PICAXE compiler thing(not sure of it's name)

[hippy]

A license which doesn't restrict anyone from using the code in any way is far more beneficial in my opinion.

That's not really a licence at all.

It's definitely a license by any definition I know. Licensing is simply the copyright holder ( who is implicitly the only person who has use of and rights and control over a work ) granting rights to others to use that work and the conditions and restrictions of use, the license stating what those terms and conditions are; "none" in this case.

What it comes down to is that there are many licensing possibilities, numerous licenses, and everyone has their preferred licensing preferences. I don't like GPL because as you say, it is "viral" just as proprietary licences are "viral" so I don't see it as an improvement; just two groups fighting from opposite sides of political spectrum. Others may see it entirely differently, but I think everyone should understand what a license means before adopting it.

 

[evanh]

It's definitely a license by any definition I know. Licensing is simply the copyright holder ( who is implicitly the only person who has use of and rights and control over a work ) granting rights to others to use that work and the conditions and restrictions of use, the license stating what those terms and conditions are; "none" in this case.

Then it's a useless licence. Same thing as no licence.

... just two groups fighting from opposite sides of political spectrum.

Spot on. When everything can be stolen and abused, it pays to use some protection. If you want to share then use the GPL. If you don't want to share then don't give it to anyone at all or hire a contract lawer.

That said, I'm happy to leave most of my work in the public domain. As are most people on this forum I believe. It's a case of the investment in the Picaxe is so small that licencing program code for the Picaxe is a wacky idea.


Evan

 

[Mycroft2152]

For small, special-use programs, just sell the preprogrammed PICAXE chipa and don't discuss the program.

 

[hippy]

Then it's a useless licence. Same thing as no licence.

Not at all. In the absence of a license there is no permission granted for anyone to use what an author has produced or published in any way. The legal situation in most jurisdictions is that the copyright holder is the only one who can decide how their work is used and an absence of license means they retain sole control and an embargo on its use. Simply publishing or not stating it is copyright protected doesn't lose that copyright protection, doesn't automatically make it public domain or usable by anyone else.

Copyright protection is automatically granted to the originator of the work. Only if they license it can others use it. To make something public domain one has to explicitly relinquish copyright ownership or provide a license granting unrestricted use.

Use an author's work in the absence of a license and an author can take court action to rectify a breach of copyright. Unless a license granting use can be shown, the law and court will side with the author. That an author may not take action does not mean they cannot. Assuming they will not is akin to saying a £5/$10 bill found on the sidewalk was intentionally left there for someone else to take and use. It may have been, but it may not have; you cannot guarantee what the consequences of taking it will be.

Copyright, Intellectual Property, Digital Rights and tort are extremely complex areas legally but there are some simple basics which people need to be more aware of in everyday life these days.

Copyright : The legal protection automatically given to an originator which grants them full control and power over their work and prevents everyone else from using their work.

License : The terms and conditions a copyright holder can specify to allow others to use the copyright protected work.

Licence : The physical embodiment of the permission of use and terms and conditions of such use.

 

[Wrenow]

Hey, I use Linux, and my mum says I'm a Greek God (though I ain't greek)

My Gran said I looked like a Greek God when I was about 15. I still look a bit godlike, but now it is Buddha I tend to resemble.

Cheers,

Wreno

 

[moxhamj]

Some of the solutions have been mentioned here, and I'll second the idea of just sandpapering off the markings on the chip. It is now just an 8/14/18 pin chip etc. It could be anything.

Now, if it needs upgrading, you call out the tech guy. He comes in his van and gets lots of fancy equipment out and does mysterious things to the circuit and it is now upgraded. And all that mystery attracts a suitable fee. A call out fee. An upgrade fee. That is how you can make a living and get a return on all that time spend writing and debugging code.

Next issue - what if you can't get out to the site? That may not be good for business, because if you ask the customer to do all the work they might not want to pay as much. And as soon as you ask them to go to a website etc etc, they might work out how simple your code really is.

I wonder about another solution. Bring out the picaxe on a board with a suitable connector. Eg a D25 for an 18X. That plugs into the rest of the circuit. When you want to upgrade, post out the new chip on its own board. Send the customer a few spares while you are at it. Make the plugs really obvious so there is no way things can be plugged in the wrong way etc. D plugs are a good start as they are much stronger than (say) sending someone just a chip and asking them to replace it without a suitable IC puller. This could be similar to the ROM boxes that came with early TV video games.

 

[BeanieBots]

marcos & Wrenow, you miss heard. She said:-
"You look like a geek, Oh God!"

 

[marcos.placona]

Nah I don't look like a geek, although I use glasses and spend 8 hours in front of a computer during my work journey writing code, plus some more hours at home writing dodgy picaxe codes and making LED's blink

Appart from the crazy ideas envolving bats and ultrasonic stuff....

I'm sure she said Greek... she did!

