Author: Fernando Villegas
Date: 09:04:18 10/30/99
The long thread which is esentially a discussion between Bob H. and Ed S. has something surrealistic in it. Bob is -or was- arguing that commercial guys does not contribute to the field because they are secretive of his little tricks and just like to make technical profit from non commercial guys ideas; Ed is saying -or said- that's not really true, as much this and that technique was delivered by this or that commercial programmer. Bob is the purest case of non commercial, not money interested reasercher and his child Crafty the paradigm of the freeware world; Ed is the purest case of professional commercial progammer, enterily dedicated to that since ever, with the best developed commercial site, constant attention to his customers, etc, etc. How guys so opposed in needs, interest and position in life can even meet in a common ground to share even a definition about what is the issue under discussion? Ed earns a life selling his products and so he should be a fool to give his relatives advantages to his competence; the esence of his work is to keep his trade secrets the longest time he can. Bob is a scientist that earns his life teaching and researching in an university; the esence of his work is becoming public the soon as possible to get recognition from his peers and help his field to give another step. So clearly they cannot cut a deal even it such thing appears to happen due to good manners and a mutual desire to end the discussion with some kind of diplomatic uinderstanding. They even does not understand in the same way what is a new idea. For Bob is just matter of who was the guy that first wrote about the discussed issue in a scientific magazine; for Ed is a matter of who was the guy that put the idea to work in an efficient way. The same with colaboration; for Bob, as scientist, is about sharing concepts and discoveries; for Ed, as a commercial guy, is a mater of cooperation for mutual -not universal- benefice. Ed is prepared to share his ideas with Theron because both of them are joined in a common commercial adventure; as much as he does so, he surely see himself as a man that cooperates after all for the advancement of the field. For Bob nothing less than to communicate his thought to the entire world is enough. Who is right' Nobody is. They are different persons in differents situations, each of them doing his best and producing universal benefice in dfferent ways, one direct, the other more indirect. And we need both approachs. What a scientist can get in the atmosphere of university campus probably concnetrates in the area of pure research; what a commercial technics can gets the better is getting general ideas works better and better. Sooner or later both ways meets and the entire field jump o a higher level. Fernando
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