you open the source, and instead of people
> > inputting new ideas and improving the program they just take your
> > code and use it, there's nothing in it for you.
>
> More to the point, if you are too generous with your R&D, corporations
> *will* rip you off, *will* productize your R&D, *will not* compensate you
> one penny for it. Patent Law is for protecting the small inventor from
> greedy corporations like Microsoft.
>
> Personally I think if you're going to patent something in software, it
> better jolly well be worthy of patenting. I am opposed to frivolous
> software patents, which is to say, most of them. I am opposed to legal
> prospecting in general. But there are people and companies who
legitimately
> need the protections of patent law.
>
> Patents are an incentive to progress. Without patents, few people would
> have the economic incentive to create new processes. I've rarely met an
> anti-patent person who was (1) self-funded, (2) capable of producing
> anything worthy of a patent.
I totally agree with you. So, before you open the source of a project,
consider first if it's worth it. If it's really cutting edge technology that
you intend to sell you might not want to open the source. But if you are
just learning, want to do the world a favour, want to get joy out of people
using your software, want others to look at your software and critique, etc.
etc. go ahead. I sure don't regret opening the source of my bitmap library
project (without the input of others it would sure have sucked a lot).
Floris
Noah Roberts
> In article <bn5bss$9ov$1...@quark.scn.rain.com>, Noah Roberts <nrob...@dontemailme.com> wrote:
>
>>Roy Klein wrote:
>>
>>>Besides, we all learn from others' codes, it is not 100% our pure invention,
>>>so it is arguably based on the public's previous work, thus, should be
>>>available back to the public... I don't really think this logic is
>>>completely correct but it's interesting for me to think of it this way.
>>
>>At one time I started writing a paper on this, the ethical reasoning to
>>"Intelectual Property". I never finished it though. But the gist is
>>similar to what you are saying. Without input from culture, previous
>>works, and other external public influences there is no creativity at
>>all. In fact, actual individual creation is a very small amount of what
>>goes into a new invention/song/program/whatever. So actually since you
>>contribution to your own ideas is minimal at best, how can you claim
>>ownership of them...especially at the detriment to the society that
>>/gave/ you that idea?
>
>
> You are distributing your closed source program, to the benefit of
> society. The only ideas you are keeping secret are precisely those you
> have contributed yourself (you are of course keeping your own
> expressions of many ideas secret too). After all, the ideas you took
> from pre-existing public culture are still there - you have not removed
> them!
What is society getting out of the deal? You take what society gave
you, add a small spattering of your own, and then sell it back. Nothing
has been contributed, seems like a rather one sided transaction to me.
>
> In fact, the result of expressing these ideas is visible too - people
> can see the finished program.
But society has to purchase the right to view it. So long as there is a
fair limit amount that must be paid, in the way of time, then this is
fair and necissary in our society because we are trade based. In some
utopian society even this would be unreasonable.
You also bring up an interesting point that the ideas I don't express
are similar to the ones I do but keep secret. Consider what happens at
that point, society creates it again in someone else. So long as I
never expressed the idea, and didn't claim ownership of it, this other
person is legally free to do so. Consider the invention of Calculus,
which took place in two seperate people at the same time. Also consider
the telephone; it is only by time alone that we consider Bell the
inventor of the telephone because he got to the patent office first.
What I mean to say is that by not expressing an idea I have I am leaving
the door open for it to be recreated. In our current situation, should
I lay claim to that idea then society is beholden to me for an
undertermined amount of time, possibly as long as there is a corperation
that can continue claiming it, to gain access to that idea. There is
something inherently broken there.
>
>
>>In reality, the idea of intelectual "property" is a misnomer created by
>>the people who want to engrain into society as a whole the conclusion
>>that they don't have a true ethical right to these ideas/"properties".
>
>
> On the contrary, IP is the most important kind of property, and not much
> different from any other kind. Your ownership of a house or car
> effectively just means that society grants its exclusive use to you - if
> squatters or joyriders can use them anytime, you have no effective
> ownership. Of course this is deeply ingrained in our biology, too,
> although it is ownly in modern complex societies that our primal
> instincts become applicable to IP.
>
> As people who argue along the lines you propose usually do, you conflate
> patents and copyrights. Only patents protect ideas, the protection time
> is very limited and the ideas have to be adjudged novel (the last bit
> needs improvement, I agree).
Patents are definately the worst of the two. Patents actually kill. If
it wasn't for the breaking of patents there would be no help for poor
countries trying to hamper AIDS. This is not acceptable.
Copyrights protect only the expression of
> ideas, and prevent nobody from using the ideas - that's why long
> copyright periods do no obvious harm that I can see. You can't use
> Mickey directly but you can create an animated mouse of your own any
> time you want. Mickey is not the idea of a cartoon mouse, but an
> expression of that idea.
Actually copyright closes a lot of doors on the advancement of many
ideas. For instance, I don't believe you could legally distribute a
text book you wrote based on the MIX computer without Knuth's
permission. This would be a derivative work and I don't think fair use
would help you. Of course Knuth is very open to this and in fact has
requested that a book on OS's be developed using the MMIX.
If we go into the realm of fictional creations you run into all sorts of
problems. You are not going to be able to write a book that takes place
in the Star Wars universe and expect any amount of civility from
Lucasfilms. In fact they have killed several fan works that could have
been incredibly interesting.
What I am seing, and what I have a problem with, is that society
contributes a great deal to these ideas and the only thing they get back
is to be forever indebited to the person who the idea happens to take
hold in, the perpetual right to pay for access to something that it was
99% responsible for creating. This is especially concerning when you
realize that much of our modern culture is based on things on TV, the
movies, and the radio. Much of culture is its music and other forms of
entertainment and artistic expression. Basically our culture is "owned"
by a few corperations and they are trying very hard to make it
impossible to break this hold, in my opinion they don't own these things
- or at least don't have the right to and don't have the right to.
Brandon J. Van Every
> Interesting and related aside:
> Archemedes's `The Method' was recently uncovered in a palimpset.
> Since the US Patent Office now accepts algorithms could the Heirs of
> Archemedes patent integral calculus (he was doing it before N&L)?
> Could the Heirs of Archemedes claim a patent on programming (I define
> `programming' as `solving a puzzle', not `typing')?
Nope, there's plenty of prior art for programming. Prior art isn't reckoned
according to when something was invented, it's reckoned according to when
the patent claim is filed. Your historical questions are utterly
uninteresting.
> Are these notions patently offensive?
No, just patently ridiculous.
> This obviously points to serious flaws in the
> current US patent procedures,
Not in the slightest. If you really believe so, you need to brush up on
Patent Law 101.
Noah Roberts
>
>>1) Who said this had anything to do with business deadlines, or
>>anything
>>to do with businesses in the first place? However, you point is
>>correct
>>- you can't expect that people won't be in such a hurry that they
>>can't
>>wait and need to come up with it on their own. But you can reasonably
>>expect some courtesy.
>
>
> Clearly, courtesy ends when definite need begins. Nobody's going to sit
> around endangering their own projects in order to "be courteous." Just as
> the original author isn't going to "courteously" march to the schedule of
> someone else's need.
>
>>next to nothing about.
>
>
> I think you're too biased in this matter to see the general point of view of
> the other side. You think open source is supposed to automatically revolve
> around you, the author. It isn't. That's why it's open source. If you
> want it to revolve around you, the author, license it differently.
>
You are still talking out of your ass. Stop eating chili.
Brandon J. Van Every
>
> What is society getting out of the deal? You take what society gave
> you, add a small spattering of your own, and then sell it back.
> Nothing
> has been contributed, seems like a rather one sided transaction to me.
Noah, are you (1) self-funded, (2) engaged in any kind of cutting edge R&D?
If not, your remarks are those of a self-serving whiner who expects others
to do the hard work of thinking for free. If you are, at least you can
argue the merits / demerits of your idealism from a credible position.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
80% is gobbledygook we make up inside our own heads.
Bill Godfrey
response in the first place.)
ger...@indigo.ie (Gerry Quinn) wrote:
> Copyrights protect only the expression of
> ideas, and prevent nobody from using the ideas - that's why long
> copyright periods do no obvious harm that I can see. You can't use
> Mickey directly but you can create an animated mouse of your own any
> time you want. Mickey is not the idea of a cartoon mouse, but an
> expression of that idea.
If we had perpetual copyright, there is an awful lot of work derived from
Shakespear, Grimm, etc which might not have been made. Disney would have
hardly made anything at all if they could not have used works which we now
have in the public domain.
Copyright exists to provide an incentive to authors (that's us) to do our
work, without having to resort to crude patronages in days of old. Society
benfits from authors creating stuff which they may not have otherwise
bothered to create and the author benefits from being the only one who can
make copies and is allowed to charge whatever the author feels the market
will bear.
Problem is, with copyright, a monopoly is created. Monopolies are usually
bad things. There is a quid-pro-quo in copyright. What society gives up
(ability to make copies) should be of equal value of what society gets back
(books, music, computer software).
One way of restraining the gift of legally-enforced-monopoly is to make it
of limited time. How much is reasonable is debatable. (IMO, 14 years is too
short and life+70 years is way too long. I'd favour a flat 70 years.)
Bill, we now return you to your scheduled newsgroup.
--
The address in the reply to header is correct, but I'll
read it quicker if you drop the word "usenet".
Noah Roberts
>
>>What is society getting out of the deal? You take what society gave
>>you, add a small spattering of your own, and then sell it back.
>>Nothing
>>has been contributed, seems like a rather one sided transaction to me.
>
>
> Noah, are you (1) self-funded,
I am not paid for the development I do. I have been paid before, when
it happened it was under explicit agreements that placed the code in
open source. I do have a job, I write code for someone else (among
other things) - I have no control over it.
(2) engaged in any kind of cutting edge R&D?
Yet to be seen.
> If not, your remarks are those of a self-serving whiner who expects others
> to do the hard work of thinking for free.
Not true. Everything I have done has gone open source. It does not
matter if it is "cutting edge" or not, they are works that involved much
time and hard work. Some of what I have done was not seen elsewhere,
some has - none is anything you would get a phd for.
If you are, at least you can
> argue the merits / demerits of your idealism from a credible position.
You're so full of shit it isn't even funny anymore.
Floris van den Berg
> Gerry Quinn wrote:
> >
> > As people who argue along the lines you propose usually do, you
> > conflate
> > patents and copyrights. Only patents protect ideas, the protection
> > time
> > is very limited and the ideas have to be adjudged novel (the last bit
> > needs improvement, I agree).
>
> Actually, I don't think patents protect ideas, I think they protect ideas
> embodied in concrete processes. But I am unsure here.
No, patents protect ideas. But afaik the idea has to be concrete enough to
be patentable. As an example you can't patent: "some thingie that you put
under a car to make it drive". You can however patent a good definition of a
wheel (though it wouldn't last longer than 5 seconds in court).
Floris
Bill Godfrey
"Timothy J. Bruce" <uni...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I think this all comes down to what the originator would like. If my
> business model depends on service contracts for support of my product I
> would probably welcome and benefit from an Open Sores initiative.
Maybe.
Advocates of free software say that support contracts are a way for a
programmer to get paid.
There are lots of people who sell support services for CVS. How many of
them hand over some of the money to the original CVS authors? Since they
don't have to, I would imagine the answer is somewhere in the region of
"None".
The quid-pro-quo for the CVS authors is that any improvements made will
make thier way back to them. This works very well for the support people,
who don't make any modifications, simply viewing the CVS executable as an
infinitely copyable zero-cost commodity.
Bill, off the shelf.
Brandon J. Van Every
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>
> (2) engaged in any kind of cutting edge R&D?
>
> Yet to be seen.
Good luck!
