[License-discuss] exploring the attachment between the author and the code

[Thorsten Glaser]

Christopher Sean Morrison via License-discuss dixit:

>This exploration is a beautiful change of pace that I can get behind,

Agreed, something positive for once!

[…]
>across multiple projects, but I actually don’t perceive any of it as
>“my code” even where the inception, authorship, and sharing are 100%
>me.
>
>In my world view, the code belongs to all and can’t or at least
>shouldn’t be “owned” once it’s Open. I wrote it, but it’s not “mine”.
>It WAS mine … before I shared it, before it was “performed”, before it
[…]

Let me contribute a counter interpretation:

It’s mine, I crafted the work, so I have a certain amount of pride
in it (“Werksstolz” in German). However I’m standing on the shoulders
of giants (those who created Unix/BSD, MuseScore, the canon of the
fandom I’m writing fanfics for, etc.) and therefore cannot even think
of not publishing my work under Copyfree terms (doesn’t mean I don’t
wish for some kind of recognisation sometimes though).

That’s incidentally also one of the reasons for me to proactively
choose “copycentre”/Copyfree over copyleft (which I used to use for
a few years): it doesn’t matter if a company “steals” my work and
“makes it¹ proprietary” — au contraire, it increases my pride. It,
after all, must have been good enough they chose it over something
else or doing it themselves from scratch.

(My work being shipped on over 2½ billion active Android devices
is probably something we agree I can be proud of. Even if it is
just a side project of the thing I really want to do.)

① Not it anyway — just their copy of it.

>To quote author Ursula Le Gain, “Nothing is yours.  It is to use.  It
>is to share. If you will not share it, you cannot use it.” Of course, I
>accept my world view is unconventional and to each their own.

Ooh, I need to read more Ursula Le Gain. Thanks for the quote!

bye,
//mirabilos
-- 
FWIW, I'm quite impressed with mksh interactively. I thought it was much
*much* more bare bones. But it turns out it beats the living hell out of
ksh93 in that respect. I'd even consider it for my daily use if I hadn't
wasted half my life on my zsh setup. :-) -- Frank Terbeck in #!/bin/mksh