Credit and Free Software 213
Hans Reiser - you're thinking ReiserFS, and you'd be right - has a proposal to slather Free Software with credits for its authors. Good? Bad? This is something the community has generally moved away from, but maybe Reiser has a good point. Newsforge is part of OSDN.
Points not to be discounted lightly (Score:5, Insightful)
necessarily argue for "slathering" software with attributions, rather
he argues convincingly IMO that the credit for a piece of software
should remain visible to the public users. This can be tastefully
done easily, the point is that leaving the credit for writing the
software in the source code is pointless as most people don't ever
read the source code.
It isn't even so much that someone can't supply a new spalsh screen,
it just needs to include attributions to the original authors. I
think he makes some very interesting and very valid points. It is
interesting to note as he states, that although Stallman is a huge
contributor to many projects, he rarely gets credited on anything.
I feel the same way as Reiser on this, even though Stallman doesn't
want to burden the software with licensing restrictions, it bothers
me that he gets so little in the way of credit for what he has helped
to bring about.
Re:Points not to be discounted lightly (Score:5, Insightful)
Also doesn't this proposed license contradict the definition of a freesoftware license?
And your point about stallman is probably not a good example. He is one of the very few developers that are well known and have got a big reputation in the opensource community.
What Reiser was saying is it would be an incentive to smaller developers to contribute stuff if they thought that someone somewhere would randomly see their name splashed on the screen. I think I'm inclined to disagree with this basicaly selfrightosness
Re:Points not to be discounted lightly (Score:3, Insightful)
Well if you look at Slashdot, then I'd say he has a big reputation of being the man who gets most flamed at!
Just look at the Slashdot article about the GNU/Linux FAQ. It generated well over 1000 comments, of which 95% are trolls, flames and personal insults towards RMS. A lot of them even got modded up to +5 Insightful!
Re:Points not to be discounted lightly (Score:2)
Which, sadly, says a lot about the adolescent nature of some of the Slashdot community. Let's face it, how many of these kids have even met the man? OK, I never have (and I'm not a kid any more, either:-))
Fact remains that RMS has contributed a hell of a lot of time and effort over the years to open-source software, and he deserves some credit for it.
Re:Points not to be discounted lightly (Score:3, Insightful)
Wha? Are you saying that everyone who remembers' Maddona's name, or Bill Gates, or Michal Jordan or Mohamed Saeed Al-Sahhaf are all source code reading geeks?
People will remember a name if they see or hear it often enough.
Re:Points not to be discounted lightly (Score:2)
(...) everyone who remembers' Maddona's name, (...), or Michal Jordan or Mohamed Saeed Al-Sahhaf
It surely seems that you cannot remember to spell the names of Madonna, Michael Jordan and Mohammed S. right
;-)
Re:Points not to be discounted lightly (Score:3, Interesting)
I think at the root of this is the whole "GNU/Linux" vs "Linux" debate, as that is one of the most prominent cases of not giving credit where credit is due. When that issue was covered on "Revolution OS", Stallman made a very good argument that there a
Richard Stallman contributed tons of code (Score:2)
I believe that Richard Stallman wrote [epita.fr] most of the original GNU C compiler, although it was derived partly from a portable optimizer [iecc.com] from a 1978 Univeristy of Arizona research project.
"GNU `diff' was written by Mike Haertel, David Hayes, Richard Stallman, Len Tower, and Paul Eggert." [web.cern.ch]
"GNU Make was written by Richard Stallman and Roland McGrath." [gnu.org]
"Richard Stallman was the original author of GDB, and of many other GNU programs." [ualberta.ca]
Re:Points not to be discounted lightly (Score:3, Insightful)
That's missing the point. The credits are not there to drill obscure names into people's memory. A little blurb in --help or --about or --version should suffice here. Credit should be given, because it's the Right Thing to do. If someone uses some of your code, no one will ever know about it, even though the contribution was valuable enough, obviously.
This wou
Re:Points not to be discounted lightly (Score:3, Interesting)
People that don't read the source code arent the sort of people who are likely to rember names IMO. (Or care about names generaly for that matter)
No way. In the new world order where IP goes away, your reputation as a contributor to software will be your stock in trade. It will be the means by which you price your services to those that would consume them from projects to emplyers. It is absolutely critical that software is correctly attributed and that it should be easy and proiminant.
You see som
Re:Points not to be discounted lightly (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuff said? Nuff said.
