Re: [Paddlewise] Boat Design

On Sat, Aug 14, 2004 at 01:01:27AM -0700, Elias Ross wrote:
> It was interesting reading about software and kayaks:  I spend a bit of 
> my free time and some work time developing "free software", which is 
> "free as in freedom".  I'm many of you out there have heard of Linux, or 
> maybe the web browser Mozilla or HTTP server Apache.

Or "the Internet", which would not exist with open-source software,
and was busy being constructed on it long before the term "open-source"
was coined and added to the lexicon.

See, for example:

	Information Wants to be Valuable
	http://www.netaction.org/articles/freesoft.html

It's not an accident that every significant Internet technology developed
in the past 20+ years has been created and refined in this environment:
open-source facilitates peer review, sharing of ideas, collaboration, and
continuous improvement -- which is why the aberration of closed-source is
rapidly dying, a development which scares the hell out of some people.

> Software design isn't exactly boat design, in that boats are probably 
> best designed by one hand.  Does this analogy make any sense? 
> And--currently--designs can't be protected like software can.

Actually, they can (depending on which legal jurisdiction you find
yourself in) be copyrighted or patented, as applicable.   I'm not
necessarily saying this is a good thing or a bad thing, I'm just
saying that it's a possibility.

> If kayak designs were like free software, expert paddles and even 
> average paddlers might contribute changes or suggestions.  (People can 
> make suggestions now, but let's say the designer ignored your pleas: 
> Your own changes could be incorporated in a related design.)  What if 
> there was a "bug" database for kayaks, where design defects or 
> suggestions could be tracked?

This is an interesting idea.  Whitewater slalom kayak/canoe designs are
licensed: the way it works is that every boat made using design X results
in a fee to the person(s) who came up with design X.  But since the
major driving forces behind changes in the designs are universal, it's
not uncommon for multiple designers to independently come up with the
same kinds of changes (e.g. forward shift in C-2 cockpits in the 90's)
at the same time.  Happily, nobody seems to get very upset about this:
I think in part this is because nearly everyone knows nearly everyone
else and getting snippy about it would serve no useful purpose.

	[ Compare and constrast with the flurry of completely ridiculous
	software patents -- a silly concept to begin with -- being rammed
	through an absolutely computer-illiterate USPTO, to whom the
	phrase "prior art" and the concept "obviousness" seem to have
	no meaning whatsoever.	This approach is being used by companies
	which can't compete on merit to strangle competition and innovation
	with litigation.  See "SCO" or the man behind their curtain, Microsoft. ]

Anyway, the sharing of data might be easier to accomplish in this
sphere because people are used to it: with very few exceptions, most
folks are quite amenable to passing along their ideas and discoveries
for the mutual benefit of all.  That sort of mindset may make it
easier to establish a common pool of knowledge than in some other
areas...or at least, I hope so: we should have all figured out by
now that together we know far more than we do separately.

---Rsk
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