Re: Open Source's effects on programmer jobs

[<dsavage@peaknet.net>]

On Sat, 2004-04-24 at 23:37, Jonathan wrote:
> On Sat, 2004-04-24 at 22:57, mike808@users.sourceforge.net wrote:
> >
> > Yep. I'm with RMS on this one - "Intellectual Property" is neither.
> >
> I am in agreement with Mike on this one. A while back I culminated a 12
> year quest to find a complete matched set of Max Planck's "Lectures on
> Theoretical Physics". I wanted to scan these off and OCR them and then
> post them on the web. Since the English translation is newer than the
> 1926 (IIRC) cutoff date, it does not qualify as public domain work. I
> searched the internet to find out details of whether the copyright had
> lapsed. My search lead me to the USPO and there I found that a copyright
> search cost $60.00/hour!
>  As far as I can tell, McMillan publishers still hold the copyright. I
> have not written them. Partly because I anticipate that they would not
> want to release the copyright. It's a shame that such valuable works
> cannot be disseminated. The exposition of classical physics contained in
> these books is so much better than the bilge served up in present day
> physics text books (Haliday and Resnick !).

Jonathan,

The realities you and Mike are pointing out are each intellectually
corrupt, but they're sidelines to the original discussion. We're free to
use Newton's and Planck's discoveries, along with those of others to
create more complex works, whether derivative or wholly original. We don't
have to independently reinvent them. It is this aspect of the open source
model that I believe will both (a) keep programmers in demand and (b)
allow software to evolve with the needs of technology and society.

--Doc

P.S. I'd have posted this reply last night if someone at Peaknet hadn't
stayed late and futzed up their SMTP AUTH configuration.



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