Paul Davis wrote:
On Mon, 2006-07-03 at 02:26 +0700, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
If they really want to get people to give money then they should just
make it so that you have to pay or contribute code/time for a while to
get access to the newest downloads from their site. Keep the stable
version far enough behind the development version that people will pay
to get the newest code base.
its really rather amusing to see people speculating on what the
developers of LS could or could not do, when the actual relevant
"encounter" with "commercial interests" has *already* happened. it did
not go well. it can be tempting to imagine that we understand the
motivations of commercial organizations and can therefore offer them
appropriate carrots. don't be so confident of this. both the LS
developers and myself are under the terms of an NDA, so it is not
possible to discuss with any relevant detail precisely what happened.
but it was nasty, it was unpleasant and as i've said before, it would be
better for people to not make so many assumptions about their ability to
guess at what might or might happen when a commercial company shows
interest in a tool like LS.
Sorry Paul,
You have mentioned this in the past. I didn't mean to drag up those
memories. It completely slipped my mind that something funky had gone on
with LS.
On saying that though it really is a bummer that the NDA prevents
certain people from discussing the valuable knowledge learned from that
encounter.
It's still entirely legal for others to speculate though... If we ask
questions and you don't answer then maybe that's legal too...
It seems to me that some company tried to use the work done by the LS
team without giving anything/much in return. The strange appearance of
the modification to the GPL in the LS README seems like a direct
response to the situation that occured when things didn't work out for
the LS team with regards to this mystery company.
History provides plenty of evidence of companies/business people taking,
using and abusing and not giving in return. It seems strange that the LS
team would choose to work under the GPL and then be surprised if someone
tried to take advantage of them. However it is perfectly reasonable for
that to have severe emotional impact when so much hard work is
effectively "stolen" by greedy "business" people.
It reminds me of the 6 years I have spent working in Asia. Everything I
have done for free is ripped off by others who can't come up with their
own ideas. Now I *only* do things for fun or money up front.
Life is too damn short to let the bastards of this world abuse my
time/energy/motivation.
Hence why I enjoy working with Linux Audio. Where the real bastards are
few and far between.
Cheers.
--
Patrick Shirkey - Boost Hardware Ltd.
Http://www.boosthardware.com
Http://lau.linuxaudio.org - The Linux Audio Users guide
========================================
"Anything your mind can see you can manifest physically, then it will
become reality" - Macka B