>> If not, your remarks are those of a self-serving whiner who expects
>> others to do the hard work of thinking for free.
>
> Not true. Everything I have done has gone open source. It does not
> matter if it is "cutting edge" or not,
If we are discussing the validity of patents, it most certainly does matter
if you are capable of cutting edge work. If you are not, then you aren't in
a position to complain about other people's cutting edge work. If you
aren't walking the walk, then your opinions about "one sided transactions
with society" are of no value. Rather much like a non-programmer saying
programmers should work for free. Interesting concept, but who cares what
those non-programmers think?
> they are works that involved much time and hard work.
Any demanding career involves much time and hard work. You aren't Special
[TM] for spending a lot of time and doing hard work. Normal People [TM] go
through these motions and reap the financial benefits of it all the time,
sans patents. Patents aren't about protecting time and hard work. They are
about protecting a *specific kind* of time and hard work. If you haven't
done basic R&D yourself, then you have an ill-informed opinion about its
relationship to society.
>> If you are, at least you can
>> argue the merits / demerits of your idealism from a credible
>> position.
>
> You're so full of shit it isn't even funny anymore.
John Carmack, I'd be willing to have a "no software patents" debate with.
He has produced patentable work and is ideologically opposed to such
patents. You, on the other hand, haven't demonstrated that you do anything
resembling basic R&D. You think everything is just built on the shoulders
of others because you produce nothing terribly original yourself. All those
papers you look up and crib from, an actual bona fide researcher did the
hard work of figuring out in the first place.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
Taking risk where others will not.
Brandon J. Van Every
Is that the best you can do when confronted with your biases?
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
Noah Roberts
> Noah Roberts wrote:
>
>>Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>>
>>>Noah Roberts wrote:
>>>
>>>>I think you are making a lot of assumptions about something you know
>>>>next to nothing about.
>>>
>>>I think you're too biased in this matter to see the general point of
>>>view of the other side. You think open source is supposed to
>>>automatically revolve around you, the author. It isn't. That's why
>>>it's open source. If you want it to revolve around you, the author,
>>>license it differently.
>>
>>You are still talking out of your ass. Stop eating chili.
>
>
> Is that the best you can do when confronted with your biases?
>
fact have not confronted me because nothing you have said here has
anything to do with what happened. It is really that simple. What do
you call it when someone drones on and on like they know what happened
enough to tell you you're wrong and yet obviously don't know?
Floris van den Berg
news:bn5kgs$8ib$1...@quark.scn.rain.com...
I thought the topic is: "is open sourcing a game engine a good idea?".
Floris
Brandon J. Van Every
If that's your view, then you haven't done much to communicate your actual
situation. What you did communicate, is you licensed something as open
source, then someone didn't do what you would have liked them to have done.
You have a big problem about it; I point out that when you grant an open
source license, you don't have a right to have a big problem about it.
Unless you've got terms in your license such as "thou shalt not change
header files, thou shalt not fork distributions, thou shalt not create
derivative works that compete with Mine holy product, thou shalt not mention
Thine competing product in Mine forum," blah blah blah.
How many Linux distributions do you think there are? Why do you think there
are so many? Do you think anyone asked, or was interested in, getting
permission to do such-and-such with Linux? It's open source.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
Taking risk where others will not.
Brandon J. Van Every
>
It is... the subtopic is "can an open source license make you upset?" Yes
it can... if you have unrealistic expectations of how people are supposed to
act under such a license. A fullblown BSD-style open source license means
people can do what they want with your code, even if it pisses you off. If
controlling header files, project forks, and production schedules is
important to you, maybe you shouldn't do an open source license. You could,
for instance, distribute binary libraries with header files only. Then only
you can make changes, and you reap the advantages and disadvantages of that
approach.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
Taking risk where others will not.
Noah Roberts
>>>If not, your remarks are those of a self-serving whiner who expects
>>>others to do the hard work of thinking for free.
>>
>>Not true. Everything I have done has gone open source. It does not
>>matter if it is "cutting edge" or not,
>
>
> If we are discussing the validity of patents, it most certainly does matter
> if you are capable of cutting edge work. If you are not, then you aren't in
> a position to complain about other people's cutting edge work. If you
> aren't walking the walk, then your opinions about "one sided transactions
> with society" are of no value. Rather much like a non-programmer saying
> programmers should work for free. Interesting concept, but who cares what
> those non-programmers think?
Since when does getting a patent involve anything even resembling
cutting edge? They should, but don't.
And I wasn't speaking about software patents at all. I was speaking of
rights to ideas and who owns them. Patents are a way for society to
return that small amount of work you put in. They should be granted so
long as they don't impeed progress or the ability for people to live.
Patents should be, and are, of a short duration. YOU turned this into
an elitist argument about who has made the most "cutting edge" software,
which obviously you feel is yourself. I'll let you have that.
Even if my ideas are not as mind bogglingly great as yours I still have
the right to believe in, and express that belief, that ideas are owned
by society, not the individual that happened to file a patent. 99% of
all ideas are reproducable, and are often reproduced by several
individuals at the same time. If these ideas are the sole property of
one of those individuals then explain THAT...its ludicrist.
>
>
>>they are works that involved much time and hard work.
>
>
> Any demanding career involves much time and hard work. You aren't Special
> [TM] for spending a lot of time and doing hard work. Normal People [TM] go
> through these motions and reap the financial benefits of it all the time,
> sans patents. Patents aren't about protecting time and hard work. They are
> about protecting a *specific kind* of time and hard work. If you haven't
> done basic R&D yourself, then you have an ill-informed opinion about its
> relationship to society.
>
>
>>>If you are, at least you can
>>>argue the merits / demerits of your idealism from a credible
>>>position.
>>
>>You're so full of shit it isn't even funny anymore.
>
>
> John Carmack, I'd be willing to have a "no software patents" debate with.
Go ahead.
> He has produced patentable work and is ideologically opposed to such
> patents. You, on the other hand, haven't demonstrated that you do anything
> resembling basic R&D. You think everything is just built on the shoulders
> of others because you produce nothing terribly original yourself.
Name a single thing you have done that is 100% yours, which you used
know prior knowledge in, no research but your own, and was not triggered
by an event or idea which society created!
Did you even do a search to see what I have done, that is actually on
the web, before spouting off the above attack?
All those
> papers you look up and crib from, an actual bona fide researcher did the
> hard work of figuring out in the first place.
This is the very definition of progress. If I simply invented
everything from a void I could do nothing but reinvent what has already
been invented. Invention is a collective process that involves the
'inventor' and all who did the research and work that had to be done for
that invention to even be possible. You seem to be arguing that somehow
you have managed to create something new without basing it on someone
else's ideas and work. When are you up for the Nobel Prize? Actually
all of the people that won that based their work on others' before them.
What I find rather interesting here is how someone that says this:
"...I've cast my lot with The Nebula Device crowd.
http://nebuladevice.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Nebula/WebHome
Gruntwork is where open source is going to fit into my business model.
...I ain't sharin' nuthin with nobody! I'll worry about sharing stuff
like that when I'm out of my prolific debt. When ahm rolling in
megabucks and y'all eatin' mah planetary debris, bhwwaahahahaahah!!!"
can have the gaul to tell me I am a "self-serving whiner who expects
others to do the hard work of thinking for free."
At least one thing you have said is right. If you release things Open
Source then someone might very well take advantage of you. But like I
said, it takes more than a few self-serving assholes to make me change
my ideals.
Noah Roberts
> Noah Roberts wrote:
>
>>Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>>
>>>Noah Roberts wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Noah Roberts wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>I think you are making a lot of assumptions about something you
>>>>>>know next to nothing about.
>>>>>
>>>>>I think you're too biased in this matter to see the general point
>>>>>of view of the other side. You think open source is supposed to
>>>>>automatically revolve around you, the author. It isn't. That's
>>>>>why it's open source. If you want it to revolve around you, the
>>>>>author, license it differently.
>>>>
>>>>You are still talking out of your ass. Stop eating chili.
>>>
>>>Is that the best you can do when confronted with your biases?
>>>
>>
>>How can you confront me, you know very little of the situation. You
>>in fact have not confronted me because nothing you have said here has
>>anything to do with what happened. It is really that simple. What do
>>you call it when someone drones on and on like they know what happened
>>enough to tell you you're wrong and yet obviously don't know?
>
>
> If that's your view, then you haven't done much to communicate your actual
> situation.
I never planned to. For some reason you assumed you knew suddenly what
happened and won't let go when told you don't know what happened.
What you did communicate, is you licensed something as open
> source, then someone didn't do what you would have liked them to have done.
Actually it was down to the very core of what I think is basic human
civility. If you want to talk legally, he didn't even use my code.
> You have a big problem about it; I point out that when you grant an open
> source license, you don't have a right to have a big problem about it.
I have every right to be upset at someone who has been very rude to me,
including you. I have no legal recourse I think is what you mean, and
if I did I doubt I would use it anyway. I am upset at the person, and
rather upset at you - from the little I have seen of you, you are a very
rude individual. No matter what you say, I have the right to feel that way.
> Unless you've got terms in your license such as "thou shalt not change
> header files, thou shalt not fork distributions, thou shalt not create
> derivative works that compete with Mine holy product, thou shalt not mention
> Thine competing product in Mine forum," blah blah blah.
You mean like the license system you advocate? This is exactly what a
closed source setup is. Rather interesting that you are putting those
words in MY mouth and expressing their ridiqulousness.
BTW, how would you feel if someone advertized a competing product in
your support forums?! For fuck's sake...that is SPAM!
>
> How many Linux distributions do you think there are? Why do you think there
> are so many? Do you think anyone asked, or was interested in, getting
> permission to do such-and-such with Linux? It's open source.
Actually there is quite a bit of expectations in this area. How many
Linux kernels are there? Very few.
Brandon J. Van Every
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>> Noah Roberts wrote:
>>>> If not, your remarks are those of a self-serving whiner who expects
>>>> others to do the hard work of thinking for free.
>>>
>>> Not true. Everything I have done has gone open source. It does not
>>> matter if it is "cutting edge" or not,
>>
>> If we are discussing the validity of patents, it most certainly does
>> matter if you are capable of cutting edge work. If you are not,
>> then you aren't in a position to complain about other people's
>> cutting edge work. If you aren't walking the walk, then your
>> opinions about "one sided transactions with society" are of no
>> value. Rather much like a non-programmer saying programmers should
>> work for free. Interesting concept, but who cares what those
>> non-programmers think?
>
> Since when does getting a patent involve anything even resembling
> cutting edge? They should, but don't.
I'm not personally interested in the legal validity of patents. As I said
earlier, I think most software patents are frivolous. I'm interested in the
*moral* validity of patents. There are certainly some things that I think
are patentworthy inventions. My question is, are you capable of such work?
Have you ever done any basic R&D in your life?
> And I wasn't speaking about software patents at all. I was speaking
> of rights to ideas and who owns them.
Which is an odd distinction, because patents are the only way to put legal
strictures on ideas that I know of. Copyrights, for instance, do not
protect ideas. Only their concrete expression.
> Patents are a way for society
> to return that small amount of work you put in.
> They should be granted so
> long as they don't impeed progress or the ability for people to live.
> Patents should be, and are, of a short duration.
It seems we have grounds for agreement on patents at least.
>YOU turned this into
> an elitist argument about who has made the most "cutting edge"
> software, which obviously you feel is yourself. I'll let you have
> that.
The only software patents that are morally defensible are elitist, "cutting
edge" software.
> Even if my ideas are not as mind bogglingly great as yours I still
> have
> the right to believe in, and express that belief, that ideas are owned
> by society, not the individual that happened to file a patent.
