webber@aramis.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber) (07/04/88)
In article <1804@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: > It is often said, "I don't like copyrights because they interfere with > the free flow of information." > > On the surface, that seems true, but you may want to consider that it is > also highly likely that actually, the reverse is true. If information > can't be owned, that may be the greatest impediment to the creation and > flow of *useful*, *valuable* information. It is clear that things would take a bit longer, but like is there a rush? If the first 20 people who think up the idea of the spreadsheet decide they are not going to go thru with it because once they make one anyone could and they figure that they couldn't recover their development costs, is it going to be the ruin of civilization? Like we wait for the 21st person who not only has the idea but needs one enough to build it for themself. Then they pass it on as part of a barter for someone else's software. Maybe they make some money helping other people use the software. Maybe they make some money thru consulting for a firm that specializes in software maintenence. The software is needed to make the computers useful. It will get written, one way or another, sooner or later. Gee, hardware vendors might even give away development systems to people who give away useful software for their machines. > If one could not own the rights to "Star Wars" and charge admission to see > it, would there ever have been a "Star Wars" or anything like it? Clearly > not, except it a complete totalitarian state where the government owns > everything. You will forgive me while I sit here and contemplate how nice it would be if instead of Star Wars, Friday 13th part 99, etc., we only had movies made by people who were in it for the joy of making movies. > Even today, with the incentives, cheap I.P. like books need promotion, > distribution, mechanisms of review and resellers. Many very good books > go nowhere if they aren't promoted. Hmm. Maybe they should stop trying to sell them and just post them to the net. > Much good software dies and goes > nowhere because of bad marketing. Since there isn't even ``much'' good software, how can it die of bad marketing? > The fact is that even today we face information overload. There's just > too much chaff out there for us to find the wheat. The most valuable > I.P. needs the incentive of ownership to make somebody push it. That just means that instead of lying peacefully on the ground, the chaff is knocking on your door and doing cheap wheat imitations -- thanks, but no thanks. > After all this, there's a third factor, namely stagnation. Imagine > the software world with the ownership of I.P. removed. Say you write a > better operating system, or spreadsheet. Is it going to zoom out and > replace what's there? Hah. If people didn't have to pay anything for > Lotus 1-2-3, nobody would ever get the chance to give their product an > edge through a lower price. You mean that the only way they could beat out lotus is to make a better product. Gee, shucks, wouldn't want them to have to do that. > When people are constantly paying money for > new 1-2-3s as they expand, it's hard enough to get them to switch. If > they can keep with the status quo for FREE, how easy will it be? If they can change for free and if you are free to adopt the ``look and feel'' of lotus to make it easier for them to change, how easy will it be? ----- BOB (webber@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber) [So, the net is going thru another round of copyright software discussion. I wonder if weemba's automatic flame generator can handle insertion of stock pro and con software copyright comments. So why did you never create comp.industry.copyright? I never heard any serious objections to the comp.industry.* bit -- you can't count the name arguements, the net has never agreed on what is the best name for a group since the beginning of time.]
brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (07/05/88)
In article <Jul.4.05.56.28.1988.13406@aramis.rutgers.edu> webber@aramis.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber) writes: >It is clear that things would take a bit longer, but like is there a >rush? If the first 20 people who think up the idea of the spreadsheet >decide they are not going to go thru with it because once they make >one anyone could and they figure that they couldn't recover their development >costs, is it going to be the ruin of civilization? Thanks for picking an example I know intimately. When VisiCalc was launched in Personal Software's 10 by 10 booth at NCC '79 in New York, I was there demonstrating it. People today may have a tough time imagining it, but we had to hit people over the head to get them interested. People did not get the demo and order 100 copies. Many said, "why do I need that?" We spent money to tell them. Many people claim that Apple wouldn't have made it as they did if not for Visicalc. > [ People would eventually write it for themselves... ] And come up with garbage, the same way that shareware and PD software that wasn't made explicitly for mass distribution is mostly garbage. Anybody who's been there will tell you that making a product for use by large numbers of real people is *hard* work, work that won't get done if there isn't an incentive. It's easily twice to ten times as much work as just putting a program together. The commercial part of making a commercial program really is 90% of the job, and people think it should be eliminated! > >You will forgive me while I sit here and contemplate how nice it would >be if instead of Star Wars, Friday 13th part 99, etc., we only had movies >made by people who were in it for the joy of making