Re: Code donations for RPGUI initiative -- WEB400

Peter wrote:

Nowadays, the author/inventor/composer can produce, promote and distribute
their product themselves, for very little expense, leaving the
publishers/promoters out in the cold.

I'm not sure how well this works for music or film artists. I've heard arguments that free songs and films on the Internet inspire people to go buy licensed copies or pay to see the performers live. I have yet to see this argument supported by research. Sounds like denial and rationalization to me.

If I want to publish my own book, I could create a PDF version and set up my own website with PayPal. But what will it cost me to create, maintain, and drive people to my site? If someone buys my book and likes it, what would keep them from distributing the PDF to their friends (and to their friends and to their friends) for free? If I want to make money from a book, I might prefer going with a publisher. A publisher can probably market my book better than me, and you can't easily copy a physical book to distribute among networks of friends.

Kelly

-----Original Message-----
From: web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:web400-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Peter Dow
Sent: Friday, January 08, 2010 3:23 PM
To: Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Code donations for RPGUI initiative

Hi Nathan,

That's an interesting take on it. If you read a bunch of the articles on
TechDirt, you'll notice that they believe excessive
copyright/patent/trademark laws inhibit innovation. And that publishers
and promoters are not adapting well to the digital world where
books/games/movies/software can easily be copied; they're still wishing
the world was based on a physical product that was expensive to produce
and they had control of the means of production.

They also note how this has led the old guard into abuses of the
copyright/patent/trademark systems. I "love" the one about the
pharmaceutical company that changed the color of one of their pills from
blue to purple and got an extra 35 years on their patent.

The point of the links I posted was that Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin
Franklin didn't really like the idea of a patent system, or any kind of
monopoly. Especially when it related to something that would be of great
public benefit. They would probably applaud the NIH requiring that
researchers receiving federal funds make their results available to the
public free of charge (something publishers of scholarly journals abhor)
on the grounds that the public already paid for it, but would be
horrified that it's gotten so out of hand that life-saving research has
been unavailable to those that need it due to costs.

Another point made by some of the techdirt aritcles is how
copyright/trademark/patents actually can inhibit innovation. The example
given is the difference between the music industry where creating new
music by sampling others music can get you into legal hotwater, and the
fashion industry, where designers are influenced by other designers and
don't have to worry about getting sued for using the same shade of color
as that other designer.

It's all fascinating - we definitely live in interesting times.

*Peter Dow* /
Dow Software Services, Inc.
909 793-9050
pdow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:pdow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> /

Nathan Andelin wrote:

Hi Peter,

Note that those articles serve the interests "publishers" and "promoters" over the interests of "authors" and "inventors", which is probably the reason they're published by a viral magazine.

It's largely a matter of interests, in my mind. I identify more with the interests of individual authors and inventors over public interests, and especially over the interests of "publishers" and "promoters". I'd favor laws which strengthened the intellectual property rights of "employees" to make them equal with "independent contractors", for example.

The open-source movement had more merit when it was battling monopolies like Microsoft's. It has unfortunately grown to the point that it is extracting value from individuals, and serving the interests of near monopolies. Oracle controlling MySQL, is a good example. At some point, IBM may be controlling Zend - another possibility.

Oh well, enough philosophy!

Nathan.

----- Original Message ----
From: Peter Dow <petercdow@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Web Enabling the AS400 / iSeries <web400@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Fri, January 8, 2010 10:55:52 AM
Subject: Re: [WEB400] Code donations for RPGUI initiative

Hi Nathan, Aaron,

You guys might find these links interesting although they're not
directly related to programming, but do have something to do with
intellectual property rights:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091211/0810217306.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091223/2253347494.shtml

*Peter Dow* /
Dow Software Services, Inc.
909 793-9050
pdow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:pdow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> /

Aaron Bartell wrote:

