Open Source Considerations (was: Re: Any 6502 devs for hire?)

On 5/5/2022 6:39 PM, Nejat Dilek wrote:
>
>
> I'm not interested in 1581 stuff so I didn't watch that project 
> closely. Now that you mention it I hopped on to forum64 to watch the 
> drama but original designer (toms01) seemed ok with everything going 
> on around that 1581 replica.

His "I don't care about it anyway" I feel was in response to the posting 
above #675 in the Replica 1581 thread, where someone was worried he was 
greatly upset about the clone.  Even in that same message, he is worried 
for the folks who forked over money to source the kits for sale.  And, 
in private comms to me, the tone was one of some lament, I felt.

I just think it is bad form to join a thread, seeing there's a community 
project to source all the parts and the PCB for a replica, buy one of 
the kits, and then turn around and make a clone from the clone, 
stripping the author of the clone design from the PCB, etc. And, to my 
original point, toms01 notes in the same response that he guesses he 
should obfuscate the CMD PCB designs he made.
> Investigating further I see cloning (though not adding some features) 
> a 1581 board dates at least back to 15 years ago.
> Since it's done commercially (I'm talking about clone's clone here) 
> it's up to personal opinion of course but the original work being done 
> seems not much different from documentation we easily consume over the 
> web about these retro computers. Once software is involved though it's 
> another topic of discussion. Lack of such intellectual property (such 
> as in this case) of course makes copying or defending copying easier.
> I'm not undervaluing the reverse engineering effort put into that 
> replica of course but in the end without any extra intellectual 
> property it's doomed to be copied. (Especially if also there is 
> sufficient interest too.)
>
I submit that if folks are willing to grab a kit of a clone and then 
clone that kit and sell it, I don't think intellectual property 
considerations will make a difference.  If toms01 releases the PLD files 
and the PCB design for the RAMLink, I'd wager there will be handful of 
clones on the market within 3 months. That's the sad part about people 
in the community.  I know I'm just stating the obvious, but this is what 
makes it more difficult to just put all the code and files online.

And, I wonder if it prevents people on this list and others who have the 
same incredible capability to reverse engineer and design from even 
getting started, because they'd want to release and they know some jerk 
will just take the files and make a quick buck.  If true, that's even 
more sad.

Jim

-- 
Jim Brain
brain_at_jbrain.com  
www.jbrain.com