 

[Dippy]

Marcos: ".. although I use glasses and spend 8 hours in front of a computer during my work journey writing code, plus some more hours at home writing dodgy picaxe codes and making LED's blink"

- I thought that was the Wiki definition of Geek?

Do you and your friends watch old episodes of the X-Files and play dungeons and dragons?
If you had a party and invited all your friends, would you be able to have it in a phone box?
Do you talk non-stop 'computers' when in company of normal human beings?
If the answer to any of the above is 'yes' then consider yourself a Geek.

If however, by being a Geek, you have become a Euro millionaire then you are a God.

 

[marcos.placona]

Marcos: ".. although I use glasses and spend 8 hours in front of a computer during my work journey writing code, plus some more hours at home writing dodgy picaxe codes and making LED's blink"

- I thought that was the Wiki definition of Geek?

Do you and your friends watch old episodes of the X-Files and play dungeons and dragons?
If you had a party and invited all your friends, would you be able to have it in a phone box?
Do you talk non-stop 'computers' when in company of normal human beings?
If the answer to any of the above is 'yes' then consider yourself a Geek.

If however, by being a Geek, you have become a Euro millionaire then you are a God.

Hey that's my profile

Except for the Dungeons & Dragons part. Now I've grown up, I play Magic The Gathering

 

[evanh]

Not at all. In the absence of a license there is no permission granted for anyone to use what an author has produced or published in any way.

So the MIT licence is basically a formal public domain licence. It's even less restrictive than the default Copyright. To me the MIT licence is the same as an unknown author or general helpful hints and the likes on forums. Most of what I know is passed down from others but I'd never know when or who the info can be acredited to nor am I much interested. I suspect this applies to you also.

The difference between the above of just giving it away and that of sharing the workload is size of the project and the level of financial investment. At this point GPL becomes vital for fairness.

So, I guess there is three groups:
- Those that don't have any real investment and are happy to give it away.
- Those that are willing to share the investment and the rewards.
- And those that want everything for themselves.

Clearly, the first option is not a functioning bussiness. But both the other two are capable of supporting financial income. That's the diff in the end. A lot of us using Picaxes are happy to give our efforts away with an implict public domain attached - to the code at least.

But if one wanted to publicly share development resources in the business world then choosing the GPL would be the best first option. Adding you own additions later or writing a whole new licence maybe.

How's that for a summary?


Evan

 

[hippy]

I think that's a reasonable summary.

One thing I'd add would be a fourth group, those who have no real investment but won't share what they do know which could be useful to others.

I think we could also argue over the benefits to business of a Public Domain license; I don't see that as necessarily making an originators business unworkable, it just means that everyone ( including commercial companies ) are able to compete for market share taking the same source. That's the same for any open source providing the commercial company using it is prepared to publish their own work. Microsoft could take Firefox, call it IE-Plus, alter it, rebrand it, bundle it with Windows along with the source code and everyone should be happy. The only real difference in the licenses is that some force commercial exploiters to publish their own source code, others don't.

In the 'browser wars' I don't see that Microsoft keeping IE closed source had very much impact on the field nor prevented others from competing. The lack of and collapse of competition arose for very different reasons.

 

[evanh]

Microsoft could take Firefox, call it IE-Plus, alter it, rebrand it, bundle it with Windows along with the source code and everyone should be happy.

And would make sure it was incompatible also. M$ starting with Firefox base wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference to how M$ treated the Web. The good news is that M$ are finally losing that battle - no thanks to the US government messing with the courts.

In the 'browser wars' I don't see that Microsoft keeping IE closed source had very much impact on the field nor prevented others from competing. The lack of and collapse of competition arose for very different reasons.

Yeah, that one is all about the pre-existing monopoly of the home/office computer markets that M$ inherited via the growth of the clones. M$ naturally would abuse it's monopoly to force any new competition into losing their money.

It was a sad period to have to endure.


Evan

 

[hippy]

And would make sure it was incompatible also. M$ starting with Firefox base wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference to how M$ treated the Web.

Then it's not about licensing is it, it's about not liking Microsoft. Whether Microsoft were as they are or fully embraced open source and open licensing and played within the rules they'd still be hated.

 

[evanh]

Then it's not about licensing is it, it's about not liking Microsoft.

The GPL has nothing to do with M$. M$ had no impact on the software service sector at the time. The fact that M$ now sees the GPL as a threat is more telling of what M$'s plans are than what Mr GNU was thinking when he devised the GPL.

But M$ is a monopoly and abuses it's position non-stop. The path is littered with corpses. What's more, the monopoly was handed to them on a platter curtesy of IBM and the Taiwanese clone makers.

Edit: BTW, I wasn't specifically targetting M$ when I was talking about GPL preventing monopolies. I've just realised you may have thought that. No, it was very much a general statement about the ability of the GPL. The fact that M$ had the biggest chance of eventually dominating all the various software markets is a separate idea.