movies. > Well, I picked Star Wars because it's a film most people enjoyed. The point was there have been many works that have enriched the field, in most people's opinions, that were EXPENSIVE to make. Star Wars was just one example. Without ownership of I.P., the world would not get these works, and while Bob Webber might not get upset, a lot of others would. > >You mean that the only way they could beat out lotus is to make a better >product. Gee, shucks, wouldn't want them to have to do that. No. You can't beat out Lotus by making a better product today. That's the whole point. You have to do *more* than make a better product. You might make it better and price it cheaper, like Borland plans. You have to be able to match the Lotus machine, or guarantee the product like Microsoft does. The point is that without ownership of I.P., it may be almost impossible to unseat outdated "standards" without incentives. > >[So, the net is going thru another round of copyright software discussion.] Actually, I view this as a more fundamental debate, namely the one about whether I.P. should exist, and how it should exist. The answer to "is it ok to copy software" falls out of this, but it is at a different level. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
kurt@tc.fluke.COM (Kurt Guntheroth) (07/05/88)
> In article <1804@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >> It is often said, "I don't like copyrights because they interfere with >> the free flow of information." > So BOB (webber@athos.rutgers.edu) replies > If the first 20 people who think up the idea of the spreadsheet > decide they are not going to go thru with it because once they make > one anyone could and they figure that they couldn't recover their development > costs, is it going to be the ruin of civilization? Like we wait for the > 21st person who not only has the idea but needs one enough to build it > for themself. Then they pass it on as part of a barter for someone else's > software. Maybe they make some money helping other people use the software. > Maybe they make some money thru consulting for a firm that specializes in > software maintenence. The software is needed to make the computers useful. > It will get written, one way or another, sooner or later. Gee, hardware > vendors might even give away development systems to people who give away > useful software for their machines. Oh, so maybe they do hope to get some value out of their intellectual property, by consulting on it...And how user friendly do you suppose a piece of software will be if the only revenue you can derive from it is consulting? If you ever had an image of programming as a priesthood, with arcane rituals and an occasional sacrifice at midnight, this would become an image of the future. Hmmm. "The software is needed to make the computer useful." And when it becomes difficult to get software, what will happen to computers? Maybe what will happen instead is a decline in the use of computers, and an increase in cost, and a stifling of development, since much economic incentive has suddenly been removed from the industry. Remember, intellectual property, in the form of design patents, protects a lot of hardware too. > You will forgive me while I sit here and contemplate how nice it would > be if instead of Star Wars, Friday 13th part 99, etc., we only had movies > made by people who were in it for the joy of making movies. Gag. Choke. It would be like watching those very early live TV shows. They look pathetic and primitive compared even to mediocre TV of today. The whole (motion picture) medium would probably not have developed if it hadn't been profitable. I certainly would not expect any advances in the technology to occur. We might revert to much more live acting, since this medium has absolute control over how many people see each performance. Wouldn't that change the "viewing habits" of a bunch of people. Imagine all those people with VCR's, HBO, and a satellite dish, and suddenly there was NO new programming. Wouldn't they all be pissed. >> After all this, there's a third factor, namely stagnation. Imagine >> the software world with the ownership of I.P. removed. Say you write a >> better operating system, or spreadsheet. Is it going to zoom out and >> replace what's there? Hah. If people didn't have to pay anything for >> Lotus 1-2-3, nobody would ever get the chance to give their product an >> edge through a lower price. > You mean that the only way they could beat out lotus is to make a better > product. Gee, shucks, wouldn't want them to have to do that. And what incentive would there be to make a better product? After all, Lotus is "pretty good". Lotus is out there. People are used to lotus. As an artist, I'd concentrate my efforts on a newer and obscurer area, hoping to be the first with a creative breakthrough. ("Eureka," you say, "We would have more innovation.") But only the first halfway decent spreadsheet, editor, compiler, stat package, or whatever would ever become used. Pretty soon the all the "commercial" categories would be filled, and us artists would be concentrating more energy on works of software fiction; games, demos, and conventional "art" on the computer medium. Finally, if the only way to profit from information is to keep it proprietary (since once it is public, anyone can use it), what happens to freedom, knowledge, and advancement. Goodbye books. Then goodbye learning. Then goodbye civilization. Hello wizards and alchemists, gentry and pesants, priests, monks, acolytes, and peons. We have seen this pattern, and intellectual property laws were enacted to INSURE THE SPREAD OF INFORMATION. Patents have a term of exclusive license. Copyrights expire if not maintained carefully. They represent a demonstrable improvement over what came before.