Do we agree about patents or not? I'm really not sure. Your remarks *sound
like* you think you're within your rights, morally speaking, to help
yourself to other people's patented ideas.
> 99% of all ideas are reproducable, and are often reproduced
I think in this context you really mean "producible." First inventions are
not reproductions.
> by several
> individuals at the same time. If these ideas are the sole property of
> one of those individuals then explain THAT...its ludicrist.
File your patent in a timely fashion if it's so bloody important to you.
Society is deliberately creating a free market competition for who gets the
rights. Society benefits because you the researcher have a match lit under
your toes, you are under pressure to perform. Sounds like you want other
people to work on your schedule again. Newsflash: people aren't going to
sit around waiting for you to contemplate your R&D navel.
> Name a single thing you have done that is 100% yours, which you used
> [no] prior knowledge in, no research but your own, and was not
> triggered by an event or idea which society created!
A number of paintings, and many writings, actually. I have zero sympathy
for people incapable of original work, and I laugh at people who say
"society thought up my stuff." Yeah, well why didn't the mailman just
deliver it to me then? As for software, I've yet to write anything I deem
patentworthy. I'm definitely in possession of some cutting edge planetary
rendering technology however. But it's only cutting edge in an engineering
sense, not in any R&D sense. I read academic papers, implemented abstruse
Barycentric coordinate systems that aren't popular in commercial products
yet. It would take many more itereations of development to get to a point
where I *might* be doing something patentable. If you go far enough into
the frontier, you face the possibility that you will create genuinely
patentable work. If you've never been anywhere near such a frontier, you
shouldn't complain stridently about the decisions of people who have.
> Did you even do a search to see what I have done,
No I didn't, and wouldn't. If you want to list your personal achievements
as some kind of evidence, feel free to provide URLs. It's not my job to
find out why exactly you are so great. I'm sure you'll get around to
telling us if it's relevant.
> What I find rather interesting here is how someone that says this:
>
> "...I've cast my lot with The Nebula Device crowd.
> http://nebuladevice.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/twiki/view/Nebula/WebHome
> Gruntwork is where open source is going to fit into my business model.
> ...I ain't sharin' nuthin with nobody! I'll worry about sharing stuff
> like that when I'm out of my prolific debt. When ahm rolling in
> megabucks and y'all eatin' mah planetary debris, bhwwaahahahaahah!!!"
>
> can have the gaul to tell me I am a "self-serving whiner who expects
> others to do the hard work of thinking for free."
Why? There's no contradiction here, I'll be pulling plenty of my own weight
in the Nebula gruntwork dept. I'm never going to contribute one damn thing
to Nebula that's patentable, or even interesting IMO. *Useful*
contributions, damn straight I will make those. I'm not interested in
Nebula being interesting. I'm interested in it solving boring jobs so that
the barriers to entry of the indie game designer are lowered.
> At least one thing you have said is right. If you release things Open
> Source then someone might very well take advantage of you.
Poor crybaby. License your code under the rights you intend to secure.
When people exercise the rights you have legally given them, DON'T COMPLAIN.
Brandon J. Van Every
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>
>> You have a big problem about it; I point out that when you grant an
>> open source license, you don't have a right to have a big problem
>> about it.
>
> I have every right to be upset at someone who has been very rude to
> me, including you.
Feel free. Some people are still going to point out that you licensed your
code in a certain way, someone legally availed themselves of your freely
chosen license, and your proclivities about required civility are only so
much roadkill along the way. If you were slow to get something done, that's
why there's open software. If you weren't the ideal service professional
for their project needs, that's why there's open software. If they just
wanted to use their own guys whose capabilities are already a known quantity
to them, and completely cut you out of the loop, that's why there's open
software. If you don't like these facts of life, these fundamental and
basic reasons why people have adopted open software models, then don't
license your code in this way.
> I have no legal recourse I think is what you mean, and
> if I did I doubt I would use it anyway. I am upset at the person,
Look, how did you license this stuff? Can you provide a URL to your
license? If you offered your code to the world under a GPL or LGPL style
license and they fulfilled the terms of the license, that's all anybody owes
you. They don't owe you so much as a thank-you postcard unless you put such
terms IN THE LICENSE. If you offered your code under a BSD-style license,
you'd be seriously deluded to think they had to do anything for you at all.
The only "helpful" thing I can say here, is I sure hope you understood the
terms of whatever license you granted.
> and rather upset at you - from the little
> I have seen of you, you are a very
> rude individual. No matter what you say, I have the right to feel
> that way.
It's your decision. I do note that reality is often upsetting to people.
What I am unsure of at this point, is exactly what license you offered your
code under. This thread is about open source licensing... I have assumed
that you have a full handle on all the various kinds of open source licenses
that people typically employ, and that you used one of them. Maybe I am
mistaken, but if I am, that mistake wouldn't exactly be my fault.
> BTW, how would you feel if someone advertized a competing product in
> your support forums?! For fuck's sake...that is SPAM!
Then make Terms Of Service and sue them for breaking the TOS, demonstrating
damages to your business. I wouldn't dwell on my feelings, I'd do something
about it. And, this issue is completely tangential to the open source
licensing issue. It would apply to any competitor showing up in your forum
and using it to advertize, regardless of what code base they employed.
>> How many Linux distributions do you think there are? Why do you
>> think there are so many? Do you think anyone asked, or was
>> interested in, getting permission to do such-and-such with Linux?
>> It's open source.
>
> Actually there is quite a bit of expectations in this area. How many
> Linux kernels are there? Very few.
The fact that there's more than one speaks *volumes* about the expected
nature of open source.
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
Noah Roberts
> As for software, I've yet to write anything I deem
> patentworthy. I'm definitely in possession of some cutting edge planetary
> rendering technology however. But it's only cutting edge in an engineering
> sense, not in any R&D sense. I read academic papers, implemented abstruse
> Barycentric coordinate systems that aren't popular in commercial products
> yet. It would take many more itereations of development to get to a point
> where I *might* be doing something patentable. If you go far enough into
> the frontier, you face the possibility that you will create genuinely
> patentable work. If you've never been anywhere near such a frontier, you
> shouldn't complain stridently about the decisions of people who have.
So, this whole time you have been spouting off about cutting edge this
or that and saying I had no right to my opinions if I wasn't on the edge
(even though you admitedly have not even attempted to find out one way
or the other), you finally admit that you yourself are no different!
You have read some academia, implemented a few ideas other people had,
and created one thing, that though seems to deserve merit is not really
all that cutting edge.
"All those papers you look up and crib from, an actual bona fide
researcher did the hard work of figuring out in the first place."
What was that you said?
>
>
>>Did you even do a search to see what I have done,
>
>
> No I didn't, and wouldn't. If you want to list your personal achievements
> as some kind of evidence, feel free to provide URLs.
So you just decided to attack my opinion based on my achievements, or
lack of, without even knowing what they where, or wheren't. I think I
said once that you assume too much, one day it will get you. This time
you where right. I have read some acedamia, implemented a few things
that other people though of, and taken a semi-common field down a less
trodden path.
Goodbye.
Floris van den Berg
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
> > As for software, I've yet to write anything I deem
> > patentworthy. I'm definitely in possession of some cutting edge
planetary
> > rendering technology however. But it's only cutting edge in an
engineering
> > sense, not in any R&D sense. I read academic papers, implemented
abstruse
> > Barycentric coordinate systems that aren't popular in commercial
products
> > yet. It would take many more itereations of development to get to a
point
> > where I *might* be doing something patentable. If you go far enough
into
> > the frontier, you face the possibility that you will create genuinely
> > patentable work. If you've never been anywhere near such a frontier,
you
> > shouldn't complain stridently about the decisions of people who have.
I think some discussions run through eachother now, and everyone now is
confused. I think we can split the topics out like so:
1) is it a good idea to open source a game engine.
2) if you open your source and someone takes advantage of your code, how can
you protect yourself? Answer: by using a license
3) if you don't use a license, how can you protect yourself? Answer: You
can't
4) when is it morally ok to patent something. Answer: When what you created
is cutting edge technology
5) If you contribute to open source software, would you contribute
patentworthy software? Answer: no.
Now, if you open your source and do not attach a license to it, and then
someone takes advantage of your code without your conscent and in a way you
don't like, it's nothing but your fault. Wether you are upset about it,
doesn't really matter for the discussion. So what did you learn? Next time
you deal with open source, use a license and slap someone with it if they
violate it.
> So, this whole time you have been spouting off about cutting edge this
> or that and saying I had no right to my opinions if I wasn't on the edge
> (even though you admitedly have not even attempted to find out one way
> or the other), you finally admit that you yourself are no different!
The cutting edge bit was about filing patents. Not about open source.
Floris
Brandon J. Van Every
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>> I'm definitely in possession of some cutting edge
>> planetary rendering technology however. But it's only cutting edge
>> in an engineering sense, not in any R&D sense.
>
> or that and saying I had no right to my opinions if I wasn't on the
> edge
I may have spoken with insufficient precision. If you have not personally
engaged in cutting edge R&D work, as far as I'm concerned, you have no right
to *deny* such researchers their patents for "truly novel" stuff. I have
not engaged in such work myself, although I think one day I will, and I have
seen some analogues of the R&D process in my own work. The difference is, I
do not seek to *deny* such researchers the just fruits of their labor. I
don't engage in platitudes about the transactions being "only one way from
society," what nonsense! And I do think your attitude that "nobody does
anything original" is pure poppycock. A quick trip to a world class art
museum should disabuse you of that notion. The incremental cumulation of
technological progress does *not* imply an absence of original thought.
> (even though you admitedly have not even attempted to find out
> one way or the other),
Not my burden of proof, and I'm perfectly willing to go by your stated
declarations, which were that you don't do cutting edge anything. I leave
it to you to represent yourself as you like.
> So you just decided to attack my opinion based on my achievements, or
> lack of, without even knowing what they where, or wheren't.
I attack based on your self-description. If your self-description is
inaccurate, that is hardly my fault.
Noah Roberts
http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame19.html
Sorry, its funny. I am finished taking the discussion seriously.
Nothing good can come of it.
Floris van den Berg
> Floris van den Berg wrote:
> [snip]
>
>
> http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame19.html
>
>
> Sorry, its funny. I am finished taking the discussion seriously.
> Nothing good can come of it.
That *is* funny :) Would've enjoyed a reasonable discussion more, but i
guess that's out of the question.
Floris
Brandon J. Van Every
>
> That *is* funny :) Would've enjoyed a reasonable discussion more, but
> i guess that's out of the question.
It's not out of the question at all. I thought your summary of "the show so
far" was exactly on the mark. So much so, that I don't see what more there
is to discuss.
Floris van den Berg
> Floris van den Berg wrote:
> >
> > That *is* funny :) Would've enjoyed a reasonable discussion more, but
> > i guess that's out of the question.
>
> It's not out of the question at all. I thought your summary of "the show
so
> far" was exactly on the mark. So much so, that I don't see what more
there
> is to discuss.
Agreed.
Floris
gswork
> Gerry Quinn wrote:
> > In article <bn5bss$9ov$1...@quark.scn.rain.com>, Noah Roberts <nrob...@dontemailme.com> wrote:
> > You are distributing your closed source program, to the benefit of
> > society. The only ideas you are keeping secret are precisely those you
> > have contributed yourself (you are of course keeping your own
> > expressions of many ideas secret too). After all, the ideas you took
> > from pre-existing public culture are still there - you have not removed
> > them!
>
> What is society getting out of the deal? You take what society gave
> you, add a small spattering of your own, and then sell it back. Nothing
> has been contributed, seems like a rather one sided transaction to me.
Let's say you take the pre-existing ideas of engineernig and
electronics then add that contribution of your own to make a device
that saves each user 1 minute every they do the given activity it
assists.
