commercial templates bad for the community?

[Macciza]

Hi,
As a hypothetical question -
So lets say you posted it to the Liine Library and some one took your project , whacked their name on it, built a website and started selling it ?
What would your response be?

That is the crux of the discussion in my opinion - Where do we draw the line and how?

Cheers

[Rolix]

Hi,

Indeed, there's alot of source running under licences which allow use in commercial projects. And there's a lot of websites providing free code samples or even programs along with their source to use in your own projects. Software development has a long history of learning by and building with each others code.

Of course - and you have a point here - I'd not appreciate someone take my complete template, change a few colors and sell it under their name. But if I'd want to make sure this doesn't happen I'd not publish it and code a real app instead.

Commercial projects like enChord and reChorder - i bought both of them btw - take alot of time and consideration, not just copying a few bits of code from other templates. GUI design alone can take a long time without writing a single line of code. Deciding on the feature set, developing different prototypes, refactoring code to make it maintainable in the long run - there so much more to going into an application than typing a few lines of code. Claiming copyright for all of this work is ok for me.

Where do we draw the line, good question. I'm convinced that Lemur needs good templates, commercial or not. I think we should all be interested in helping each other building them, as this will keep Liine and Lemur alive. Accusing others of theft without any proof can only do harm. Accusing others of theft because they implement a certain feature that's allready been implemented in former templates can only do harm. Even if the code looks identical this must not mean theft, since the limited scripting language of Lemur only offers a specific solution for specific problems, there's simply no other way of doing certain things.

Maybe the question should be: do we want Liine and Lemur to succeed?

[Traxus]

The discussion is not really against others gain, which can be substantial - 100 copies of a $25 project is $2500 - $25 is half of Lemurs price but have they done half of the work in making their project? I don't think so. Perhaps they should develop in Xcode and sell through iTunes and pay Apple, rather than using Lemur . . .

Sorry, that doesn't hold ground with me. vBulletin cost $250 a liscence and is written in PHP which is free. Have they done "can't divide by zero" percent of the work?

As I've stated before, if anything, paying for the environment gives the developer more reason to go commercial. Once someone buys your type writer the decision as to how to distribute what they produce with it is their choice.

What I worry is that everyone is seeing this as too black and white. There are tons of analogous situations where a healthy symbiosis exists and most of us who have checked out of this thread tend to agree the solution is in that gray area.

[Macciza]

Hi
@Rolix - Yes and there is also a lot of source running under various licenses that fall in-between those extremes (of allowing commercial use vs public domain) that require open-source, return to community etc
One of the most fundamental principles in use of code published under these various licenses is that you abide by them and don't simply remove the copyright notices - Commercial products generally have to be very careful of such things . . .
I did not think you would like someone to sell your template as their work - And the 'not publishing it' because of that is part of the potential problem that I see here. And yes I agree that it would be far better for these people to code a 'real app' as I have said previously . . .
Without wanting to appear to be 'casting aspersions', did you you buy those projects before or after starting on your own chord project, and how would you feel if they claimed you are infringing on 'their' copyright because of that?
The same amount of work that you mention can go into the creation of 'open-source, non-commercial projects' so the same continuum should apply, and yet you seem to be argue that such developers should not be able to claim copyright limiting non-commercial use.
Yes - that it what I am concerned about - Where do we draw the line and how do we implement it? There were many extremely good free projects available before people started making 'commercial' projects, how do we protect them?
I have been careful not to directly accuse anyone of theft, though I have raised the fact that it is certainly increasingly possible under a commercial model, and that the means of detecting such are somewhat difficult.
Yes I think we all want Liine/Lemur to succeed - though I think the more important question is 'how' and with what sort of community - open or closed?

@ Traxus - Sorry, but I do have to point out that you are taking a very 'black and white' viewpoint there regarding vBulletin. It is licensed to you with certain restrictions on what you can and can't do with it. And PHP is published under a PHP license as well with certain restrictions.
And PHP is quite careful to comply with the licensing of all the various sub-parts that it uses to make up its functionality. The PHP website code is also copyrighted with certain restrictions as well, such as ' . .not remove any copyright or other proprietary notices contained in the documents and information . . '.
Regardless of whether something is paid for or not, there is still an obligation to abide by the rules. If you bought a typewriter that had a license that stated certain licensing requirements you still have to abide by them, it not simply 'your choice' - your choice is whether you wish to buy an 'open or closed' system.
And that typewriter may very well have numerous conditions - it probably recognises and mentions the copyright of the various parts that contribute to it as a whole - You could not, for instance, print out a copy of the fonts it uses and then sell that as product without abiding by the requisite licensing.
And yes I am concerned about the 'black/white' dichotomy - that is why I am concerned by what appears to be a " 'commercials' are able to copyright, but 'non-commercial open-sourceist' are not " - and why I am bothering to discuss this at such length . . .