(FreeGEM Desktop does about the same thing under Desk\Info)
-uso.
Re:Points not to be discounted lightly (Score:2)
Maybe Hans Reiser is writing this article be
Re:Points not to be discounted lightly (Score:5, Insightful)
Haven't We Been Here Before (Score:5, Insightful)
On the surface, it sounds like a good idea until you consider what it means to give prominent credit to all the major people who are involved with a piece of software. The larger a project is the larger the number of active participants. More importantly when a project gets large enough it acquires dependencies that provide significant functionality which also are as deserving of credit as the original application developers.
For example I built a news aggregator that is an now a source code available project on GotDotNet [gotdotnet.com] that has 70 developers signed up with about a dozen having been active in one shape or the other. There are also dependencies on three external libraries that also provide significant functionality. If this was a commercial product exactly how feasible would it be for me to give prominence to everyone who provided significant value to the application? What metric would I use?
Re:Haven't We Been Here Before (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Haven't We Been Here Before (Score:2)
The attractiveness is well over once you have passed the B, though. I imagine developers with names starting with Z's constantly falling asleep when trying to check if they're credited.
Re:Haven't We Been Here Before (Score:2)
I mean, how can you credit one person when it took dozens of programmers, designers, content creators, etc. to make the game?
This was one of the gripes with "American Mcgee's Alice". I've read one of the developer interviews, and they were dissatisfied with the title as it attributes the entire creation to one single man.
Kashif
Re:Haven't We Been Here Before (Score:2)
Re:Haven't We Been Here Before (Score:2)
Re:Points not to be discounted lightly (Score:5, Insightful)
Further - the whole concept behind BSD and GPL style licenses is that the user is free to change/modify/use the software as needed. A change to "give the author credit" is a definite usage requirement!!!! It isn't free then?!?!
Look - the authors have a right to put their code under ANY license requirement they like. If they choose to do this - well, I just don't think the software would then qualify as either Free or Open Source software in my mind.
Re:Points not to be discounted lightly (Score:3, Funny)
Reminder of what free software is... (Score:2)
Remember that free software is like free speech, not free beer. If I write an article, free speech means you can quote from it (with attribution) and you can use ideas from it (without attribution). I would be likely to allow you to redistribute it in whole (with attribution). No
Bad credit? No credit? (Score:5, Funny)
the purpose of free software for many IS credit (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this, mind. I just want to remind some of the zealots that writing Free software is often not the selfless idealistic cause some make it out to be.
Re:the purpose of free software for many IS credit (Score:2, Insightful)
How much prestige can they get for writing second rate software? I don't recall many people being very impressed by second rate anything.
Re:the purpose of free software for many IS credit (Score:4, Insightful)
Using Ayn Rand's clarified definition, I'd say selfish reasons are the best and most prominent reasons to write good software. Still using Ayn Rand-compliant vocabulary, Reiser is being very selfless.
Translation: people write software for the feeling of self-fullfillment, self-actualization, and personal pride. This is a personal experiece that does not require anyone else's opinion to realize; you know you've given everything you could. Reiser, however, requires the recognition of others, needs his "greatness" (extremely debatable) to be recognized and advertised by others. This is what people mean by "his ego problems". He is "without self", or "selfless".
More on a practical point, Hans Reiser has been completely unable to prove that (1) the current setup is insufficient, (2) anything would be gained by modifying the current setup, and (3) his proposals would do less harm than good.
Further, I have supreme doubts that reputation is the driving force for the best programers. Respect of your peers is a reward. Delivering bad code would cause you to lose respect, and that lose would be a source of fear. Fear does not drive good development. Self-actualization drives good development, and that is incompatible with fear of resentment. Good programers (s/programers/anything) may enjoy the respect of their peers, but that is quite different from fear for your reputation. Reiser is fearful, and ReiserFS is a testament to bad code.
Re:the purpose of free software for many IS credit (Score:3, Insightful)
What exactly is wrong with naming something after yourself?
My dick itches. (Score:2, Offtopic)
OSS belongs to the community (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:OSS belongs to the community--that IS enough (Score:2, Insightful)
I spend a mi
Re:OSS belongs to the community--that IS enough (Score:2, Insightful)
try any of these:
or if it has a GUI, go to "Help->About"Re:OSS belongs to the community (Score:2, Interesting)
As an OSS developer myself I feel everyone is entitled to use a copy of my stuff for whatever they want. I don't feel they "own" the project though.