What society gets back is 1 minute * number of users * number of uses
- that time saved (which might add up to many thousands of cumulative
years as a collective measure over a decade) is probably worth more,
economically, than any amount of cash the originator would ever get.
The idea that nothing has been contributed by the incremental work
done by the 'inventor' is silly - if it really was something that
added no use or satisfied no want beyond what already existed
befeorehand then no one would be buying it in the first place!
Of all the most useful inventions, made in small increments over time
leading to the existence of print, railroads, engines, electricity,
telecommunications, computers - the profits made by any patent holder
was nothing compared to the billions in economic opportunity obtained
by society at large.
It might be 'nice' from your perspective if these people just gave
stuff away - but that invites a discussion on human motivation. all
i'm doing here is gently pointing out the flaw in thinking of the
above as one sided.
> You also bring up an interesting point that the ideas I don't express
> are similar to the ones I do but keep secret. Consider what happens at
> that point, society creates it again in someone else. So long as I
> never expressed the idea, and didn't claim ownership of it, this other
> person is legally free to do so. Consider the invention of Calculus,
> which took place in two seperate people at the same time. Also consider
> the telephone; it is only by time alone that we consider Bell the
> inventor of the telephone because he got to the patent office first.
when you institude a societal mecahnism to assist invention, thems the
breaks - better than inventing things in fear of being ripped off by
the equivalent of 'idea thieves' and never getting to benefit
personally (which goes back to the human moticvation q)
> > On the contrary, IP is the most important kind of property, and not much
> > different from any other kind. Your ownership of a house or car
> > effectively just means that society grants its exclusive use to you - if
> > squatters or joyriders can use them anytime, you have no effective
> > ownership. Of course this is deeply ingrained in our biology, too,
> > although it is ownly in modern complex societies that our primal
> > instincts become applicable to IP.
> >
> > As people who argue along the lines you propose usually do, you conflate
> > patents and copyrights. Only patents protect ideas, the protection time
> > is very limited and the ideas have to be adjudged novel (the last bit
> > needs improvement, I agree).
>
> Patents are definately the worst of the two. Patents actually kill. If
> it wasn't for the breaking of patents there would be no help for poor
> countries trying to hamper AIDS. This is not acceptable.
If it wasn't for patents are you confident there would be *any* drug
available to counter AIDS at all? Or any of those other diseases that
require billions invested in order to find cures and treatments?
>
> Copyrights protect only the expression of
> > ideas, and prevent nobody from using the ideas - that's why long
> > copyright periods do no obvious harm that I can see. You can't use
> > Mickey directly but you can create an animated mouse of your own any
> > time you want. Mickey is not the idea of a cartoon mouse, but an
> > expression of that idea.
>
> Actually copyright closes a lot of doors on the advancement of many
> ideas.
Copyrights are a much more subjective area, and here i can see many
problems to accompnay the benefits.
Remember - we can posit an 'ideal' society in which such things are
redundant, but we have to deal with reality, and real people -
understaning that, and understanding each other is key to it all.
Noah Roberts
> Noah Roberts <nrob...@dontemailme.com> wrote in message news:<bn5gs9$k90$1...@quark.scn.rain.com>...
>
>>Gerry Quinn wrote:
> It might be 'nice' from your perspective if these people just gave
> stuff away - but that invites a discussion on human motivation. all
> i'm doing here is gently pointing out the flaw in thinking of the
> above as one sided.
I never said people should not be paid. This is exactly what patents
are for, and what copyright used to be for, to pay someone for the
amount they put in to the collective invention. This is a requirement
of a society based on trade in which inventors could not function, and
therefor inventions not be made, if these short term monopolies where
not in place. However, I believe that society still /owns/ that idea,
that monopoly is of short duration for a very good reason. What is
happening these days is that society is being bent into thinking that
these ideas are a property owned by the individual and it is perfectly
ok for that individual to monopolize them until the end of time. People
are beginning to believe that this is perfectly ok and forgetting that
they have a very valid claim to these ideas, not individually, but as a
whole.
I think some of the posters here are either not reading my posts,
misunderstanding them, or purposfuly misinterpreting them. I am not
against patent, I am certainly against fivilous patents, long standing
patents/copyright, and the idea of intelectual "property". You can own
a patent, that idea is still common goods.
I view patents and copyright as a way for society to say, "Thanks for
the contribution. Here is a short time in which you alone can make a
product based on this idea. If it is as good an idea as it looks then
surely you can now use this time to make enough money to live very
comfortably from now on."
>>Patents are definately the worst of the two. Patents actually kill. If
>>it wasn't for the breaking of patents there would be no help for poor
>>countries trying to hamper AIDS. This is not acceptable.
>
>
> If it wasn't for patents are you confident there would be *any* drug
> available to counter AIDS at all? Or any of those other diseases that
> require billions invested in order to find cures and treatments?
That is a valid point. I can't really say one way or the other. What I
can say is that when it comes to human life the idea of intelectual
"property" is of much less importance. In no case should a patent be
held above society's need to help its members live. If you spend the
money and time comming up with a cure for something people in poor
status are dieing from that still doesn't give you the right to withhold
the result and let those people die. Only the mistaken idea of
intelectual "property" makes people even think they have that right.
Society gave you the patent monopoly, it can take it away when it gets
in the way of people's survival; and that is exactly what is happening,
the doctors in these countries simply reverse engineer the "cure" and
make it themselves.
Could those doctors have come up with the cure without society's
contribution? No way. They would have to reinvent the entire theory of
science upon which their research is based for one.
So, in short to avoid confusion: Society owns your ideas, not you. If
society wishes to grant monopolies on the production of good ideas in
order to promote the expression of good ideas, great. But it is under
no obligation to do so, especially when human life is in the balance and
it is certainly under no obligation to grant this monopoly for
perpetually extended periods of time.
Otto Wyss
> I've heard a lot of support for the notion of open sourcing large
> projects and for web sites like sourceforge.net. While I'm quite certain
> that I've not written anything "new" or "groundbreaking", I'm hesitant to
> open source my engine or even to share it online. It feels too much like
> just throwing away all my hard work. At the same time though, it's tempting
> to see how much improvement could be done to my engine with a lot more
> people (and with some real skills ;-) working on it.
>
Can you make a business or can't you?
What are your feelings if you have to throw away your hard work?
OpenSource is in a sense similar to throw away but you give others a
chance to pick up your work. So your work isn't entirely lost.
One advantage of OpenSource is that others see how terrific your work
really is and may jump onto it. But don't expect too much there are so
many "terrific" projects. It's still more hard work.
O. Wyss
--
See "http://wxguide.sourceforge.net/" for ideas how to design your app.
TLOlczyk
wrote:
> Is open sourcing safe as far as maintaining credit/control/ownership of
>software?
>--
If it's crappy ( as you are suggesting ) then don't open source it.
All that will do is show everyone you write crap.
Corey Murtagh
philosophy group about now :>]
Noah Roberts wrote:
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>
>> Noah Roberts wrote:
>>
>>> So actually since
>>> you contribution to your own ideas is minimal at best, how can you
>>> claim ownership of them...especially at the detriment to the society
>>> that /gave/ you that idea?
>>
>> Because society doesn't sit around giving you ideas. Society sits around
>> ripping you off for having spent a lot of your own time and money
>> coming up
>> with working solutions.
>
> Using what knowledge? I assume you mean to say you created these
> working solutions in a vaccuum? What are you building, stone wheels?
While I don't specifically agree with either viewpoint, there are good
and bad aspects to both.
Noah, your view comes across as: creation is a function of society, not
the individual. It seems to me that, according to this view, any
'original' work is actually built on top of the works, influences, etc.
that 'society' has provided, all of which have shaped the creative process.
The flaw in that reasoning, as I see it, is the assumption that the
individual plays very little part in the act of creation. After all,
there are thousands of people in similar situations as me with similar
influences. If I come up with something new - a work of art, a song, a
story, a game, whatever - then surely I have been the deciding factor in
the creation of that work. If not, why doesn't it already exist? Why
hasn't it been created already by one of the countless others with
near-identical societal influences?
Would any one of them, in fact, duplicate that creation in toto with no
knowledge of my creation? No, they wouldn't. They might create
something similar enough to be covered by any patent or copyright I
might have acquired, but no two people will produce identical works
where there is sufficient expression. Even a very simple 'hello world'
program in C++ will be written in a number of different ways by
different people, although expression there is quite limited... and
that's hardly an original work.
Society may provide a lot of the background, but it's the individual who
has the unique element required to create. Society recognizes this, and
provides rules within the legal structure (in many modern societies at
least) to preserve the rights of a creator over his or her work.
Although your exercise in ethics may seem logical to you, it doesn't to
me. But then there are precious few absolutes where ethics is concerned.
--
Corey Murtagh
The Electric Monk
"Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur!"
Bent C Dalager
Noah Roberts <nrob...@dontemailme.com> wrote:
>
>That is a valid point. I can't really say one way or the other. What I
>can say is that when it comes to human life the idea of intelectual
>"property" is of much less importance. In no case should a patent be
>held above society's need to help its members live. If you spend the
It's not quite that simple. You are basically saying that we should
abolish patents for inventions that help people live. When you do
that, you also remove the incentive for people to create inventions
that help people live. Those inventions will then stop coming and then
_noone_ will be receiving that help. Surely, it would be better if
_some_ received the help and the rest also had some small access to
it?
>money and time comming up with a cure for something people in poor
>status are dieing from that still doesn't give you the right to withhold
>the result and let those people die. Only the mistaken idea of
>intelectual "property" makes people even think they have that right.
It's not so much that someone should have that "right", it's rather
that without the de facto right to make money off the patent, noone
would have invented the thing in the first place. It's an economic
concern that the right must be in place so that there can come into
being inventions to protect with the right.
IP laws are tools we use in order to make people invent things. The
fact that these people can then go and get filthy rich is a side
effect. Kept within reason, it's not a particularly worrying side
effect.
>Society gave you the patent monopoly, it can take it away when it gets
>in the way of people's survival; and that is exactly what is happening,
>the doctors in these countries simply reverse engineer the "cure" and
>make it themselves.
And then they get into trouble over it, because once the drugs start
getting smuggled into first world countries and push down the prices
of the patent holder's version, this removes the incentive to invent
new drugs and that is very dangerous.
Cheers
Bent D
--
Bent Dalager - b...@pvv.org - http://www.pvv.org/~bcd
powered by emacs
Noah Roberts
>> Using what knowledge? I assume you mean to say you created these
>> working solutions in a vaccuum? What are you building, stone wheels?
>
>
> While I don't specifically agree with either viewpoint, there are good
> and bad aspects to both.
>
> Noah, your view comes across as: creation is a function of society, not
> the individual. It seems to me that, according to this view, any
> 'original' work is actually built on top of the works, influences, etc.
> that 'society' has provided, all of which have shaped the creative process.
Pretty much.
>
> The flaw in that reasoning, as I see it, is the assumption that the
> individual plays very little part in the act of creation. After all,
> there are thousands of people in similar situations as me with similar
> influences. If I come up with something new - a work of art, a song, a
> story, a game, whatever - then surely I have been the deciding factor in
> the creation of that work. If not, why doesn't it already exist? Why
> hasn't it been created already by one of the countless others with
> near-identical societal influences?
Except that it happens all the time. When idea's time is due, it is due
and will come forth in someone, usually several someones. This is more
common in technilogical or scientific advancements than with creative
works, but never the less it is a recurring phenominon. The best
instance I can come up with right now is the invention of Calculus which
happened in two people with no links to each other, in similar manners,
at the same time.
