Author: Fernando Villegas
Date: 15:50:17 01/26/99
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On January 25, 1999 at 17:32:38, Dann Corbit wrote: >On January 25, 1999 at 16:38:05, Fernando Villegas wrote: >[snip] >>My point of view is that, no matter how much ugly is to use work made by another >>people, if that work is public and so is part of the general available resources >>of the community, then it can be used and changed as you wish and it is not your >>problem if other guys are not using it because they prefer to start from >>scratch. This last people can say that is not fair to compete in that way, but >>that is ridiculous. May I blame a guy that compete with a car that has the >>conventional 4 times engine and 4 wheels if I try to win the race with a bike >>with a washing machine engine? Every guy can use and change Crafty engine as >>every guy can use and change the already known alfa-beta techniques or whatever. >You are a writer, IIRC. >Suppose you write an article and sell it to magazine x. I take the same >article, change 4 out of 500 sentences and sell it to magazine y. Did I do >something wrong? >But, after all, the text of your article was freely available. Does that give >me a license to steal? I think not. Dan: Your example is awfully bad, I am afraid to say. An article is protected by an author right and/or the right of the publishing house. So, of course, you cannot take it so freely. But if I write something and not only I do not protect it BUT also I say to all of you that it is "freeware" article, then you can do exactly what you say. And of course is not stealing. It is some abuse of your part, an ugly act, but not stealing. Besides, a code source is a work of science or tech, and so, by definition, its purpose is to be used by other people as a tool, a ground for new developments, etc. It is in its nature to be changed, eventually. But is not the case of an article, a finished and final piece of literature -bad literature, if you want-, where not use is possible except reading it and get some fun or information from it. Then, to change an article or to change a source code are absolutely different ontological acts if yopu do not mind. Fernando >>Creafty is part of the universal knowledge of chess programming thanks to the >>generosity of Bob and the fact that Bob is not a photo in an encyclopedia or a >>note in a biography of genuses, but a real being that chat with us, does not >>change a bit the things. Yes, maybe we can blame the authors of Bionic for >>supporting too much his creature in the arms of Bob, but, again, how much is too >>much? >Those issues are worked out already in plaguarism and fair use laws. They apply >to software in exactly the same way as any other intellectual property medium. >(Though I am certainly not a lawyer, so YMMV).
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