I mean a lot of work goes into something like a Distro [or the stuff in a Distro]. Just because you're smart enough to put a CD in and install a distro doesn't mean you're a significant contributor.
I'm all for tasteful plugging authors names.
Tom
Re:OSS belongs to the community (Score:2, Insightful)
Linux is one of the fortunates, 'cause people may easily assume it with Linux. Same with ReiserFS and MAYBE the BSD's. B is for Berkeley, it's good enough for me. Even Netscape Mozilla, Microsoft Windows, Lotus 123.
Today, I used pan. The news reader. Unless I go search, I haven't a clue who wrote pan, nor do I care. I also used Spammassassin.
What is being suggested, is th
Re:OSS belongs to the community (Score:2)
OSS is released under various different licences which specify what the copyright owner will allow the "community" to do with it (which is usually pretty unrestricted, compared with closed-source software - after all, that's the point of OSS). But the community as a whole doesn't own it.
"Where would we draw the line if we allowed credits? banner ads? annoying pleas for money? pop up windows?"
Most of us would draw the line in a sensible place, and not think a load of boll
Re:OSS belongs to the community (Score:5, Insightful)
No way. When I write OS software, I retain the copyright. The community didn't write the software, I did. I freely allow the community to make use of it in practically any manner that they see fit, but that still doesn't mean that I have lost the ownership of my work.
Re:OSS belongs to the community (Score:2)
When you write software, you retain the copyright. When you release it as OS under a BSD-style license, I would agree that you retain the copyright. You can exercise your copy rights and pull the source code off the net to start selling commercial
Re:OSS belongs to the community (Score:2)
And how's that any diferent in GPL'd code? You can also "pull your source code off the net to start selling commercial versions" with it.
Re:OSS belongs to the community (Score:2, Insightful)
everyone who writes a gnu/oss program knows what they are gettign into before they start. RMS may seek credit everywhere he goes... but he wants credit given to GNU, not for himself! Reiser, on the other ha
Give 'em credit! (Score:4, Interesting)
The way I see it, the authors deserve to have credits all over the free software that they made. And when you run free software, don't tell yourself that it's your right to take someone else's work and use it "just because." You have the right to use it because THEY gave you that right.
Re:Give 'em credit! (Score:5, Interesting)
While that's true on it's face, I would counter that making the fruits of your labor available to others in the community is not an entirely selfless act.
Really, quality OSS projects are not the work of a single person. They're the result of wide-ranging teams who, thanks to the GPL, are able to apply many eyes, ideas and approaches. That's the whole strength of OSS.
Now, I do believe it's important to give credit to those who work hard, but I also believe it's futile to toss credits in the face of someone who doesn't give a toss (and not giving a toss is a right the GPL gives you, as well).
Re:Give 'em credit! (Score:2, Insightful)
DEFAULT, you idiot (Score:2)
Re:Give 'em the shaft (Score:3, Funny)
Take it a step further, and actually read Reiser's article.. here's my favourite part. With this little gem, Hans reveals that he is totally, unequivocally out to lunch. The re
Re:Give 'em credit! (Score:2)
You suggest that credit is being stolen or snuffed, right now? Reiser is proposing to plaster advertising everywhere possible. He already puts advertising into kernel messasges, and there's a big stinking advertisment in the ReiserFS kernel infopage.
Credit is given due, and anyone who cares can find out who wrote what piece of code (thanks to the miracle of comments). Reiser wants to plaster author names as advertising.
Honestly, I don't think he's mentally healthy. I've written other comments on thi
Doubled Edged Sword (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a good idea. (Score:3, Funny)
I would like to propose that, in addition to the mandatory screensaver displaying the credits, that every fifth time you run a utility its name, version number, date of creation, and author are read through the speaker. This way, people can truly appreciate the donation of software by others. To celebrate Free Software's global approach towards solving problems, this should be subtitled on the screen in the user's native language. This way, we can truly feel the joy of helping people without compensation while being compensated for it.
Re:This is a good idea. (Score:3, Funny)
That will get people to learn author's names.
Re:This is a good idea. (Score:2)
very bad idea, if serious.
Re:This is a good idea. (Score:2)
What if you're system doesn't use GNU ls? I wrote the ls for my system. FreeBSD has another version...