webber@aramis.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber) (07/10/88)
In article <1812@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: > In article <Jul.4.05.56.28.1988.13406@aramis.rutgers.edu> webber@aramis.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber) writes: > ... > And come up with garbage, the same way that shareware and PD software > that wasn't made explicitly for mass distribution is mostly garbage. > > Anybody who's been there will tell you that making a product for use by > large numbers of real people is *hard* work, work that won't get done if ^^^^ as opposed to fake people? > there isn't an incentive. It's easily twice to ten times as much work as > just putting a program together. The commercial part of making a commercial > program really is 90% of the job, and people think it should be eliminated! So? Today programming is remarkably primitive. Ideas that it takes a few minutes to come up with can take weeks to implement. That doesn't mean that the ideas are new, novel, or somehow special and should be protected like patents or literature. It just means that things are awfully crude. Things are only going to get better by developing large pools of freely usable and well understood software. >Well, I picked Star Wars because it's a film most people enjoyed. The point >was there have been many works that have enriched the field, in most people's >opinions, that were EXPENSIVE to make. Star Wars was just one example. >Without ownership of I.P., the world would not get these works, and while >Bob Webber might not get upset, a lot of others would. Are these works really ``enriching the field'' or is it just that after spending millions to create something you spend a few more to make sure everyone sees it and likes it. Mostly a matter of throwing good money after bad. >>You mean that the only way they could beat out lotus is to make a better >>product. Gee, shucks, wouldn't want them to have to do that. > > No. You can't beat out Lotus by making a better product today. That's > the whole point. You have to do *more* than make a better product. You > might make it better and price it cheaper, like Borland plans. You have > to be able to match the Lotus machine, or guarantee the product like > Microsoft does. The point is that without ownership of I.P., it may > be almost impossible to unseat outdated "standards" without incentives. You forget that it is your I.P. ownership that is preventing one from starting directly with Lotus and creating enhancements rather than having to re-invent the wheel as well as the axle. > Actually, I view this as a more fundamental debate, namely the one about > whether I.P. should exist, and how it should exist. The answer to > "is it ok to copy software" falls out of this, but it is at a different > level. Is it ok to copy software? If it is illegal due to licensing or copyright or whatever, then the answer is no. Instead of copying such junk, it should be boycotted. If it is freely available, the sure -- copy away. Under what circumstances should it be illegal to copy software is the actual issue. ---- BOB (webber@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber)
webber@aramis.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber) (07/10/88)
In article <4312@fluke.COM<, kurt@tc.fluke.COM (Kurt Guntheroth) writes:
< ...
<Oh, so maybe they do hope to get some value out of their intellectual
<property, by consulting on it...And how user friendly do you suppose a piece
<of software will be if the only revenue you can derive from it is consulting?
I have never seen any software that did anything interesting and did
not require constant support and enhancement. Few people have the
ability and inclination to support other people's software better than
the original authors could if they were so inclined. There is no need
to artificially make the software more difficult to support to create
a reasonable support service -- of course, if what you are selling is
trivial, then you better get licensing, binary only distribution,
copyrights, and anyother trick you can think up to sponge off the people
who can't even handle trivial code.
<If you ever had an image of programming as a priesthood, with arcane rituals
<and an occasional sacrifice at midnight, this would become an image of the
<future.
So?
< Hmmm. "The software is needed to make the computer useful." And when it
< becomes difficult to get software, what will happen to computers? Maybe
< what will happen instead is a decline in the use of computers, and an
< increase in cost, and a stifling of development, since much economic
< incentive has suddenly been removed from the industry. Remember,
< intellectual property, in the form of design patents, protects a lot of
< hardware too.
<
<< You will forgive me while I sit here and contemplate how nice it would
<< be if instead of Star Wars, Friday 13th part 99, etc., we only had movies
<< made by people who were in it for the joy of making movies.
<
<Gag. Choke. It would be like watching those very early live TV shows. They
<look pathetic and primitive compared even to mediocre TV of today. The whole
<(motion picture) medium would probably not have developed if it hadn't
< been profitable. I certainly would not expect any advances in the
Obviously you are quite unfamiliar with the artistic animation
industry where a few craftsmen turn out an exceptionally high quality
product that finds no viewers because the networks prefer to sell transformer
dolls.
