Sale of "free" stuff on eBay

From: Scott Stevens <chenmel_at_earthlink.net>
Date: Sat Nov 27 02:09:10 2004

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 21:49:49 +0000 (GMT), you wrote:

>>
>> On Thu, 25 Nov 2004, Tony Duell wrote:
>>
>> > A couple of days ago somebody on this list mentioned they were having
>> > PCBs made for a DEC KM11 (maintenance board) clone based on my design.
>> > And that they intended to sell said PCBs and/or kits.
>> >
>> > Now, for the record, I was never asked if I minded about this. I never
>> > gave permission. To be honest, I _don't_ mind. I prodcued that design
>> > initially to get my own 11/45 running, and shared it with the world in
>> > the hope that it would keep a few more machines going. And if somebody
>> > wants to make PCBs for it, fine, go ahead. I am not going to stop you.
>> > But do you think I should have been asked first?
>>
>> I guess it comes down to how you want to be paid for your work.
>
>I do not expect to be paid for the hacks I produce... It is the way of
>the world, at least in the UK. Entertainers get paid (I included
>sportsmen here, their job seems to be to entertain a subset of the
>population). Hackers do not get paid.
>
>>
>> Some people, like you, are content to remain anonymous perhaps. You enjoy
>> the credit when you receive it, but you don't go seeking it. You are
>> content that what you've done helped humanity in general.
>
>However, I would object -- most strongly -- if my name/credits were
>removed from anything I'd put out for distribution. I would object if
>somebody tried to claim my work as their own. So far this has never
>happened, in fact people here and elsewhere have been (IMHO) more than
>generous in mentioning my name if they used my work.
>
>> otherwise. As creators or producers of a work, they are entitled to that.
>
>I would agree with that. The thing I have a minor problem with is people
>who release their work for free download (so that anyone can grab a copy
>and in general the author doesn't know who has taken it) but who won't
>allow it to appear on CD-ROMs that are then sold for not that much money.
>Provided their name/credits remain intact, and that the producer of the
>CD-ROM doesn't try to prevent it being freely downloaded as well, I can't
>see the problem.
>
>-tony

An interesting point that can be made is that people who put a bunch
of info and stuff on CDs and distribute them to others cut down on the
bandwidth expense of distributing that info around. Large popular web
and FTP sites can cost a lot to keep going. So a positive way of
looking at it is that the CD 'publisher' is saving the web/ftp site
'publisher' some money. And this can be strongly the case, if it
keeps some folks from mirroring a whole CD-size bunch of stuff for
their personal use.

There is a lot of 'classic' MS-DOS software that wouldn't even still
exist in an array of versions, etc. if not for those 'dirty bastard'
shareware CD publishers who a lot of people grumbled about back in the
days of the BBSes. I believe there's even a big site or two online
that share out some of those old CDs. I'm certainly glad I've got a
collection of them myself. Sometimes it's handy being able to dig out
the 1990 Simtelnet archive, or a PC-SIG CD or what-not.
Received on Sat Nov 27 2004 - 02:09:10 GMT