Robert Miller wrote:
> "John Doty"
whispertel.LoseTheH.net> wrote in message
> news:BuCdnYeDn_y-ck_anZ2dnUVZ_gednZ2d@wispertel.com...>> And yet other language communities manage to create vigorous code sharing
>> cultures. So this argument must be completely wrong.
>>
>
> This isn't an area where I have any experience. I wasn't actually arguing
> against code sharing I was questioning how and why it works. For hobbiests,
> there is peer recognition and the obvious saving of not having to reinvent
> the wheel. The latter is a possible motive for businesses to participate,
> but there are costs and risks involved. How much of the copyleft c/c++ code
> for eg. has businesses as the proprietor?
I don't know of a percentage, but it's one model. Consider Ghostscript:
it's released under the GPL, but it's owned by a company that, since it
holds all of the rights, can also license it under any other terms it
wishes, and make money that way. The GPL release gets them visibility
and lots of (free!) field testing.
Another model is consulting: I understand there's a thriving market in
GCC porting services. Every manufacturer of a new embedded processor
variant wants GCC support to help sell it, so they'll pay programmers
for it.
Another is community. gEDA is mostly the product of a bunch of circuit
designers. By getting together and creating this radically flexible
toolkit, we've collectively saved an enormous quantity of money on
license fees for commercial software that is in many ways inferior. We
contribute to keep it vital and extend its capabilities, we use it for
free, and the products we create with it make money for some of us.
> How much is individuals and to
> what extend did those individuals have the right to release it?
There is tremendous pressure against code piracy in the free software
community.
> Is
> software sharing like music sharing where the people doing the sharing are
> not the creators or copyright owners?
No.
>
> In any event, what has the source language got to do with it?
That's my question. It has been asserted by a number of people here that
Forth code is rarely published because most is proprietary. But why
should that be language dependent? There's plenty of published code in
other languages, why not Forth?
> You seem to
> be critical of the Forth community for not sharing. What is unique about
> Forth that would discourage sharing?
Well, of course, those who assert that all is just fine in the Forth
world should address this. Given the paucity of published Forth code, I
think there is a real issue.
--
John Doty, Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd.
http://www.noqsi.com/
--
History teaches that logical consistency is neither sufficient nor
necessary to establish practical, real world truth. Those who attempt to
use logic for that purpose are abusing it.