The reason the idea isn't already there is because there is a timing to
these things. For one the foundation has to be there, Edison could not
have invented the light bulb if Franklin had not discovered electricity.
Second there has to be a cultural necesity, some things don't happen
even though everything is in place for them to until the need
arises...once that need arises it is a simple matter of time before an
answer occurs.
>
> Would any one of them, in fact, duplicate that creation in toto with no
> knowledge of my creation? No, they wouldn't. They might create
> something similar enough to be covered by any patent or copyright I
> might have acquired, but no two people will produce identical works
> where there is sufficient expression.
Actually it happens a lot. There will be minor differences yes, but
these are expressionary. Pluss the fact that even with differences one
person gains 'ownership' where the other does not does not seem right to
me. If two people came up with the exact same idea, with small twists,
with no communication between them, no way for one to say the other
stole it, how can only one 'own' that idea? In my opinion neither do.
> Although your exercise in ethics may seem logical to you, it doesn't to
> me. But then there are precious few absolutes where ethics is concerned.
>
You have some good points upon which to base that opinion, and you are
right - ethics are rather subjective and depend greatly on your own
paradigm.
NR
Hanos
news:iUolb.188905$0v4.14...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> Is open sourcing safe as far as maintaining credit/control/ownership
of
> software?
open source is just another word for "communism"
username
> Roy Klein wrote:
> > Besides, we all learn from others' codes, it is not 100% our pure
invention,
> > so it is arguably based on the public's previous work, thus, should be
> > available back to the public... I don't really think this logic is
> > completely correct but it's interesting for me to think of it this way.
>
> At one time I started writing a paper on this, the ethical reasoning to
> "Intelectual Property". I never finished it though.
that's typical for open source projects....
> But the gist is
> similar to what you are saying. Without input from culture, previous
> works, and other external public influences there is no creativity at
> all.
but without me, there is no product either...
> In fact, actual individual creation is a very small amount of what
> goes into a new invention/song/program/whatever.
is it?
> So actually since you
> contribution to your own ideas is minimal at best
speak for yourself!
> , how can you claim
> ownership of them...especially at the detriment to the society that
> /gave/ you that idea?
society does give ideas at all!!!! where do you live?
Erik Max Francis
> Except that it happens all the time. When idea's time is due, it is
> due
> and will come forth in someone, usually several someones. This is
> more
> common in technilogical or scientific advancements than with creative
> works, but never the less it is a recurring phenominon. The best
> instance I can come up with right now is the invention of Calculus
> which
> happened in two people with no links to each other, in similar
> manners,
> at the same time.
Your general point is probably correct, but calculus is probably a bad
example. There is some evidence that Leibniz' work was inspired by
hints Newton had dropped in some correspondences.
Plus, a newly discovered palimpsest indicates that Archimedes was using
infinitesimals long, long before Newton or Leibniz :-).
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
__ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && &tSftDotIotE
/ \ Maybe this world is another planet's Hell.
\__/ Aldous Huxley
Josh Sebastian
No, I don't think so. I think it's more akin to the logical extreme of the
US's current economy. Raw materials are getting cheaper and cheaper; the
real value is in /services/. OSS is just that, taken to the extreme, and
applied to the software industry: the materials (code) is free, and you
pay for support.
Calling it "communism" is very colorful, but it's not very intelligent.
Also note that not all OSS is under a copyleft license.
Josh
Brandon J. Van Every
> Second there has to be a cultural necesity, some
> things don't happen
> even though everything is in place for them to until the need
> arises...once that need arises it is a simple matter of time before an
> answer occurs.
Is this the considered opinion of a person who actually performs basic R&D
himself?
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
20% of the world is real.
Brandon J. Van Every
And is that anything more than a negative label to you?
--
Cheers, www.indiegamedesign.com
Brandon Van Every Seattle, WA
Taking risk where others will not.
Noah Roberts
> Your general point is probably correct, but calculus is probably a bad
> example. There is some evidence that Leibniz' work was inspired by
> hints Newton had dropped in some correspondences.
Are you speaking of the manuscript mentioned at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus ?
"Furthermore, a copy of one of Newton's very early manuscripts with
annotations by Leibniz was found among Leibniz' papers after his death,
although the exact date when Leibniz first acquired this is unknown."
>
> Plus, a newly discovered palimpsest indicates that Archimedes was using
> infinitesimals long, long before Newton or Leibniz :-).
link?
>
Erik Max Francis
> Erik Max Francis wrote:
>
> > Your general point is probably correct, but calculus is probably a
> > bad
> > example. There is some evidence that Leibniz' work was inspired by
> > hints Newton had dropped in some correspondences.
>
> Are you speaking of the manuscript mentioned at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus ?
>
> "Furthermore, a copy of one of Newton's very early manuscripts with
> annotations by Leibniz was found among Leibniz' papers after his
> death,
> although the exact date when Leibniz first acquired this is unknown."
I recall seeing a program (though I'm not sure which one now, maybe
Mechanical Universe?) where it talked about correspondence between
Newton and Leibniz where Newton was giving him riddles on what he was
doing (remember that Newton discovered his calculus fairly early on, but
didn't get around to publishing it for quite some time), suggesting that
it's possible Leibniz work was at least inspired by Newton's hints.
From some brief Web search I haven't been able to find anything that
corroborates that, and most of the scholarly work seems to suggest that
it's pretty clear that Leibniz developed his calculus independently,
despite whatever communication they might have had, so I'll retract that
claim (it's certainly possible but I can't demonstrate that through
references). This actually was part of the genesis of the long-standing
dispute between Newton and Leibniz over credit; Leibniz published first
-- although longer after Newton had originally developed "fluxions" (his
version of calculus) -- but neglected to mention the correspondence
which had taken place, which certainly can leave the impression that he
had something to hide.
(Leibniz' notation, by the way, is the one we use today, although
Newton's notation for the derivative -- a raised dot -- is sometimes
used to represent time derivatives in physics.)
> > Plus, a newly discovered palimpsest indicates that Archimedes was
> > using
> > infinitesimals long, long before Newton or Leibniz :-).
>
> link?
http://www.thewalters.org/archimedes/frame.html
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes_Palimpsest
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Archimedes_used_infinitesimals
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/archimedes/palimpsest.html
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
__ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && &tSftDotIotE
/ \ Whom God has put asunder, why should man put together?
\__/ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Starling
> Patents are an incentive to progress. Without patents, few people would
> have the economic incentive to create new processes. I've rarely met an
> anti-patent person who was (1) self-funded, (2) capable of producing
> anything worthy of a patent.
Yes, as long as patents only apply to the inventor. As soon as you
can sell patents, as if you could sell ideas, then Microsoft gets to
take them all. Ever come up with a really cool idea at a software
making job? /Who/ gets credit for that? You are allowed to sell your
rights to your ideas for a salary.
Starling
Who is still perplexed by that whole Microsoft patenting CSS thing,
nevermind the SCO comedy of errors!
Dan Olson
Here is basically what you are saying:
"It's legal for people to cut you off and then drive 10 mph below the
speed limit in a no-passing zone. If you don't like it you shouldn't be
driving."
The issue is decency, not legality. From what Noah has posted it is clear
that the person in question was not being polite, sensible, or decent.
If I'm not mistaken, that's what the original post was complaining about.
The argument that "it's your fault that people were jerks because you
didn't use a jerk-proof license" doesn't fly.
Thom Kevin Gillespie
>> Name a single thing you have done that is 100% yours, which you used
>> [no] prior knowledge in, no research but your own, and was not
>> triggered by an event or idea which society created!
> A number of paintings, and many writings, actually.
You as an individual person did not and probably could not paint a
painting without having seen a painting previously. The content of the
painting isn't as significant as the concept of painting. This also goes
for writing, film, game design, music or any artistic of scientific
activity.
Your entire existence rests on more shoulders and turtles than you can
even imagine.
-Thom
Thom Kevin Gillespie
Actually 'open source' is another phrase for the internet. None of us are
here babbling away without 'open source' Microsoft would never have
willingly created the internet.
--Thom
Brandon J. Van Every
> In alt.games.programming Brandon J. Van Every
> <try_vanevery_a...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>> Name a single thing you have done that is 100% yours, which you used
>>> [no] prior knowledge in, no research but your own, and was not
>>> triggered by an event or idea which society created!
>
>> A number of paintings, and many writings, actually.
>
> You as an individual person did not and probably could not paint a
> painting without having seen a painting previously.
So what? I also couldn't breathe without air previously being present in
the atmosphere. I think at some point you either believe there's such a
thing as originality, or you don't. Several arguments have already been
made as to why originality exists, they are good arguments and I will not
repeat them.
Brandon J. Van Every
> Brandon,
>
> Here is basically what you are saying:
>
> "It's legal for people to cut you off and then drive 10 mph below the
> speed limit in a no-passing zone. If you don't like it you shouldn't
> be driving."
Metaphorization is pointless. You either have your head wrapped around what
the various open source licenses imply, or you don't.
> The issue is decency, not legality. From what Noah has posted it is
> clear that the person in question was not being polite, sensible, or
> decent.
It is in no way clear at all. We have only heard Noah's side of the story,
and he is a biased party. Furthermore, Noah seems to be confusing 2
separate issues: a competitor using his open sourced code, and that
competitor advertizing in his web forum.
> If I'm not mistaken, that's what the original post was complaining
> about. The argument that "it's your fault that people were jerks
> because you didn't use a jerk-proof license" doesn't fly.
Sure it does. If you grant a legal right to someone, it is childish to
complain that they're being "jerks" for exercising the legal rights you have
granted them. If you didn't think through what your license implied, well,
better luck next time.
Corey Murtagh
> "Noah Roberts" <nrob...@dontemailme.com> wrote in message
> news:bn5bss$9ov$1...@quark.scn.rain.com...
<snip>
>
>>, how can you claim
>>ownership of them...especially at the detriment to the society that
>>/gave/ you that idea?
>
> society does give ideas at all!!!! where do you live?
Noah's argument is that any 'new' idea is built on the masses of
knowledge provided, via society, by all of the old ideas you've been
exposed to.
Personally I think he's cheapening the whole creative process with that
assertion.
Corey Murtagh
> Brandon J. Van Every wrote:
>
<snip>
>> How many Linux distributions do you think there are? Why do you think
>> there
>> are so many? Do you think anyone asked, or was interested in, getting
>> permission to do such-and-such with Linux? It's open source.
>
> Actually there is quite a bit of expectations in this area. How many
> Linux kernels are there? Very few.
No, not 'very few'. The correct answer is: "There is only one line of
Linux kernels, as produced by the Linux Kernel Team." Want to guess
why? I'll give you a clue: IP.
Thing is, OSS and IP are /not/ mutually exclusive concepts. Those who
believe otherwise are, sadly, dead wrong.
Corey Murtagh
> Brandon,
>
> Here is basically what you are saying:
>
> "It's legal for people to cut you off and then drive 10 mph below the
> speed limit in a no-passing zone. If you don't like it you shouldn't be
> driving."
Actually, in a lot of places that's /not/ legal behavior. I know that
you can be ticketed in New Zealand for obstructing traffic by driving
more than 5 or so KPH below the speed limit.
Flawed analogy aside... what I get from what Brandon is saying is that
if you fail to protect yourself against the inevitable, you deserve what
you get. And that much I agree with.
> The issue is decency, not legality. From what Noah has posted it is clear
> that the person in question was not being polite, sensible, or decent.
Decency is a statistical anomaly. Would the world be in the state it is
right now if humans possessed any innate decency? Like ethics, it's a
fabrication produced to enable Society some semblance of a chance at
working... and working badly at that.
> If I'm not mistaken, that's what the original post was complaining about.
> The argument that "it's your fault that people were jerks because you
> didn't use a jerk-proof license" doesn't fly.