Evan

 

[Mycroft2152]

Evanh,

The Microsoft bashing is getting a little old now. Move on. Get back to PICAXE projects.

Myc

 

[Dippy]

Uh oh.... bait thrown out.

 

[Mycroft2152]

Uh oh.... bait thrown out.

Not on purpose.

I set up my forum account to send email alerts about any thread that i posted in. I'm just getting tired of deleting these emails.

Remember, Operating Systmes are just tools, they are not religions.

Though some people do have religious ectasy when discussing certain ones.

When is the last time you wanted to crucify a hammer?

Myc

an OS atheist

 

[hippy]

Licensing itself is very pertinent to the PICAXE community, in fact any programmer, and it's getting more important in real life. My final words on the matter are that one couldn't get a more open design than the IBM PC ( I've still got the orignal IBM A5 docs somewhere ) and Microsoft never created a monopoly nor was one handed on a plate. I think there's a degree of confusion over monopoly and dominant market force. As you acknowledge, if Microsoft took open source they'd still behave in the same way, they'd still be a 'monopoly', GPL changes nothing in that.

 

[Mycroft2152]

Licensing itself is very pertinent to the PICAXE community, in fact any programmer, and it's getting more important in real life.

Hippy,

I agree, licensing discussions are pertinant but only in a minor way. BUT, this thread has turned into a Microsoft bashing thread.

It's very simple, if you don't like a product or a company, JUST DON'T BUY THEIR PRODUCT!

This forum has drifted away from the core values: PICAXE hardware and PICAXE software. This is why I joined the forum a few years ago. There are still a few "pearls of wisdom", but most posts sound like a bunch of old ladies chatting over tea. Yes, I am also one of the guitly parties


Myc

 

[Wrenow]

Nah I don't look like a geek, although I use glasses and spend 8 hours in front of a computer during my work journey writing code, plus some more hours at home writing dodgy picaxe codes and making LED's blink

Appart from the crazy ideas envolving bats and ultrasonic stuff....

I'm sure she said Greek... she did!

I believe you Marcos. In my case, in context, I was in incredibly good shape at the time (ran 10 miles without hardly breaking a sweat) and was strolling down to the beach wearing nothing but swim trunks, a pair of sneakers, a .44 mag and a bag of shells to go plinking (and a nice bronze tan).

I still have "a" shape, only now it is more like Santa (yep, white beard and all) and can still run about 10 (feet) before breaking a sweat.

Of course, my Gran did wear glasses.

Cheers,

Wreno

 

[evanh]

... and Microsoft never created a monopoly nor was one handed on a plate. I think there's a degree of confusion over monopoly and dominant market force. As you acknowledge, if Microsoft took open source they'd still behave in the same way, they'd still be a 'monopoly', GPL changes nothing in that.

Hmm, are you saying that M$ doesn't have a monopoly? That is a very interesting response.

I certainly wasn't bashing M$ specifically, you were the one that targetted M$. I was stating the reality of the situation that an unregulated free market breeds. Some people seem to be a little blinkered about this topic.

GPL changes the options of those that would have normally been squashed long ago.


Evan

 

[evanh]

Since there appears to be some lack of knowledge here I've decided to address the question of how M$'s monopoly came about.

The M$ situation is a little bit special. The growth of the PC clone market was so extensive that I don't think even Billy Boy was aware of just how big it was going to be. The flood of competitive pricing of bare hardware that could all run the same software but came with no software or support, even though they used more expensive builds than the comsumer oriented "home computers", eventually wiped the floor. Though the Mac did just managed to hold on to it's DTP perch long enough for the music industry to leave a gaping hole for Apple to slot Itunes and the Ipod into.

This was caused by IBM letting the clones be sold back into the US market. This could have been any other computer of the time, they were all being cloned in the eighties. I've heard that IBM had no choice, but who knows, maybe IBM wanted to see what would happen. After all, the PC was very small fry for IBM at the time. And considered to be a pretty basic design.

Initially, back in the 1980's, since this position was indeed up on offer, M$ just wanted the position of being primary OS supplier for this computer, the IBM PC, knowing full well how to exploit it. Billy achieved this goal (Probably his one real claim to fame) with some smart cut-throat bussiness practises and the rest is history as they say ...

Now there is a subtle edge to this situation, the PC became chiefly an end user product. This means it had to run "out of the box" and every additional tool for it also works out of the box. These end users don't know the first thing about compiling source code and matching versions and making scripts to clean up temparary files and debugging incompatibilities and ... nor do they want to deal with that. This creates a situation where these end users want the same setup that is used by everyone else.

In theory, different vendors could comply with defined API's. But free market competition natually encourages incompatibilies by design to be built-in. Even when the user demands otherwise. There has to be a serious financial advantange to comply.

So, in the end, there can be only one.

There is many reasons that a monopoly is bad but I'll leave that one for wikipedia.


Evan