Re: Code donations for RPGUI initiative

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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