Actually it's just common sense to protect yourself against The Evil
That Men Do. Humans in general are horrible, small-minded, nasty, EVIL
creatures. If you think otherwise, you're going to get hurt. Therefore
if you fail to protect yourself against the inevitable, you're just
/begging/ for it to happen. You lose any right to complain when it
happens, because anyone with a brain knows it's coming.
Corey Murtagh
Oh, puh-/lease/.
Open-Source Software is, in some ways, very socialist. In others it is
quite definitely not. Have you ever actually read the GPL? The LGPL?
Any of the recognized OSS licenses? They're quite definitely /not/
expressing socialist views. In fact the GPK is about as fascist a
document as anything I've seen.
"If you use any part of this, then you /will/ follow my orders to the
letter and put /every/ part of your project under GPL."
I'd be a whole lot happier if OSS /was/ socialist.
Floris van den Berg
news:bn7nab$qp5$2...@hood.uits.indiana.edu...
You don't honestly think Microsoft created the Internet?
Floris
Gerry Quinn
Why not? They *have* created a number of services. I wouldn't be at
all surprised if, in a world where Windows was widespread and the net
non-existent, MS created protocols to allow Windows machines to
communicate. Why would that not be in accordance with MS aims and
interests?
The net is hardly perfect - for all we know if MS had created it, they
might have built one more profitable for creative people and less
attractive to pirates and anonymous filth of all kinds.
But that's by the way - nobody is saying that everything that was
created on an open source basis is bad, any more than all food grown in
communist countries was poisonous.
- Gerry Quinn
gswork
> gswork wrote:
> > Noah Roberts <nrob...@dontemailme.com> wrote in message news:<bn5gs9$k90$1...@quark.scn.rain.com>...
> >
>
> > It might be 'nice' from your perspective if these people just gave
> > stuff away - but that invites a discussion on human motivation. all
> > i'm doing here is gently pointing out the flaw in thinking of the
> > above as one sided.
>
> I view patents and copyright as a way for society to say, "Thanks for
> the contribution. Here is a short time in which you alone can make a
> product based on this idea. If it is as good an idea as it looks then
> surely you can now use this time to make enough money to live very
> comfortably from now on."
I'd have to ask on what basis other people can lay claim to an idea
that is not theirs (even if 95% of what went in was the produce of
others - mostly other inventors btw). Removing that part, i think the
above would work fine. Eternal patents are silly, they naturally
become redundant when the technology becomes obsolete anyway. A
finite time scale is reasonable to expect the inventor/s to take up
their economic opportunity if they choose to, and if they refuse to
allow the invention to be produced then it doesn't seem unreasonable
to have the patent come to an end after this time scale and for others
to produce it. The length of that timescale is hard to define though,
and should perhaps be on a case by case basis, or categorised.
> >>Patents are definately the worst of the two. Patents actually kill. If
> >>it wasn't for the breaking of patents there would be no help for poor
> >>countries trying to hamper AIDS. This is not acceptable.
> >
> >
> > If it wasn't for patents are you confident there would be *any* drug
> > available to counter AIDS at all? Or any of those other diseases that
> > require billions invested in order to find cures and treatments?
>
> That is a valid point. I can't really say one way or the other. What I
> can say is that when it comes to human life the idea of intelectual
> "property" is of much less importance. In no case should a patent be
> held above society's need to help its members live.
In a sense, if you follow the above to mean that without patents many
medicines would not exist, we are saying that patents are one of the
mechanisms that *does* help, not hinder, people to live. In this case
we cannot have our cake and eat it too.
> If you spend the
> money and time comming up with a cure for something people in poor
> status are dieing from that still doesn't give you the right to withhold
> the result and let those people die.
Not coming up with the idea means they will die. We cannot oblige
people to come up with ideas, yet would we feel comfortable seizing
them should they have the temerity to do so? The above sounds like a
simple and decent way of doing things - but again you're risking the
inhibition of ideas by making them, in some sense, a liability - "have
an idea and we'll grab it, don't have an idea and we can't get you"
I don't see an easy way to manage this in a way that maximises both
the generation of ideas and access to the product of those ideas, the
best i can think of is to encourage R&D, to structure businesses to
look at profits (for drugs) over decades not years (difficult
precisely because things are reverse engineered, short-term patented
etc) and enable benevolence without that meaning economic disaster for
the inventor/s.
> Could those doctors have come up with the cure without society's
> contribution? No way. They would have to reinvent the entire theory of
> science upon which their research is based for one.
Remember - if the incremental effort that results in an invention were
that easy, we'd all have cured AIDS by now. Sure it's built on the
shoulders of previous giants, and the efforts of many who enable
research to exist, but the effort is still great.
> So, in short to avoid confusion: Society owns your ideas, not you.
Fundamentally disagree that 'society', in itself ill-defined, can lay
claim to anyone's ideas in any meaningful material sense - and
certainly not those that are original (regardles of what they built
upon). What i can agree is that it takes the cooperation of other
people, generally, to get something produced and that this cooperation
should come about through uncoercive negotiation.
Any attempt to enshrine what you say in law is, in my estimation,
likely to inhibit inventive thinking by making it a liability, it's
already risky enough!
> If
> society wishes to grant monopolies on the production of good ideas in
> order to promote the expression of good ideas, great. But it is under
> no obligation to do so, especially when human life is in the balance and
> it is certainly under no obligation to grant this monopoly for
> perpetually extended periods of time.
Again, what's this 'society' granting temporary monopolies? - in
practice a very small, largely unrepresentative, political elite of
lawmakers and policy makers. What becomes of ideas if they are
considered, upon the instance of having one, to be not belonging to,
or even relevant to, the person who had it?
Calum
> Hi all,
>
> I've recently finished a working draft of my game engine (my first)!
> Looking at it now, since it's so big and I was the only coder on it, it
> feels like 9 parts hack and 1 part good design.
>
> I've heard a lot of support for the notion of open sourcing large
> projects and for web sites like sourceforge.net. While I'm quite certain
> that I've not written anything "new" or "groundbreaking", I'm hesitant to
> open source my engine or even to share it online. It feels too much like
> just throwing away all my hard work. At the same time though, it's tempting
> to see how much improvement could be done to my engine with a lot more
> people (and with some real skills ;-) working on it.
>
> Is open sourcing safe as far as maintaining credit/control/ownership of
> software?
Read http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
The GPL is a license designed to protect people like yourself. It means
you can share your code openly, without fear that you will be ripped
off. The big danger is that a commercial company sees your code, thinks
"aha, we can make a profit off this", and does a cut-and-paste job. The
GPL prevents this, unless the company is itself prepared to release its
code under GPL. However commercial companies can't afford to violate a
copyright, since they run the danger of a disgruntled employee blowing
the whistle, so IT managers (quite rightly) are pedantic about having
all software licenses up to date.
Basically the ONLY way you are going to get recognition for your work is
to distribute it. If a company likes what it sees, it can contact you
to buy a license (so long you don't try selling others' contributions).
If a hobbyist sees your work, likes it, he can use your code freely if
he abides by the GPL, and you retain your copyright. It's a win-win
situation.
It depends how many commercial secrets you have lurking in your
software. If there is some truly ground-breaking stuff, a commercial
company could steal your ideas but not your source code, but I doubt
that since it would be cheaper for them to buy a license, and it sounds
like a product of engineering rather than genius! (no offense intended ;-)
Calum
Gerry Quinn
>Gerry Quinn wrote:
[Others have ably made the points I would have made, so I'll be brief.
I have some closed-source software to create, software I would not be
creating if it were not in the hope of making a profit.]
>> You are distributing your closed source program, to the benefit of
>> society. The only ideas you are keeping secret are precisely those you
>> have contributed yourself (you are of course keeping your own
>> expressions of many ideas secret too). After all, the ideas you took
>> from pre-existing public culture are still there - you have not removed
>> them!
>
>What is society getting out of the deal? You take what society gave
>you, add a small spattering of your own, and then sell it back. Nothing
>has been contributed, seems like a rather one sided transaction to me.
The *only* thing I am selling is what I have added - after all, those
who buy my product already have access to all the stuff society
supposedly gave me! Clearly that 'spattering of stuff' is what people
are paying for - they already have the stuff you talk about.
>> In fact, the result of expressing these ideas is visible too - people
>> can see the finished program.
>But society has to purchase the right to view it. So long as there is a
>fair limit amount that must be paid, in the way of time, then this is
>fair and necissary in our society because we are trade based. In some
>utopian society even this would be unreasonable.
Are you postulating that such a society could exist? Only, I think, if
people were subjected to extreme behaviour modification such as to make
trade pointless. You're actually positing a society in which A cannot
prefer apples to oranges more than B prefers apples to oranges, because
in such a society trade can improve everyone's utility. So you've done
away with personal pleasure, or created a religion in which trade is an
utter evil. I don't want to live in your communist utopia. Communists
didn't either.
>You also bring up an interesting point that the ideas I don't express
>are similar to the ones I do but keep secret. Consider what happens at
>that point, society creates it again in someone else. So long as I
Or it isn't created at all. Because I couldn't see a way to make a
profit, or I had to work in some profession you consider worthy of
payment instead of working on my idea, the idea is lost, perhaps for
thousands of years.
>never expressed the idea, and didn't claim ownership of it, this other
>person is legally free to do so. Consider the invention of Calculus,
>which took place in two seperate people at the same time. Also consider
>the telephone; it is only by time alone that we consider Bell the
>inventor of the telephone because he got to the patent office first.
And had the Greeks invented IP, it seems Archimedes might have been
richer and the Dark Ages less dark ;-)
>What I mean to say is that by not expressing an idea I have I am leaving
>the door open for it to be recreated. In our current situation, should
>I lay claim to that idea then society is beholden to me for an
>undertermined amount of time, possibly as long as there is a corperation
>that can continue claiming it, to gain access to that idea. There is
>something inherently broken there.
I'm confused by this - you are aware, are you not, that IP durations are
determined by society (in the form of governments)? It seems you are
speaking of an imagined dystopia to balance your postulated utopia.
>> As people who argue along the lines you propose usually do, you conflate
>> patents and copyrights. Only patents protect ideas, the protection time
>> is very limited and the ideas have to be adjudged novel (the last bit
>> needs improvement, I agree).
>
>Patents are definately the worst of the two. Patents actually kill. If
>it wasn't for the breaking of patents there would be no help for poor
>countries trying to hamper AIDS. This is not acceptable.
As others have pointed out, you are, perhaps deliberately, ignoring the
fact that there is a feedback loop here. Had your logic been applied
twenty years ago, and the intellectual assets of drug companies stripped
in some worthy cause, the companies would not exist in order to create
the assets you want to strip today.
Have you ever wondered why the shops and hospitals are not full of
older generic drugs that are out of patent? I have. Either the drug
companies are creating new or better drugs all the time, or these
generic companies only make a profit as parasites when the price is kept
high by the creators, and when the drug falls out of patent they are
gone. (Marketing can't be the answer, there are enough socialists in
the state-paid professions to counterbalance it...)
If we stopped eating meat, the farm animals would live happily ever
after, right? Not for more than one generation, at least considering
those bred for the pot.
> Copyrights protect only the expression of
>> ideas, and prevent nobody from using the ideas - that's why long
>> copyright periods do no obvious harm that I can see. You can't use
>> Mickey directly but you can create an animated mouse of your own any
>> time you want. Mickey is not the idea of a cartoon mouse, but an
>> expression of that idea.
>If we go into the realm of fictional creations you run into all sorts of
>problems. You are not going to be able to write a book that takes place
>in the Star Wars universe and expect any amount of civility from
>Lucasfilms. In fact they have killed several fan works that could have
>been incredibly interesting.
