>Alain : If I follow you correctly, proprietary changes could be kept
>proprietary if the developer of these changes so chooses. And the
>developer would be encouraged to contribute his changes so that his
>code will not be broken in future releases of OC (forward
>compatibility). I could live with that!
Alain,
So I guess this'll have to be in our license, then.
>Alain : There are international agreements concerning the enforcement
>of Copyright rights that many developed countries abide by. We could
>use these to guide us in the draft of our own licencing terms. And we
>are talking about general guidelines that are not likely to conflict
>with any particular countryís laws anyhow.
I guess I misunderstood you. I thought you were trying to regulate who
uses OC to provide content. I wouldn't have liked that. Though it's not in
my interest that e.g. someone uses OC to create a collection of "the
world's greatest child porn", there are many things like that which are
allowed in one country but not in another. Where should we stop regulating?
As we're all democratic in nature, I think we should leave free speech
untouched, even if it holds the hidden threat of unethical actions being
augmented by OC. Can the tool be bad, or is it only he(r) who uses it?
>Alain : And other licences, one for each element-type?
Something like that. Of course we'd try to group multiple things together.
E.g. we should have at most 3 licenses; one for OpenCard itself (modify,
distribute patches, please submit your changes, you may sell the OC
application along with your stacks and may make distributions that are sold
with a modest progit margin), one for stacks (they're yours, do what you
want, except if there's someone else's copyright on one of them, in which
case you have to ask that person for permission) and external media (use
freely as long as it's in an OpenCard stack or for OpenCard development).
>Alain : In my opinion, Gene Roddenberryís socio-political vision of the
>future is one the main reasons that Star Trek became the phenomenon
>that it is. In the future that Roddenberry created, we have no more
>ìMutually-Assured Destructionî, people occupy themselves without the
>necessity (tyranny) of working to insure oneís survival, the Prime
>Directive prohibits the UFP (United Federation of Planets) from
>interfering with the normal development of the planets that they visit.
>The latter is quite radical given the inevitable imperialism and
>ethno-centrism of all exploration in the History of Mankind.
To stay with S/F: I agree more with J. Michael Straczyinski's (Babylon 5)
vision of the future. He says that in the future people won' be much
different. There are many things I think in whic ST is inconsistent and not
consequent in its conception (e.g. if they're so peaceful, why was the
Defiant built? If they're only scientists, why have they military ranks? If
everyone is so compassionate, why are most of the Generals such bigots?),
but I think this doesn't belong on the list.
>Alain : If you mean that the altruist is only being altruistic so that
>he can feel good about himself, I suppose you could be right. But
>thatís not so bad, is it?
Not necessarily feel good *about oneself*. Rather, you don't like people
being mad at you, and a friend is always more "convenient" than a foe. Thus
people, if I may horribly simplify this, are nice to people because they
want them to be nice to themselves, not because they really care about
them. (I put it this simple so we don't clobber up the list too much, we
can discuss this off-list if anyone likes)
>Alain : A form of altruism nonetheless, despite the eventual benefits
>to the contributors, because we will all benefit from contributions
>that are not our own.
Altruism, as I learned it, is doing something solely for the good of
others, without one's own personal interests. Is this what you described?
>Alain : Except in our case, eh! Because we are the tool-building
>types. It's what attracted us to software like HyperCard. I see myself
>as a facilitator that makes the effort to master the technical side of
>all of these technologies, in order to allow other people
>(content-providers) to do THEIR thing without being handicapped by the
>technologies. And I make money doing this. Is this altruism or not?
In my eye, it isn't. This is collaboration, compromise. This is everything
democracy has at its core, it isn't altruism. Democracy, though it profits
from altruism, doesn't need it.
Cheers,
-- M. Uli Kusterer
------------------------------------------------------------
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'The Witnesses of TeachText are everywhere...'
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