That won't work. (Score:3)
$ man ls | col -b | grep -A1 'AUTHOR' | tail -1 | awk '{print $3" "$4}'
Not sure I agree with his thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
IMO, the people who are going to care are already seeing the names, either in the source or at the project websites or in CVS. To everyone else, any sort of more obtrusive crediting is just going to be obnoxious, and they're still not going to know any more names then they did before.
The whole point, if anyone still remembers the original goal of the majority of OSS projects, is to write some kick-ass code that's going to be done the Right Way, rather than the short-cutty kludgy way that most programmers are forced to code at work. To me, this includes making the software as elegant and streamlined as possible, and the various methods of ego gratification I can think of (extra splash screens, etc) seem incompatible with this.
Re:Not sure I agree with his thinking (Score:2)
This sucks. (Score:5, Interesting)
Free software is not about egos, it is about keeping software free. Forcing something like this through licensing makes the software non-free. Want the credits? Look at the source code or the documentation!!!
Re:This sucks. (Score:2)
More importantly, imagine if Reiser's view of the GPL was the norm. You write a good piece of software, someone else extends it a bit and slaps adds all over the place. You're now locked out from using their improvements unless you add in all their advertising.
This is the same nonsence that PHP-Nuke argues. And in both cases, ReiserFS and PHP-Nuke, they complain about their advertising being removed
Re:This sucks. (Score:2)
What bit of the GPL says you have to use all of a patch someone submits? The maintainer doesn't have to accept the advert + the code - you haven't thought that comment out very well.
Alex
Re:This sucks. (Score:2)
-
Maybe they should list those names in the man pages - no-one would ever think of looking there
Re:This sucks. (Score:2)
And it turns out there is no real way to reward OSS authors, no credit system, nobody (except some few developers) really knows what's the real value
Is this really a new issue? (Score:2)
From the article:
Have you ever worked a day job to fund other coders? Pure hell, let me tell you, especially if you are also so essential that time off becomes unacceptable.
Have you ever worked in a place where your work was carrying/funding dead weight on a project team? Will all due respect to Mr. Reiser, this is no different, and will probably always be an issue until everyone contributes equally to everything. Even then, what are the odds that eveyone will be credited equally?
Similarly, the pr
Yes, but (Score:3, Insightful)
Marketers would not want to "un-necessarily'" give credit. Agreed. Not every company selling (services for) open-source code might be doing it for this reason, though.
I can think of two more reasons: (a) they genuinely think that they are reducing information confusing to the (target) user; that their graphic is good; (b) they did not realize that the developers are feeling they are not getting enough credit.
There is merit in the idea that credit to people who write FOSS could be more prominent. There is also a gentler way to do this, IMHO. Like, "Hey Debian dudes! Good work on that release. BTW, my wishlist for the next one is a screensaver that would display names of authors who wrote the packages I installed. Here's a graphic for the background, and here's how I think one could go about it...".
If enough people support this idea and implement it, then the need to enforce it will not be needed. If some notable exception exists, one could consider license as a way to enforce it.
Re:Yes, but (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course feedback from end users is nice for the programmer and leads to improved software if the programmer is inclided to listen to the users, however receiving several thousand emails a day from end users of a wide
Credit (Score:5, Funny)
----------
This post copyright 2003 by http://slashdot.org/~anonymous-coward
All rights reserved.
Typing done by anonymous coward
Browser made by contributers to the mozilla project: (see bottom of this message for a full list)
OS made by contributers to the Linux kernel and GNU software, part of the GNU/Linux operating system.
