Beer:30:
Bravo! Great post. What's interesting is that I brought the topic of "open source" into
my discusion with JB -- not of software program source code (which applies to me), but of information sharing. I.e. putting the "guts" of CTE on display, in all their glory, so that the system can be looked at, written up, talked about, improved upon (
this part is key). I know John supports the concept of open source related to information sharing, and when he brought up the phrase, "Creative Commons" -- I knew he'd done his research and due diligence. (Or he was already well aware of its existence.)
And you're correct -- taking measures to privatize the information goes against the very concept of open source. I'm sure this is the background that Dr. Dave comes from -- most of academia and the educational institutions subscribe to the concept of open source. So he (Dr. Dave) links to other material, perhaps embeds it, to give attribution to the original author. And giving attribution to others before you is a key concept of open source. You see it in the SCCS headers of all open source program source code -- attributions galore. Which surprised me about John -- he wants to give attribution to Hal Houle (
there's absolutely no doubt about that), but he wants to privatize the information. So it's "sort of" an open source, but yet not.
Maybe this is just a phase, a sort of knee jerk to the initial stages of "code review" that John is taking exception to (which all new "code" goes through -- it's the scrutinizing Phase 1 and can't be avoided, unfortunately), but then it'll open up later. We'll see. I myself eagerly await knowing why CTE arrives at the correct contact point to pocket the ball, even if I myself may or may not use it. We're all pool fanatics here, so any topic like this is definitely apropros!
-Sean