Friend of mine and I were talking about the history of copyright which is, really, a modern phenomena. We did, you know, build Western Civilization without it. The concept came along at a late stage. The tide of history may be turning against the concept. It happens. The value of copyright was questioned and debated at the time of the founding of the US. Thomas Jefferson was leery of the whole idea and wanted the Constitution to be far, far more restrictive on the matter than it ended up being (ultimately, he was right, corporations are now abusing copyright and patent to our detriment, Jefferson's ideas should have been incorporated in the Constitution, we'd be in much better shape than we are now).
Along the way, though, came the GPL. Which I, myself, consider brilliant (though I reserve comment on version 3, I haven't read much about it yet but the basic idea is great). The GPL took us a partial step back toward the way we handled things before the monopoly grants we call "copyright" and "patent" (and they are monopoly grants, not "rights").
Consider the pre-copyright era (which was the greater part of our history). The old wandering minstrel had no "copyright" but was given money based on whatever value people assigned to his performance. A really good minstrel gained in reputation and could make more money.
The GPL is somewhat similar in that there are "performances" going on all over the place. Many to suit the "performers" own needs or wants or simply for the fun of it. There's a big exchange going on in which I may do a "performance" of something I need that also happens to suit the needs of others and they can benefit. I benefit from tons of other "performances" going on that just happen to suit my needs.
So far so good.
But I think we're at an early stage of a major component of the pre-copyright era. Patronage.
You can, these days, toss some coins in the "hat" of the "performer" via something like a PayPal donation but I think we could do better. We also have some foundations that allow for patronage by corporations. But what I think we're missing something.
This isn't my idea, it was my friend's. But he passed away not long after Katrina and never got a chance to get this going and see if it would work. I'm going to toss it out and see if maybe it'll get somebody out there thinking as I'm not able to spend the time trying to make it fly.
Patronage used to be done by the very wealthy. They had the money to commission an artist to do a painting or play or opera or whatever. Spend a year or two or not having to do anything but their art. And we still do that to some degree but with the Internet, we could do something I think would be very, very interesting.
Suppose you could sign up as a patron and debit $10 a month out of your checking account. Then you "vote", is it were, on the programmers you think are doing the best work in the community. A kind of ranking system where you're saying "25% should go to X, 10% to Y" and such like.
Suppose you could sign up 50,000 people to do the same. That's $500,000 per *month to be distributed.
Some people may kick in more per month, some may not be able to afford but a few bucks here and there when they get the chance. But the thing about this is that you don't have to have tens of millions of people participating to build up a hell of a "kitty" to disburse.
Since my friend passed away, I don't know where all his research into the matter has gone even though I was the executor of his estate and had to go through all his paperwork. So all I can do at this point is put a bug in some ears. See what happens.
Hell, I'd kick in $10 a month so some of the really good programmers out there could just crank out code all day. Not have to go work for some corporation that would have a marketing department pushing them around. Or just reward somebody who did a really useful widget on the side and released it under the GPL.
I imagine it would have to be some "foundation" or other and legal
Unless they can find a way to stop me from leaving the room, I still won't see their ads.
I see the "If you make your customers mad and hate you, you'll make more money" school of marketing is alive and well...
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Friend of mine and I were talking about the history of copyright which is, really, a modern phenomena. We did, you know, build Western Civilization without it. The concept came along at a late stage. The tide of history may be turning against the concept. It happens. The value of copyright was questioned and debated at the time of the founding of the US. Thomas Jefferson was leery of the whole idea and wanted the Constitution to be far, far more restrictive on the matter than it ended up being (ultimately, he was right, corporations are now abusing copyright and patent to our detriment, Jefferson's ideas should have been incorporated in the Constitution, we'd be in much better shape than we are now).
Along the way, though, came the GPL. Which I, myself, consider brilliant (though I reserve comment on version 3, I haven't read much about it yet but the basic idea is great). The GPL took us a partial step back toward the way we handled things before the monopoly grants we call "copyright" and "patent" (and they are monopoly grants, not "rights").
Consider the pre-copyright era (which was the greater part of our history). The old wandering minstrel had no "copyright" but was given money based on whatever value people assigned to his performance. A really good minstrel gained in reputation and could make more money.
The GPL is somewhat similar in that there are "performances" going on all over the place. Many to suit the "performers" own needs or wants or simply for the fun of it. There's a big exchange going on in which I may do a "performance" of something I need that also happens to suit the needs of others and they can benefit. I benefit from tons of other "performances" going on that just happen to suit my needs.
So far so good.
But I think we're at an early stage of a major component of the pre-copyright era. Patronage.
You can, these days, toss some coins in the "hat" of the "performer" via something like a PayPal donation but I think we could do better. We also have some foundations that allow for patronage by corporations. But what I think we're missing something.
This isn't my idea, it was my friend's. But he passed away not long after Katrina and never got a chance to get this going and see if it would work. I'm going to toss it out and see if maybe it'll get somebody out there thinking as I'm not able to spend the time trying to make it fly.
Patronage used to be done by the very wealthy. They had the money to commission an artist to do a painting or play or opera or whatever. Spend a year or two or not having to do anything but their art. And we still do that to some degree but with the Internet, we could do something I think would be very, very interesting.
Suppose you could sign up as a patron and debit $10 a month out of your checking account. Then you "vote", is it were, on the programmers you think are doing the best work in the community. A kind of ranking system where you're saying "25% should go to X, 10% to Y" and such like.
Suppose you could sign up 50,000 people to do the same. That's $500,000 per *month to be distributed.
Some people may kick in more per month, some may not be able to afford but a few bucks here and there when they get the chance. But the thing about this is that you don't have to have tens of millions of people participating to build up a hell of a "kitty" to disburse.
Since my friend passed away, I don't know where all his research into the matter has gone even though I was the executor of his estate and had to go through all his paperwork. So all I can do at this point is put a bug in some ears. See what happens.
Hell, I'd kick in $10 a month so some of the really good programmers out there could just crank out code all day. Not have to go work for some corporation that would have a marketing department pushing them around. Or just reward somebody who did a really useful widget on the side and released it under the GPL.
I imagine it would have to be some "foundation" or other and legal
Unless they can find a way to stop me from leaving the room, I still won't see their ads. I see the "If you make your customers mad and hate you, you'll make more money" school of marketing is alive and well...