OS development assisted by Redhat Corporation
Browser contributers:
A
Rut Kristin Aanestad, Matti Aarnio, Jason Ackley, Carl Adams, Tobias Adamson, Christopher A. Aillon, Juan Pablo Alcaraz, Sam Allen, Warwick Allison, Matitiahu Allouche, A. Ambrose, Nicholas Ambrose, Andrew Anderson, Mark Anderson, Ryota Ando, Mike Ang, Hiroshi Annaka, Peter Annema, Edwin Aoki, Vidur Apparao, Carlos Araya, Koichi Ariyoshi, Kevin Arnold, Akhil Arora, Marc Attinasi
B
Ninoschka Baca, Ariel Backenroth, Ryan Bacon, Rodrigo Bado, Stuart Ballard, Ralf Baechle, Bradley Baetz, Péter Bajusz, Jeffrey W. Baker, Jerry Baker, Kirk Baker, Mitchell Baker, Jay Ball, John Bandhauer, David Baron, Ricardo Batista, German Bauer, Michael Bayne, Patrick Beard, Glen Beasley, Nick Beaudrot, Nicholas Bebout, Adam Becevello, Neal Bedard, Christine Begle, Stephen Beitzel, Artem Belevich, Ruslan Belkin, Kevin Berkheiser, Juraj Betak, Pete Bevin, Gayatri Bhimaraju, David Bienvenu, Christian Biesinger, Jatin Billimoria, Eric Bina, Marlon Bishop, Colin R. Blake, Jessica Blanco, Joaquin Blas, Christopher Blizzard, Garrett Blythe, Chuck Boatwright, Brian Bober, Travis Bogard, Bozhan Boiadzhiev, Mark Bokil, Nelson Bolyard, Phillip Bond, Chris Booton, Mauro Botelho, Robert E. Boughner, Joey Bowles, Norris Boyd, Kathleen Brade, Justin Bradford, Don Bragg, Ryan Brase, Daniel Bratell, Daniel Brickley, David Brittain, Eric Broadbent, Sarah Broadwell, Tomas Brodsky, Daniel Brooks, Germaine Brown, Jeremy Browne, Erik Bruchez, Ben Bucksch, Leston Buell, Eric Burley, Edward J. Burns, Jonathan Buschmann, Grace Bush, Angela Butler-McDonald, Marc Byrd
C
Jeff Caldwell, Conrad Carlen, Bjorn Carlson, Laurel Carlson, Jan Carpenter, Evan Carter, Andrew Cassin, Ryan Cassin, Sudhakar Chandrasekharan, Gary Chan, Wan-Teh Chang, Milind Changire, Christopher S. Charabaruk, Serge Charapaev, Andrew Chatham, Paul Chek, Ray Chen, Tao Cheng, Alexey Chernyak, Troy Chevalier, Lisa Chiang, Hankin Chick, Sean Chitwood, Joe Chou, Robert Churchill, Ashley Clark, James Clark, Steve Clark, Richard Cohn, Pete Collins, Scott Collins, Don Cone, Alex Converse, Chris Cooper, Catherine Corre, Donnie Cranford, Tim Craycroft, Todd Crowe, Jim Crumley, Crysgem, Nicholas Cull, J. Shane Culpepper, Stacey Curtis
D
Steve Dagley, Denis Daly, Angus Davis, Anthony Davis, Paul Davis, Michael Dayah, Mo DeJong, John Dee, Javi Delgadillo, Tom Dell, Vince DeMarco, Prashant Desale, Crutcher Dunnavant, Harish Dhurvasula, Matthew Dillon, Patrick-James Dionisio, Steve Dobbelstein, Jeremy M. Dolan, Simford Dong, Clayton Donley, Stephen Donner, Thomas Down, Rick Downes, Asa Dotzler, George Drapeau, Chris Dreckman, Bert Driehuis, David Drinan, York Du, Alvin Duan, Micah Dubinko, Jean-FranÃois Ducarroz, Suresh Duddi, Jim Dunn, Jeff Dyer
E
Jason Eager, Rafael Ebron, Sean Echevarria, Brandon Ehle, Brendan Eich, Jan Eldenmalm, Rick Elliott, Steve Elmer, Joseph Elwell, Dawn Endico, Kai Engert, Jean-Jacques Enser, Beth Epperson, Harish Kumar Epuri, Ken Estes, Ramiro Estrugo, Matthias Ettrich, Jim Everingham
F
John Fairhurst, Gilbert Fang, Darin Fisher, David Fisher, Matt Fisher, Greg Fiumara, Werner Fleck, Alec Flett, Bret Ford, Robin Foster, Marc Fraioli, Joe Francis, Andreas Franke, Simon Fraser, Jonathan Freeman, Alan Freier, Noah Friedman, Michael J. Fromberger, Chris Fuchs, Koji Fujimoto, C. Fung, Igor Furlan, Scott Furman, Ryoichi Furukawa
G
Niccolà Gallarati, Jeff Galyan, Bruce Gao, Sean Gao, David Gardiner, Jeff Garzik, Claudius Gayle, Samir Gehani, Jim Gellman, Henrik Gemal, David Gerard, Rick Gessner, John Giannandrea, Bill Gibbons, Ro
Re:Credit (Score:2, Funny)
"First post", I think...
Re:Credit (Score:2)
Re:Credit (Score:2)
Bravo.
Although you did leave out Dennis Ritchie, Alan Turing, Charles Babbage, and the guy who invented the abacus.
