On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 07:46:03 -0700 Marvin Humphrey marvin@rectangular.com wrote:
On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 08:36:39AM +0100, Andy Farnell wrote:
On Mon, 24 Oct 2011 11:16:18 +0900 i go bananas hard.off@gmail.com wrote:
in that case, it might be as simple as a nice email to Shadrokh Yadegari to get his expr for pd license changed to LGPL too??
Marvin, Bill thank you both of you make fair points in favour of petitioning developers, and in particular, silence from fear of offending _is_ silly, and I heartily agree that if you don't ask you don't get. It's not a discouragement to Matt to contact the author, who may well say sure lets do it. Neither do I valorise BSD, GPL or any other licence over another in this conversation. More original software, not dependent on a chain of licenses can be trivial to re-license. Indeed I've done it more than once with a simple email. Not to overplay the trauma of my "trouble" Bill, I've since made a full recovery you'll be pleased to know, and while the emotions may have caused thoughts, there were no permanent scars. You're right though, I've put material out with shoddily scripted or ambiguous licences, which is worse for everyone, and the truth was I didn't care more than to abandon it to the public domain for pedagogical reasons assuming anyone who apprehended it would trivially produce their own improved version.
Guys, there's a more complex point I am trying to make here, and I don't think its heard because you abstracted the case and tried to form generalisations. Great programming, lousy philosophy. :)
Corporate power and the societal assumptions that lead to its normalisation might come alive through a little story....
Eric Cartman wants a birthday party. Nay he demands it. And he demands that his friends attend. Since Cartman is popular, not being in his circle of friends means certain social exclusion, said friends are thus compelled to attend. Now Cartman is very clear. Kyle must bring a red mega-man, Stan must bring a blue mega-man. And Kenny, a green mega-man. It's not that Kenny's parents are guilty of the great sin of being poor, they could save up their food cheques and pawn them for a mega-man as Cartman rightly points out, but they don't believe in action figure violence. Mr Mc Cormick's dilemma is that he loves his son and wants him to be Cartmans friend, but resents Kennys happiness being used as a hostage to apply pressure on him, and mock his values as inadequate.
Anyway, Kenny buys the damn mega-man, swallows it, chokes and dies. The end.
Maybe I ought to be careful drawing too fine a comparison between pester power, or toxic childhood syndrome http://www.amazon.co.uk/Toxic-Childhood-Modern-Damaging-Children/dp/07528735... and the experiences of brand addicted infantilised adults working through their technology fetishes. "Oh but the shiny shiny one has this!" "Kyle Broflovskis mum bought him one!"
Kenny could beg Cartman to let him to the party without a mega-man present. As if. The truth is he hates that whining manipulative narcissistic wanker, but his insecurity means he needs to be seen as his friend, so its easier to petition a more reliable care giver.
[All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.]