< technology to occur. We might revert to much more live acting, since this
< medium has absolute control over how many people see each performance.
< Wouldn't that change the "viewing habits" of a bunch of people. Imagine all
< those people with VCR's, HBO, and a satellite dish, and suddenly there was
< NO new programming. Wouldn't they all be pissed.
So? Whenever you do something stupid, you create a large collection of
people who figure out a way to benefit from the stupidity and hence oppose
any attempt to make things right. Look at the tobacco industry or the
use of sugar in the commercial food industry.
< << After all this, there's a third factor, namely stagnation. Imagine
< << the software world with the ownership of I.P. removed. Say you write a
< << better operating system, or spreadsheet. Is it going to zoom out and
< << replace what's there? Hah. If people didn't have to pay anything for
< << Lotus 1-2-3, nobody would ever get the chance to give their product an
< << edge through a lower price.
Right, only be being actually better would it have ``an edge.'' So?
< < You mean that the only way they could beat out lotus is to make a better
< < product. Gee, shucks, wouldn't want them to have to do that.
<
< And what incentive would there be to make a better product? After all,
< Lotus is "pretty good". Lotus is out there. People are used to lotus.
If the person is happy with lotus, then no incentive. If the person
wants something better and has free access to lotus, then plenty of
incentive to make the improvement. Why pass it out after making it?
Because it encourages others to do the same -- some of whom may even
have time to make some of the improvements that you would like but
don't have time enough to make yourself.
< As an artist, I'd concentrate my efforts on a newer and obscurer area,
< hoping to be the first with a creative breakthrough. ("Eureka," you say,
< "We would have more innovation.") But only the first halfway decent
< spreadsheet, editor, compiler, stat package, or whatever would ever become
< used. Pretty soon the all the "commercial" categories would be filled, and
< us artists would be concentrating more energy on works of software fiction;
< games, demos, and conventional "art" on the computer medium.
Gee, how can one have so little vision and call themselves artists?
< Finally, if the only way to profit from information is to keep it
< proprietary (since once it is public, anyone can use it), what happens to
< freedom, knowledge, and advancement. Goodbye books. Then goodbye learning.
Yeap -- look at public libraries. Free books and now no one is
writing any anymore. I wonder how much Plato made on the Dialogues.
< Then goodbye civilization. Hello wizards and alchemists, gentry and
< pesants, priests, monks, acolytes, and peons. We have seen this pattern,
< and intellectual property laws were enacted to INSURE THE SPREAD OF
< INFORMATION. Patents have a term of exclusive license. Copyrights expire
< if not maintained carefully. They represent a demonstrable improvement over
< what came before.
Hardly. They represent the economic interests of some of the pioneers
of the early industrial age and have been sufficiently abused that you
would think no one would want to repeat the mistakes in the information
age.
---- BOB (webber@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber)erict@flatline.UUCP (j eric townsend) (07/11/88)
I think part of the "why does this stuff have to cost so much" can
be answered by looking at some of the people that buy it.
For instance, my last company: They paid around $27,000 for a LAN.
They paid a lot of money for the software, then bought increadibly
overpriced hardware from the same company. They never did any
market research to decide what their customers wanted in a LAN (we
were going to VAR whatever LAN we got in the office) and they
never asked the development team what they though the LAN should have/be.
Instead, they went out and bought the flashiest, most expensive LAN.
Then, they could brag to their business friends about "the $27,000
LAN we just picked up on a whim".
These people also believed LANTimes (put out by Novell) verbatum.
They didn't believe me when I told them who produced it.
So, in one since, having expensive soft/hardware is good, it takes money
away from dumb people (businessmen/scam people) and gives it to people
that are *doing* something (programmers/engineers).
Btw: the company I worked for is now out of business. They were having
problems so they fired half the staff: the programmers. They finally
gave in and fired the salesmen, then the secretarial staff. They
spent over $3 million on hard/software over about 3 years. Ever work
for morons? :-)
--
Skate UNIX or go home, boogie boy...
[Obscure joke goes here]
J. Eric Townsend ->uunet!nuchat!flatline!erict smail:511Parker#2,Hstn,Tx,77007
..!bellcore!tness1!/