Personally, I'm happy with a listing in the About box and a credits.txt file in the source code for my projects. If someone really cares who wrote the code, chances are they know where to look.
I hate software that makes you sit through a credits
Oh please (Score:5, Insightful)
He should be more concerned with the quality of his software, not with his ego problems. Personally, I find this disgusting. If someone wants to know who wrote the software, he can read the README or ask google.
I don't even have the slightest reference in my free software source code that point back to me, I don't even use huge copyright comments in my software like the GNU project generally does, and yet people have offered me jobs and asked me about my software many times. In general, the people who want to know who wrote the software, do.
Those who try to rub it in their face all the time will cheapen free software for everyone. It's like the "I'm so important!1!!" freeware movement from MS-DOS, and I barely remember a single author from all the software that rubbed their copyright messages it in my face all the time. In contrast, I even learned to know several free software authors personally!
Hans, people are losing data with your file system. I know because I did. Twice. Then I looked at your fsck code and it stunk to the high heavens. You should be concerned with that, not with putting your name in the face of more people.
And what would be the next step? To insert a few seconds delay so people have a chance to see your messages better? Puleeze!
Re:Oh please (Score:2)
I am all for giving credit where it is due, and I think commercial Linux distros should make a serious effort to thank those who've made their products possible, and contrib
Re:Oh please (Score:2)
As another commenter wrote "This can be tastefully done easily" as Hans has never done. My first exposure to Reiser was the kernel module info page, which, paraphrased and summarized said "if you want features, pay us money and we'll put them in". I had never seen an advertisement in GPL software before, and thank god I haven't seen one since. That stunk of unprofessional, badly designed code. The evidence is in the word-of-mouth reviews: ReiserFS has become incompatible with itself several times even
Maybe because of metadata journaling (Score:2)
That would explain it... (Score:3, Informative)
a fairly unpleasant thread [debian.org] started by Mr. Reiser himself.
He has a point, but surely it doesn't hurt to be slightly less aggressive on these matters. Unless he enjoys being credited as an asshole...
Re:That would explain it... (Score:3, Informative)
Good idea, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
And, you'd have balkanization on how it should be implemented. Boot messages? Splash screens? If users get annoyed with these, they'd want to turn them off, and someone would find a way to do so. If a user wants to know who wrote a piece of free software, many times this is not difficult to obtain.
I guess I just see it as being une
"Linux software" ??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Erm.. Is Python or Perl or Apache or Emacs - "Linux software"? What about FreeBSD or OpenBSD - that's hardly "Linux software"...
I'm surprised to see someone as knowledgeable as Riser make such a blunder - or is it intentional?
Clearly Hans has gone senile... (Score:2)
Screensavers with credits? Splashscreens with credits?
No-one wants this shit. If Hans wants to put it it reiserfs, let him feel free to, but I'll compile it all out, or switch to XFS.
A little confused.... (Score:2)
b) I just have this horrible vision of millions of lines of credits buzzing past the screen as Linux boots...
Give them credit, sure. Congrats to all the authors of the software on my box. But perhaps we are confusing who will see it, and whether they care. Having credits != giving credit.
a) above is for those that reall
For God’s sake, just get off the screen! (Score:2, Interesting)
"I propose that we as a community insist that all distros make the default screensaver be one that randomly displays a different detailed credit for one of the authors of Linux software every 60 seconds."
This will certainly be the doom for open source software, specially Linux. Would you, or any company use software that displayed beards and glasses every minute? Let me answer that for you: -For God's sake, I'll pay for It! just get off the screen!
I write code, that's it. (Score:2, Interesting)
No one cares (Score:3, Insightful)
If people want to know who wrote the software they'll just look it up. I mean in GUI software there is an "About" dialog that exists solely for info such as stuff in cli utils at the start of the program you can put name of author and email address as most other people do. Or through it into a --help argc or something.
Also the idea of having someones name plastered all over your personal computer doesn't make it feel that personal anymore. A user will just begin to tune the shit out, and if you write shit like BIND or BitchX etc you catch enough flack.
Control or free software. (Score:4, Insightful)
You can either have control, or you can write free software.
Period.