No fan wank can be "incredibly interesting". Next thing you'll be
telling me that graphic novels are literature!
You can still satirise Star Wars, or refer to it. And don't forget that
IP is largely responsible for the creation of Star Wars - where else
could the budget have come from? No Star Wars, no fanfic.
Create your own heroes and heroines, dudes. Or pay LucasArts for a
license if you want their stuff that much (but isn't it just a
"spattering" - how come it's so important?)
>What I am seing, and what I have a problem with, is that society
>contributes a great deal to these ideas and the only thing they get back
>is to be forever indebited to the person who the idea happens to take
>hold in, the perpetual right to pay for access to something that it was
>99% responsible for creating. This is especially concerning when you
>realize that much of our modern culture is based on things on TV, the
>movies, and the radio. Much of culture is its music and other forms of
>entertainment and artistic expression. Basically our culture is "owned"
>by a few corperations and they are trying very hard to make it
>impossible to break this hold, in my opinion they don't own these things
>- or at least don't have the right to and don't have the right to.
The specific expressions don't constitute the culture. The expressions
are owned by corporations because they were created by them or sold to
them, and their duration is not perpetual but fixed by IP law. (To say
that a couple of amendments mean copyright is of infinite duration is
the same as saying that two consecutive tax increases mean tax is
effectively 100% forever.)
Mickey Mouse does not stand in the way of your own cartoon mouse. You
can even use Mickey in protected ways (satire, cultural reference).
It's not so bloody difficult to invent your own mouse. The only people
who want to use Mickey Mouse do so precisely to capitalise on its IP
value [even if they want to produce some sophomoric work criticising
capitalism by putting Mickey's head on Kylie's body or showing
impoverished workers walking into Mickey's gigantic maw - I'll make you
a spinner for creating such 'ideas' if you like!]
Damn, I can never be brief.
Gerry Quinn
--
http://bindweed.com
Kaleidoscopic Screensavers and Games for Windows
Download free trial versions
New screensaver: "Hypercurve"
(Which would not exist without IP protection)
Gerry Quinn
>On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 21:16:04 +0200, Hanos wrote:
>
>> "Allen" <allen-terri-ng!@#att.net> wrote in message
>> news:iUolb.188905$0v4.14...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>>> Is open sourcing safe as far as maintaining credit/control/ownership
>> of
>>> software?
>>
>> open source is just another word for "communism"
>
>No, I don't think so. I think it's more akin to the logical extreme of the
>US's current economy. Raw materials are getting cheaper and cheaper; the
>real value is in /services/. OSS is just that, taken to the extreme, and
>applied to the software industry: the materials (code) is free, and you
>pay for support.
That's complete rubbish. First raw materials are NOT free (hello,
tragedy of the commons?). And secondly, "services" as a sector is not
restricted to things like hairdressing. They often include the use of
software that is purchased because it is properly written and does not
require support.
>Calling it "communism" is very colorful, but it's not very intelligent.
On the contrary, it is *very* akin to that toxic ideology - which is
so often found attractive by the politically immature, but in its
expression leads society to the charnel house.
- Gerry Quinn
Gerry Quinn
>"Brandon J. Van Every" <try_vanevery_a...@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>> Patents are an incentive to progress. Without patents, few people would
>> have the economic incentive to create new processes. I've rarely met an
>> anti-patent person who was (1) self-funded, (2) capable of producing
>> anything worthy of a patent.
>
>Yes, as long as patents only apply to the inventor. As soon as you
>can sell patents, as if you could sell ideas, then Microsoft gets to
>take them all. Ever come up with a really cool idea at a software
>making job? /Who/ gets credit for that? You are allowed to sell your
>rights to your ideas for a salary.
Of course you have to be able to sell patents. Much of the value of any
property lies in its transferrability.
Besides, if IP were not saleable, it's saleability would have to be
invented - by which I mean labyrinthine contracts everywhere.
- Gerry Quinn
barthez
>
> I've recently finished a working draft of my game engine (my first)!
> Looking at it now, since it's so big and I was the only coder on it, it
> feels like 9 parts hack and 1 part good design.
>
> I've heard a lot of support for the notion of open sourcing large
> projects and for web sites like sourceforge.net. While I'm quite certain
> that I've not written anything "new" or "groundbreaking", I'm hesitant to
> open source my engine or even to share it online. It feels too much like
> just throwing away all my hard work. At the same time though, it's tempting
> to see how much improvement could be done to my engine with a lot more
> people (and with some real skills ;-) working on it.
>
> software?
i think you should you can get ideas from other people
tick
yes i think so that way people can help u and change it for the best!
Noah Roberts
> Brandon,
>
> Here is basically what you are saying:
>
> "It's legal for people to cut you off and then drive 10 mph below the
> speed limit in a no-passing zone. If you don't like it you shouldn't be
> driving."
Don't even get me started on drivers. I think there must be something
about getting behind the wheel of a car that makes all sense of etiquete
and human decency just dissapear.
> The issue is decency, not legality. From what Noah has posted it is clear
> that the person in question was not being polite, sensible, or decent.
Thank you, I thought maybe I had woke up one day to find myself in a
land where the only comparison between decent or not was the law.
> If I'm not mistaken, that's what the original post was complaining about.
> The argument that "it's your fault that people were jerks because you
> didn't use a jerk-proof license" doesn't fly.
Yeah, Brandon is just being wierd. Of course I understand that there is
nothing I can legally do about it; I believe I even said this but I must
not have been heard. I don't even know why he is flying off the handle
like that. The guy was rude and it really made me feel bad; I did have
thoughts of comming up with some way to protect it via licence or
trademark (the only thing that would have helped me legally) but decided
he wasn't worth it. All I was ever saying in my origional post is that
someone thinking of open sourcing their code should be aware that being
nice doesn't jerk proof you. I thought I was pretty clear about that.
--
Noah Roberts
- "If you are not outraged, you are not paying attention."
Noah Roberts
> Decency is a statistical anomaly. Would the world be in the state it is
> right now if humans possessed any innate decency?
Are you really saying that we shouldn't still expect people to be
polite?! Because that is what I am hearing. "The world is crap because
everyone is rude, therefor there is no reason to be nice or expect
people to be nice."
Corey Murtagh
> Corey Murtagh wrote:
>
>> Decency is a statistical anomaly. Would the world be in the state it
>> is right now if humans possessed any innate decency?
>
> Are you really saying that we shouldn't still expect people to be
> polite?! Because that is what I am hearing. "The world is crap because
> everyone is rude, therefor there is no reason to be nice or expect
> people to be nice."
I'm saying that if you expect rudeness, you're at least prepared for it.
Then you can be pleasantly surprised if it doesn't happen, and won't
be devastated when it does.
Yes, I'm a cynical bastard.
Dave Vandervies
Brandon J. Van Every <try_vanevery_a...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Noah Roberts wrote:
>> So, this whole time you have been spouting off about cutting edge this
>> or that and saying I had no right to my opinions if I wasn't on the
>> edge
>
>I may have spoken with insufficient precision. If you have not personally
>engaged in cutting edge R&D work, as far as I'm concerned, you have no right
>to *deny* such researchers their patents for "truly novel" stuff.
I have done "cutting edge R&D work" through one level of indirection (my
employer does R&D with radar systems, and I do software work in the R&D
department, though I do more "Make the ideas work"-type work than coming
up with the ideas themselves), so hopefully my opinions on the subject
can at least be taken seriously while they're being ripped to shreds.
The ideas developed here are developed because the people developing
them are able to profit from them (in the case of corporate R&D, usually
through continued employment as a result of the company they're working
for being able to profit from them, but the principle still holds);
without the legal protection on the ideas being developed, there would
be no incentive to develop them (since others, given our ideas, could
make the same products without the R&D investment), so the work simply
wouldn't be done.
On the other hand, if we weren't able to build on the results of previous
research, we wouldn't be able to do what we're doing at all.
So the concept of a time-limited protection in exchange for making
the ideas that are being protected available is an attempt (and, in my
opinion, a successful one) to balance allowing researchers to benefit
from their work and allowing society at large to benefit from that work.
(Of course, now that the choices are (or at least are perceived as
being) to ignore the protection completely or to use it to completely
block others from using the ideas, the whole system has an unfortunate
tendency to break down.)
> I have
>not engaged in such work myself, although I think one day I will, and I have
>seen some analogues of the R&D process in my own work. The difference is, I
>do not seek to *deny* such researchers the just fruits of their labor. I
>don't engage in platitudes about the transactions being "only one way from
>society," what nonsense!
Especially given that the whole point of patent law (and copyright law),
as originally formulated[1], is to encourage contributions to society,
by giving innovators the exclusive right to profit from their work for a
period long enough to allow them to recover the costs (in time, energy,
money, and probably more things I'm not thinking of) of producing it in
exchange for sharing the knowledge needed to make it work to allow others
to build on it and to use it directly without having to re-do the work.
> And I do think your attitude that "nobody does
>anything original" is pure poppycock. A quick trip to a world class art
>museum should disabuse you of that notion. The incremental cumulation of
>technological progress does *not* imply an absence of original thought.
Seconded.
dave
[1] If I'm not mistaken, nobody here is trying to claim that their current
interpretation is a Good Thing, and I have no intention of being
the first to do so.
--
Dave Vandervies dj3v...@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
Texas doesn't even rate by .us standards. I think their whole state
could practically fit into the *parks* in Alaska.
--J.D. Baldwin in the scary devil monastery
Miss Elaine Eos
Thom Kevin Gillespie <th...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
> Microsoft would never have willingly created the internet.
?! Did Al Gore used to work at MS?!
--
Please take off your shoes before arriving at my in-box.
I will not, no matter how "good" the deal, patronise any business which sends
unsolicited commercial e-mail or that advertises in discussion newsgroups.
Gerry Quinn
>Especially given that the whole point of patent law (and copyright law),
>as originally formulated[1], is to encourage contributions to society,
>by giving innovators the exclusive right to profit from their work for a
>period long enough to allow them to recover the costs (in time, energy,
>money, and probably more things I'm not thinking of) of producing it in
>exchange for sharing the knowledge needed to make it work to allow others
>to build on it and to use it directly without having to re-do the work.
>[1] If I'm not mistaken, nobody here is trying to claim that their current
> interpretation is a Good Thing, and I have no intention of being
> the first to do so.
Well, I will be, so. Most copyright law has been much the same for
decades. The main exception is the recent DMCA in the US, which seems a
reasonable attempt at thwarting violators in a new technological
environment. What exactly do you think is wrong with either, or both?
- Gerry Quinn
Richard Heathfield
> In article <bn7nab$qp5$2...@hood.uits.indiana.edu>,
> Thom Kevin Gillespie <th...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
>
>> Microsoft would never have willingly created the internet.
>
> ?! Did Al Gore used to work at MS?!
HHVF, but I think you misread it (as I did, first time through). I believe
that he intended to say that, if it had been up to Microsoft, we wouldn't
now /have/ an internet. (In other words, the rather marvellous openness,
generosity, camaraderie and free-spiritedness of the Internet don't really
fit into MS's marketing strategy.)
--
Richard Heathfield : bin...@eton.powernet.co.uk
"Usenet is a strange place." - Dennis M Ritchie, 29 July 1999.
C FAQ: http://www.eskimo.com/~scs/C-faq/top.html
K&R answers, C books, etc: http://users.powernet.co.uk/eton
Raghar
> Floris van den Berg wrote:
>> "Bent C Dalager" <b...@pvv.ntnu.no> schreef in bericht
>> news:bn5dum$s6u$2...@tyfon.itea.ntnu.no...
