Maurizio DE CECCO wrote:
> This is the point; you read a newspaper article, and at the end you find
> the notice:
>
> (c) 2000 Author 1.
> Based on a paper (c) 1999 Author 2
> Based in turn on a paper (c) 1998 Author 3
> Modification and originals are available at www.author1.com
>
> Would you tend to think that Author 2 and 3 share the same ideas of
> author 1 ?
Sort of. When you read a small quote from a speech in a newspaper,
do you think you understand what the speech was about? Probably
yes, but you must always remember that things can be taken out of
context, or distorted by selective omission, etc. It's the same when
you see the notice you've described: the reader knows that some of
the material came from author 2 and 3; the reader tends to associate
author 2 and 3 with author 1's final work; but the discerning reader
knows better than to assume author 2 and 3 know anything about
author 1's article or bear any responsibility for it. How many
readers are this discerning? I don't know. Can you live your life in
fear of people leaping to conclusions? Maybe sometimes you have to,
but hopefully in many situations, no.
You can never control people's perceptions of what you did or said.
If this is too big a problem, then you are not ready to release your
work under this license, or else the license is simply not
appropriate to the work in question. I don't think this represents a
problem with the license.
> Do you people with which you would never want to share the copyright
> on a newspaper article, and then risk this kind of confusion ?
> I know quite a lot (choose your preferred bad guy here).
Sure. Releasing anything as open source represents a risk. THe
greater your personal identification with the work, the higher the
risk. I doubt that any open-source license can remove this risk.
> Nobody that i know was killed because he wrote a piece of software;
> people get killed by writing novels, and newspaper article.
We're taking a step into unknown territory here. An open-source
work is a kind of gift to the world. We can only hope we will not be
hated for what others do with our gifts.
> You don't consider that in you get in a field of human activity that
> is a lot more complex than software developement, expecially from the
> human point of view; the kind of passions, of economical and political
> interests and so on are completely different and work in completely different ways
> from what we know in the software developement area.
An interesting point. Yes, there are obviously things people get
much more excited about than software, and it's hard to see what
will happen if open-source /free ideas move into these areas.
I think part of the point of the wider open / free / libre project
is to challenge people's ideas of ownership and to open our cultures
up to the risks of collective behavior. I hope and believe it would
tend to work out peaceably and ultimately be a major positive step
in political / economic evolution. But yes, there are risks. I think
people will move these ideas into the more risky areas slowly, a
step at a time. I think instrumental music is a good place to start.
:)
................ paul winkler ..................
slinkP arts: music, sound, illustration, design, etc.
A member of ARMS -----> http://www.reacharms.com
or http://www.mp3.com/arms or http://www.amp3.net/arms
personal page ----> http://www.ulster.net/~abigoo