No! (Score:3, Informative)
Speaking for myself, I certainly wouldn't want to slap such a clause to anything I wrote. First, I think the egoboo factor is totally overstated. For instance, I wrote a small vocab building app called gretools [sourceforge.net]. I wrote it to scratch a personal itch: to help me with my gre preparation. Ego satisfaction had nothing to do with it. I released it only as an afterthought. Second, what's the point of having J. Random user being being forced to see your name? If you want to build a reputation as a programmer, you would want to build up that reputation with other programmers, which is what you get currenty because your name is in the source. In suspect, most users could consider it as unwanted ads/annoyance. We're trying to get people to use OSS by removing annoyances (like popup blocking), introducing our own forms of annoyance is self defeating. Third, Reiser specifically wants political statements irremovable and visible to users. This is bad. Being free means creating software without trying to impose your idealogy on others. There are practical problems too. You are unnecessarily limiting your user base. If, for instance, your political message included praise for the Falun Gong, it could well lead to any distro that includes your package being banned in the PRC, because you made your statement irremovable. I wonder how many programmers would choose to adopt such a license. Fourth, OSS companies are trying hard to stay afloat and make some money. The better these companies survive, the better your chances of becoming/staying gainfully employed coding Free software. Give them a chance. Don't view them as capitalist evil and impede them from establishing a brand.
That's just my opinion. You are free to pick your license.
I am so sick... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whether it's pop-up ads, spam, TV inset-credit ads, junk mail, telemarketing, ATM fees, TV channel logos, billboards, etc. The long and annoying list goes on and on and keeps growing.
More and more, I'm getting pissed off about the multitude of intrusions on my time and attention. If I cared about whether brand A was better than brand B, i'd look into it myself, otherwise it's just an annoyance to be so informed.
If anyone is particularly interested, or if the software is remarkable in some way, i.e. small, useful, or innovative, then people will find out who's responsible for authoring that piece of work if they care.
But if they don't, then they don't want to endure YET ANOTHER GOD-DAMNED AD.
If the software authors want credit for their work, that's fine, I don't begrudge them that. I'm a software author myself. In fact, I co-wrote one of the most popular ray-tracing programs out there, and my name is on the list of contributors.
The actual software never had my name in it, just in the docs, but people knew me, and had no problem finding out who I was and how to get a hold of me for questions and advice.
I still can list the software on my resume, if I feel that it's relevant to the position I'm seeking. When I do, most people recognise or have heard of it. The fame is still there waiting, bottled up until needed
Anyhow, without being overbearingly egotistical, I managed to get and enjoy my 15 minutes of fame without pissing anyone off and without cramming my name down everyone's throat.
Reiser (Score:2)
my POV (Score:3, Informative)
Personally I feel credit is given to me in various ways.
- Downloads counts stay fairly consistent and gradually seem to be rising.
- Occasional email saying that they like it or even better sometimes coupled witha request for new feature or bug.
- Simply doing a google of my project shows sites all over the place.
I figure people who give me credit on their own free will, by performing their own reviews and such good or bad, that certainly helps me to make better software and that is all i really want to do anyhow. It is diifcult enough to write something unique and useful these days and on top of that stand out in the mix of commerical apps. So people who have contributed to the linux kernal have obivous unspoken credit that they know companies like RedHat are using thier work, likewise with mozilla developers one being funded by AOL to some extent as wellas being used in AOL's software, to me that is credit and prestige that is pretty rare for most of the OSS projects out there.One day I hope to see my stuff being reused elsewhere, and as long as they just say it somewhere that i helped out, I couldn't ask for more.
Should licenses protect credits? (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, the moment you say that these credits cannot be removed (or suppressed from being displayed by default) then you no longer have a fully free license. That's what the problem was with the old BSD license with the advertising clause (that used to make BSD code incompatible with the GPL until that was removed), and that's the same problem with invarient sections in the GNU Free Documentation License that caused such a stink recently. The GPL doesn't allow any additional restrictions either, and since Hans' code is available under the GPL, the best he can do is ask that people are respectful of the credits. There's no legal recourse if they aren't (other than maybe to get mad, and quit GPL'ing future versions). This leads to the question -- maybe there should be a new free software license that attempts to protect author credits while remaining otherwise free?
That said, I'd have to say that anyone who would remove credits from free software simply because the license doesn't (or can't) prohibit it is being a rude parasite. A good member of the community has more respect for the contributions of others.
Adobe Photoshop (Score:3, Interesting)
I think a good way to credit a large number of developers, is to make a splash screen with the bottom quarter scrolling the names of authors/contributors. The user would simply have to click to proceed. That's unobtrusive and might even generate some interest in the user - who might one day stop and read the whole list.