>>> In article <bn5d9v$cpc$1...@quark.scn.rain.com>,
>>> Noah Roberts <nrob...@dontemailme.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Using what knowledge? I assume you mean to say you created these
>>>> working solutions in a vaccuum? What are you building, stone
>>>> wheels?
>>>
>>> Oh, don't you know? Brandon invented binary logic :-)
>>
>> I think Brandon tries to say that when you spent a lot of time and
>> money to write a program, you open the source, and instead of people
>> inputting new ideas and improving the program they just take your
>> code and use it, there's nothing in it for you.
>
> More to the point, if you are too generous with your R&D, corporations
> *will* rip you off, *will* productize your R&D, *will not* compensate
> you one penny for it. Patent Law is for protecting the small inventor
> from greedy corporations like Microsoft.
>
> Personally I think if you're going to patent something in software, it
> better jolly well be worthy of patenting. I am opposed to frivolous
> software patents, which is to say, most of them. I am opposed to
> legal prospecting in general. But there are people and companies who
> legitimately need the protections of patent law.
>
> Patents are an incentive to progress. Without patents, few people
> would have the economic incentive to create new processes. I've
> rarely met an anti-patent person who was (1) self-funded, (2) capable
> of producing anything worthy of a patent.
>
I thought corporations are free of patent law, in EU ... Roughly.
And I certainly don't think patents could give anyone desired amount of
research compensation. It MIGHT apply in industry, but hardly in software /
game developing. It's rather hindrance that slows any inovation and
protects rich.
I remmember on some Australian that patented wheel. I Certainly don't like
to pay him for that, or to pay some corporations for inventing "wheels" in
the sotware development. Elementary programs should be free and elementary
algorithms like RSA or LZW too. (I don't know about the exact expiration
date for RSA however so it might be free NOW.)
Don't forget in place where is lots of laws, and lots of lawsuits, there
are lots of rich laweyers.
Look at this: http://www.pro-innovation.org/rapport_brevet/brevets_plan-
en.pdf
I'm not self funded, currently registred as unemployed. But I recently did
some algorithm that alowed fastest BW transformation that would be ever
done. Does it count?
It's not difficult to do an algorithm in game development or software
industry, you need just brain and month of time. (You need some of that for
testing) I don't care about big documents for showing "I'm smart look at
me" like some scienists, so you won't be likely to find too much from me.
But I don't consider to create new fast unknown algorithms as dependant on
an economic incentive. If you are used to create new things, and have
problems with copying others work, you can create a lot, becose you want.
Brandon J. Van Every
> Corey Murtagh wrote:
>> Decency is a statistical anomaly. Would the world be in the state
>> it is right now if humans possessed any innate decency?
>
> Are you really saying that we shouldn't still expect people to be
> polite?! Because that is what I am hearing. "The world is crap
> because everyone is rude, therefor there is no reason to be nice or
> expect people to be nice."
Noah, the problem in your particular case is that what you call "politeness"
someone else is calling "interference in their product schedule." You seem
to think that people owe you some kind of centralized command and control,
and that is decidedly against the basic principle of Open Source. Open
Source means "not having to wait around for others to say they're sorry."
Brandon J. Van Every
>
> "If you use any part of this, then you /will/ follow my orders to the
> letter and put /every/ part of your project under GPL."
>
> I'd be a whole lot happier if OSS /was/ socialist.
Nothing stopping you from using BSD-style licenses, giving everyone carte
blanche to do whatever they want with the code. That's the side of OSS I'm
on. And I'm only going to give away stuff that I'm absolutely, 100% happy
with giving away freely. I don't believe *all* code should be open source,
only the grunt, boring stuff that everybody suffers from. The interesting,
original stuff, I'm going to keep that proprietary and sell it.
Brandon J. Van Every
>
> Why not? They *have* created a number of services. I wouldn't be at
> all surprised if, in a world where Windows was widespread and the net
> non-existent, MS created protocols to allow Windows machines to
> communicate. Why would that not be in accordance with MS aims and
> interests?
Microsoft has always been a "clone and conquer" company. They engage in
precious little original thought. Microsoft would have just kept riding its
monopoloy until someone else invented "the Internet thing." Then Microsoft
would have cashed in on it. Since that's what they actually did in real
history, I don't see any reason to hypothetically dispute it.
Brandon J. Van Every
>
> Don't even get me started on drivers. I think there must be something
> about getting behind the wheel of a car that makes all sense of
> etiquete and human decency just dissapear.
Must be where you live. It hasn't been a problem for me in North Carolina
or Seattle. I believe that societal compression increases the percentage of
rude drivers. Certainly it is worth knowing some "Boston driver" tricks if
you need to get somewhere in a hurry. Wonderful protocol: when traffic is
gridlocked, forcibly stick your nose in front of another car. They can
either choose to hit your car and deal with the insurance hassle, or they
can let you in.
> Yeah, Brandon is just being wierd.
No, Brandon is not being weird. Noah is being myopic about the stakes of
3rd parties.
Brandon J. Van Every
>
> And I certainly don't think patents could give anyone desired amount
> of research compensation. It MIGHT apply in industry, but hardly in
> software / game developing. It's rather hindrance that slows any
> inovation and protects rich.
Nothing stopping you from inventing crucial game industry middleware.
> I remmember on some Australian that patented wheel. I Certainly don't
> like to pay him for that, or to pay some corporations for inventing
> "wheels" in the sotware development.
Wheels are covered by "prior art." These people don't matter, and worrying
about such people doesn't matter. A lot of idealistic software developers
have "emotional issues" about their perceived freedoms. These idealists
forget that patents must survive legal challenges, and that lotsa frivolous
stuff won't hold up in court.
> Elementary programs should be
> free and elementary algorithms like RSA or LZW too. (I don't know
> about the exact expiration date for RSA however so it might be free
> NOW.)
There's a different problem here. A patent in the USA lasts 17 years. The
algorithm probably wasn't elementary at the time it was invented, but 17
years is an eternity in software. After only 5 years, most widely published
algorithms are well understood and seem elementary. Nevertheless, the
author is granted the protection for what he did *when it was invented.* Of
course, this is true of industrial products as well. All sorts of things
are easy to manufacture, when someone else has already done the hard work of
figuring out how to do it!
So here we have a problem of generational attitudes. Some guy busts his
nuts to invent something, patents it, then spends almost the next 20 years
of his life benefitting from his gumption. He's made his career mark and
society had benefitted from his achievement. Now along comes some young
idealist who hasn't done any hard work yet. He thinks it's all simple and
easy because it's extant knowledge. He hasn't personally risked a penny of
his own fortunes, hasn't ever faced the tough slog of basic R&D. He doesn't
even have a real career yet. Yet he screams about how unfair the patents
are. Well, that kid needs to grow up and deal. He'll figure it out by the
time he's 40 and has had The Man stepping on him for most of that time.
The right way to deal with patents you don't like, is to use something else
or invent something else. The latter is especially poignant for any "hacker
ethic" crazies who are exceedingly talented at inventing algorithms. If you
don't like other people asserting their patent rights, beat them in the free
marketplace. That's how we got GZIP, after all.
> I'm not self funded, currently registred as unemployed. But I
> recently did some algorithm that alowed fastest BW transformation
> that would be ever done. Does it count?
What's a BW transformation? Anyways, it depends on the prior art.
Erik Max Francis
> Noah Roberts wrote:
>
> > Don't even get me started on drivers. I think there must be
> > something
> > about getting behind the wheel of a car that makes all sense of
> > etiquete and human decency just dissapear.
>
> Must be where you live. It hasn't been a problem for me in North
> Carolina
> or Seattle.
Hmm, why is it I'm reminded of the old poker adage here? Namely, "If
you sit down at a poker table and can't immediately tell who the mark
is, it's you."
--
Erik Max Francis && m...@alcyone.com && http://www.alcyone.com/max/
__ San Jose, CA, USA && 37 20 N 121 53 W && &tSftDotIotE
/ \ You and I / We've seen it all / Chasing our hearts' desire
\__/ The Russian and Florence, _Chess_
Peter Ashford
> Gerry Quinn wrote:
>
>>As people who argue along the lines you propose usually do, you
>>conflate
>>patents and copyrights. Only patents protect ideas, the protection
>>time
>>is very limited and the ideas have to be adjudged novel (the last bit
>>needs improvement, I agree).
>
>
> Actually, I don't think patents protect ideas, I think they protect ideas
> embodied in concrete processes. But I am unsure here.
>
If I recall correctly, the orignal intention of patents explicly
excluded ideas. Patents could only apply to physical inventions.
In fact, here's the quote from Jefferson's patent law:
"any new and useful art, machine, manufacture or composition of matter
and any new and useful improvement on any art, machine, manufacture or
composition of matter"
(ex: http://www.ladas.com/Patents/USPatentHistory.html)
The inclusion of patentable algorithms came only recently.
AFAIK the idea that ideas are not patentable is still in force, but I
cannot see how an algorthim is not an idea, so it doesn't make too much
sense to me.
Peter.
Peter Ashford
> Noah Roberts wrote:
>
>>Now, on the other hand, I have run into trouble with rude and
>>inconsiderate people. I had someone fork from my project and use a
>>name
>>that should have been reserved to said project without my permission
>>or
>>even notifying me that they intended to do so. This was done simply
>>because I wasn't fast enough at comming up with that part of the
>>project; they even paid someone to write their code, which left me
>>with a pange of jealosy and general bad feelings.
>
>
> Well let's face it, one of the main benefits of Open Source is not having to
> wait on people who want to control what you can do with the code. If you
> license stuff as open source, you can't reasonably expect people to march to
> your timeframe. They have their business deadlines to meet that you don't
> have....
>
That's true, but Noah's point - that it was rude to not even inform him
(as original author and active project maintainer) that they were going
to fork the code, is quite valid.
These things happen in OSS, but usually after some discussion.
Peter.
Peter Ashford
>>>How many Linux distributions do you think there are? Why do you
>>>think there are so many? Do you think anyone asked, or was
>>>interested in, getting permission to do such-and-such with Linux?
>>>It's open source.
>>
>>Actually there is quite a bit of expectations in this area. How many
>>Linux kernels are there? Very few.
>
>
> The fact that there's more than one speaks *volumes* about the expected
> nature of open source.
>
There isn't more than one.
Peter Ashford
> "Allen" <allen-terri-ng!@#att.net> wrote in message
> news:iUolb.188905$0v4.14...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>
>> Is open sourcing safe as far as maintaining credit/control/ownership
>
> of
>
>>software?
>
>
> open source is just another word for "communism"
>
>
why?
Nathan Mates
Peter Ashford <m...@here.there.com> wrote:
>>>Actually there is quite a bit of expectations in this area. How many
>>>Linux kernels are there? Very few.
>> The fact that there's more than one speaks *volumes* about the expected
>> nature of open source.
>There isn't more than one.
False. There are various patch branches to the core to include
various features not in the "official" releases. (I assume that this
is what the original poster was referring to, not the continual
development of 2.2.x after 2.4.x was out, etc) Alan Cox's "ac*" series
of brances are quite well known. [As Alan has worked for RedHat, I
believe some of their releases were based on ac-branches.] There's
also ones like
http://linux.bankhacker.com/en/software/Patch+de+latencia+del+Kernel/
which are designed to reduce latency in the kernel, etc.
There's also the OpenBSD/NetBSD/FreeBSD split (not technically
Linux, but Open Source just the same); some of those splits have been
acrimonious.
Nathan Mates
--
<*> Nathan Mates - personal webpage http://www.visi.com/~nathan/
# Programmer at Pandemic Studios -- http://www.pandemicstudios.com/
# NOT speaking for Pandemic Studios. "Care not what the neighbors
# think. What are the facts, and to how many decimal places?" -R.A. Heinlein