And again - I am not stating that there is no place for 'commercial' products, but rather that to maintain the 'healthy symbiosis' in the community, there needs to be discussion and some sort of ' general licensing scheme ' that is adhered to . . .
And so far it seems that the 'commercial interests' are claiming far more 'rights' over what they have produced than has been claimed by the preceding, dominant, open-source community approach that has existed . . . We are now as concerned about our 'free' work as they are about their 'paid' work . . .

Cheers

[Rolix]

Hi
@Rolix - [...]
Without wanting to appear to be 'casting aspersions', did you you buy those projects before or after starting on your own chord project, and how would you feel if they claimed you are infringing on 'their' copyright because of that?
[...]
Cheers

I bought them before, and they inspired me to code HarmEx as they showed me what Lemur is capable of (and how much I lack musical knowledge - can't really use them). They also inspired me to try to do some things more user friendly, like starting the template without a blast of notes and displaying chord and note names. Concerning the infringement: they'd had to proof their claim, which they can't as I coded all by myself. I'd however stop publishing my templates if infringement wars would become too much.

[...]
There were many extremely good free projects available before people started making 'commercial' projects, how do we protect them?
[...]

What do you want to protect? If I publish a template without claiming copyright for it I do this knowing that it may be abused commercially. It's always been that way. As long as I'm having fun coding templates and as long I and others enjoy using them, I'm happy. I can't imagine anyone can get rich by selling Lemur templates. If I understand you correctly you're afraid that people stop publishing free templates because of commercial abuse?

There's yet another aspect to commercial Lemur projects I haven't seen mentioned yet, and that's long term maintanance and support. Open source can be and is abandoned anytime. Commercial projects, at least in my view, include the duty for their author to provide proper documentation, longterm support and maintanance. Otherwise their business won't last long.

Cheers,
Roland

[Traxus]

Hi,
As a hypothetical question -
So lets say you posted it to the Liine Library and some one took your project , whacked their name on it, built a website and started selling it ?
What would your response be?

Depends on how much income they were pulling in for themselves.

@ Traxus - Sorry, but I do have to point out that you are taking a very 'black and white' viewpoint there regarding vBulletin. It is licensed to you with certain restrictions on what you can and can't do with it. And PHP is published under a PHP license as well with certain restrictions.
And PHP is quite careful to comply with the licensing of all the various sub-parts that it uses to make up its functionality. The PHP website code is also copyrighted with certain restrictions as well, such as ' . .not remove any copyright or other proprietary notices contained in the documents and information . . '.

Right, but you are permitted to sell add-ons to vbulletin, such as vbSEO and others that utilize their framework. Sure, you can't simply re package any of the aforementioned products as your own and sell them, that's a given and we've all tried to cover that to our of best abilities. But I see a lemur template much the way I see a product/plugin for vbulletin, you're not redistributing core, you're redistributing and aftermarket addition created with the tool set so I find it hard to draw an analogy. Vbulletin.org works much the way this forum does and I can guarantee not all of that work gets put out for free (they even have a paid requests section).

Regardless of whether something is paid for or not, there is still an obligation to abide by the rules. If you bought a typewriter that had a license that stated certain licensing requirements you still have to abide by them, it not simply 'your choice' - your choice is whether you wish to buy an 'open or closed' system.
And that typewriter may very well have numerous conditions - it probably recognises and mentions the copyright of the various parts that contribute to it as a whole - You could not, for instance, print out a copy of the fonts it uses and then sell that as product without abiding by the requisite licensing.
And yes I am concerned about the 'black/white' dichotomy - that is why I am concerned by what appears to be a " 'commercials' are able to copyright, but 'non-commercial open-sourceist' are not " - and why I am bothering to discuss this at such length . . .

Well, typewriters only have one font but I see what you're saying. Again, that is redistribution of someone else's core. So lets say lemur evolved to where we could code our own objects (drool), lets also say a market was created for said objects. This would be akin to taking all of lemurs default objects and selling their source code as your own (assuming perhaps that there were also other products on the market that could accept this object format the way VST is a standard for DAWs). As far as copyrights go, if you produce it first and can prove that you did, you generally have the prior art thing working in your favor. Dealing with that can be a major pain in the ass. (Luckily) the lemur template market isn't super profitable so patent trolling isn't a worthwhile endeavor. I mean if someone stole one of my ideas and made $1,000,000 off of it you can bet I'd lawyer up as fast as the rest of us, but I honestly struggle to wonder whether lemur has 20,000 users (grossing $1mil to liine). As I've said before, the primary benefit, at least to me, for commercializing is that I am able to show income under an LLC, whereby I can write off DJ software, hardware, app, and maybe even music purchases on my taxes and I'm more than satisfied with that exchange. I'm not sure what other people's motives are.