Or perhaps instead of requiring a click, have the splash screen time out after a few seconds, but put a button on it labeled "click here for the credits!" - again unobtrusive.
But that still doesn't take care of stuff that doesn't have a GUI - like ReiserFS.
Re:Adobe Photoshop (Score:2)
I personally like Windows 3.1's credits system. It's an easter egg within the program (windows 3.1 was not an operating system
Tough issue (Score:2)
I'm also not sure I agree with the FSF' new documentation license that's coming out, having "invariable sections".
It's very simple. What RedHat's doing is plaguarism. They have replaced the KDE symbol with one of their own; this implied to end-users that RedHat made it
"Most prominently displayed" clause (Score:2, Interesting)
Remember "MacPaint by Bill Atkinson"?. For years, that appeared at the top of eve
2 points (Score:5, Interesting)
One, I'm currently in the process of re-reading "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" by ESR. In it, he discusses how ego boosting is by nature frowned upon. I'm surprised that Hans has felt compelled to take this point up.
Two, as others have pointed out, there are plenty of ways for authors to get recognition in a project.
Bottom line: grow up Hans.
P.S. random "unknown" hackers
- Larry Wall
- Linus Torvalds
- Richard Stallman
- Andrew Tigdell
- Guido van Rossum
But Hans is right, programmers don't get credit for their work.Re:2 points (Score:3, Funny)
Wow, now THATS ironic!!
I'm not liking it (Score:2, Interesting)
IIRC, Linus didn't name the kernel Linux, but indended to use some other (quite lame) name. It was the guy hosting it on ftp that namned the directory Linux, and such it became.
While I agree that authors should have credit, I don't think there's any special need to enforce it. I know that a guy at LiTH wrote the file manager I ue (gnome-commander), I know RMS wrote Emacs, gcc and gdb. I know Larry Wall did Perl. Linus did Linux, along with Allan C
Ego Removal Software (Score:2, Insightful)
If the ego of these people is so big that the only way they will feel better is having people bow down and acknowledge that without them how mislerable our lives would be, then, I suggest that these assholes be asked to move to a platform which supp
I support giving credits, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree with Hans about the academic culture's value of giving credits. However, there are two points worth mentioning.
About Dialogue: This is another place wh
This is not about fair credit (Score:5, Insightful)
Have no illusions -- this is what Hans Reiser is worried about, his business. The morality of giving credit-where-due is a red herring.
The debate that sparked this off was Debian removing 20-something lines of crap about sponsors from mkreiserfs. That scares him, because it weakens his power in promoting his sponsors and his brand.
To which I say tough. The GPL was written to ensure that users could make software serve them. If a GPLed program spews unhelpful messages, then anybody has the right to remove them. Incidentally, it's undoubtedly justified in this case, when there's a screenful of rubbish, and the program is regularly used in stressful, recovery situations, potentially on a terminal with no scrollback.
Nobody, I imagine, advocates removing authorship credits entirely, but the GPL does not guarantee free promotion for your company, sponsors, or anything else. If that's what you wanted, you were plain stupid to choose the GPL in the first place.
I agree.. (Score:3, Insightful)
How many slashdot readers run adware.. and why?.. how long might it be before 'free' software which had advertising in this manner decided that 'trading' adverts with other software authors would increase their user base? Really, it wouldn't take very much bending of the rules before free software looked like free websites. And do we really want geocities on our desktops?
The screensaver could be cool (Score:2)
Good point, but why license? (Score:2, Insightful)
People First (Score:2)
That we do so much to suppress the individual is the main reason why some many people find Ayn Rand a breath of fresh air. It is wonderful to read a work that extols the individual, even if the work gets a bit silly at times.
Except for a few CEOs, the w
Re:People First (Score:3, Informative)
Engineers and architects off the top of my head: Frank Lloyd Wright, IM Pei, RF Walters (Hoover Dam), Gustave Eiffel, Edward Deming, Filippo di ser Brunelleschi, Alberti...
In mathematics, the most abstract of all studies, you will find almost every major theorem attributed to a mathematician. The same is true in physics, biology, paleontology, etc.
More important than the people who achieve super
Splash screens are no better than pop-ups (Score:2)
Or maybe developers could start adding Help -> Credits menus to software.
I do think it's important that developers get credit, but do it in a way that's not counter productive to the end users of the software.
Just like PBS... (Score:2)