I disagree with almost all of your points so I won't digress into each
individual one. You seem bitter and I can understand that - I have seen the
same creep into my professional career. Things like RPGUI allow me to have
fun again - like when I didn't have cares in the world. Am I trying to
relive my childhood? No. I am wanting to live for the first time in my
adulthood. Don't ask me why, but I get giddy when I find somebody willing
to share something without anything more than a pat on the back in return
(or nothing at all in return). I have been giving code away for about 8
years now (when I started mowyourlawn.com) so it is somewhat second nature
to me and I don't have issue with it. RPGUI has already greatly suceeded
and greatly failed depending how you look at it - I view it as a great
success and now I am looking for the next great success. Maybe it is just a
stepping stone to another framework, that I don't know, but would be
completely fine if that was the end result. In the end I am dreaming in
color and loving every second of it.

Each person has areas where they like to spend their time outside of work.
Mine just happens to be things like RPGUI and music. If being a part of a
coding community that works jointly at developing something greater than
what they themselves could have created isn't your thing, that is completely
fine - I am sure you have other areas in your life that you choose to give
back to the community you live in. You have already shared many things on
the forums that I have benefited from, so you obviously get some sort of
"feel good" from participating - I guess we just choose what level we get
involved because we don't want to risk getting burned. BTW, your point
about the JSON being slow was timely as just this morning I published sample
CGI pgms to the SVN repository that will allow us to test performance (
http://rpgui.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/rpgui/beta/QTEST/). Open source
projects need people that point out flaws, and if that is the role you play
with RPGUI then I am all for it (because I know you know what you are
talking about) - so thanks for that.

I do appreciate your direct response so I know where you stand. Now you
also know where I am coming from a bit more.

Aaron Bartell

On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 9:17 AM, Nathan Andelin <nandelin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

From: Aaron Bartell
Have I convinced you to donate anything yet? :-)

No. As an individual programmer myself, I have fundamental issues against
open source. GPL v3 in particular essentially removes all rights from
original authors and places them in the public domain. Intellectual
property rights intrinsically have much more value than individual domain
experience and programming skill. The open-source movement removes that
value from the individual and places it it the public domain. Ironically,
individual programmers fall into the trap of donating under the pressure of
soft-peddled promotional hype and the lure of being a part of a widely
reaching endeavor.

It appears that for every successful open-source project in sorceforge
there are a thousand failed. Sourcefore has become a veritable boneyard of
all-but-abandoned and neglected projects.

Consider the appeal of the argument that programmers may look forward to
$xxx hourly rates if they donate their intellectual property to a public
repository. You should read the widespread moaning that has erupted at
linkedin right now over an offshore firm offering $14 hourly rates for
programmers with IBM i JDE experience. I empathize with most of the
moaning.

I strongly believe that intellectual property rights for original authors
and creators are fundamental to advancing the quantity and quality of new
creative works, and that the open-source movement is hobbling more than
helping creativity. You confirmed yourself that RPG based open-source
projects have fundamental unresolved issues. Consider Mihael Schmid's JSON
procedures. It took me less than an hour of looking at the code to realize
that I would never use it in a Web application. It dynamically rebuilds and
destroys the complete data model in memory prior to streaming it for both
input and output for every request-response cycle. I'd never add that kind
of overhead to my applications. But you latched onto it, and gung-ho
promoted it, evidently because it was offered under GPL v3.

You could spend thousands of hours donating code to open source projects
and never get anything out of it other than a few public accolades from a
handful of people. Most beneficiaries of your donations wouldn't even offer
their complements except for encouragement to motivate you to donate more.
Most beneficiaries would appropriate your code and incorporate into their
own private toolkits without contributing back. Some would even remove your
copyright statements and insert their own.

One of the unfortunate realities of the world is that there is widespread
desire to get something for nothing as opposed to quid pro quo, and the
open-source movement fosters and promotes that type of culture.

Notwithstanding the negativity of open-source culture, I have profound
respect for original authors and support their rights to do anything with
their works, including their right do donate to public repositories.

Nathan.

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