ImageDisk project is canceled

[Tony Duell]

> > Are you seriously suggesting you think that the Internet would be better
> > if everything was charged for? No free downloads of old manuals like on
> > bitsavers, for example (somebody spent time scanning those, converting
> > them to pdf, etc). No free schematics on hpmuseum.net (I spent hundreds,
> > no make that thousands. of hours drawing those out), etc.
> >
> 
> I was refering to new work done for people other then yourself. If you made

I suspect (without proof) that much of the free stuff on the net is there 
because the author wanted it for himself first and thoguht it might be of 
use to others. That is certainly true of those few programs I've 
released. I needed to do that job myself, and thought the solution might 
help others.

> As far as free downloads on the internet I have mixed feelings about that.
> If you are working on old non comercial equipment and need manuals that are
> no longer available commercialy then yes, a free download would be handy.
> But with the legal system the way it is today is offering that manual for
> downloading legal or not? If I went to the effort of manualy scanning in the

I am pretty sure that in a lot of cases it is illegal. Some manufactuers, 
though, have given permission for manuals for their obsolete products to 
be given out in this way.

> manual for Desqview/X 2.0 into a PDF and distributed it on the net for free
> do I have the legal right to do it even if it is not supported or sold
> anymore? I would think if some enterprising person could get around the
> lagalities of providing PDF manuals for old no longer commercial equipment
> for say $.25 a download he could probably make a business model out of it.

There are companyies who sell copies of radio/tv/etc service manuals. I 
am not sure if they get permission to do so (I assume they must do), but 
they certainly exist.

I've dealt with a few. I am happy to pay for a printed manual, but 
because a pdf file is a lot less use to me, I will not pay for that. If 
somebody makes a pdf available for free (bitsavers, hpmuseum.net), I will 
find a way to read it if I think it's useful. 

> > Next time somebody here asks for a sevice manual, or a schematic, or a
> > pinout, or... I will not bother to look it up for them. I will simply
> > point out that you can deduce the necessary information from the machine,
> > from data sheets available on the net (and you'll have to go and find
> > them) and a few hours with a mulitmeter. I won't bother pointing out
> > useful repair tricks, it took me time to discrover them, why should I
> > help you.
> >
> 
> All I said was that the source code was not owed to anyone. If you wrote a

True enough.

> utility that I wanted to see the code you are under no obligation to turn it
> over when I demand it. If you wanted to give it out (or not) it is up to
> you. If you have the documentation handy and wanted to look it up and do the
> person a favor then fine, I have done that for others when I have something
> that isn't a 5 second google search. Sometimes it is better to give somebody
> the directions to find what they want then to just give them the direct

Oh sure. No problem in posting a URL to find whatever they're looking 
for, or to say the information is in a particular well-known book, or 
that you really need to understand more about <foo> before tackling <bar>

> > So now you're claiming that all users of linux and *BSD are plagarists.
> 
> Where did I say all? I mentioned people who realy push hard for opensource

So are you now accusing me of plagarism?

> and that was just a feeling and not a stated fact. If I hounded a plumber to
> opensource all his knowledge and tricks of the trade he learned so I could
> just use it as needed instead of paying him people would think I am cheap
> and nuts, if I do the same to a programmer  then it is ok?

Get real! Nobody is going to get the source code to Windows by phoning 
Microsoft, and nobody expects to. But to carry on your analogy, if you 
employed a plumber, would you think it was reasonable to ask him why he 
did a certain thing? Or is that unacceptable too. 

Oh you see me fixing an HP9845. You notice that after removing the top 
cover, I stick voltmeter probes through holes in the PSU cover before 
dismanting it further. Do you think it's reasonable to ask me why I did 
that? Is it reasonable to ask me what I am measuring and why when I apply 
a logicdart to your non-working microcomputer? Incidentally, I would be 
happy to explain either of those actions to you.

> I think ideas should be freely spread among the masses, specific
> implementations should be protected by patents from copying for a reasonable
> amount of time and then be public domain. The whole intention of the patent

And yet closed-source keeps those ideas hidden for a lot longer...

> system was to get the ideas out there (instead of keeping them hidden as
> trade secrets) and yet still protect the invention from being copied long
> enough for the inventor to make a profit from the invention if he could.
> Some of those neat little tricks you copy are the difference between
> competing products and sales.

Of course. But in the example I gave and deleted, I don't think anyone 
would reasonably claim that the control board for an image sensor was in 
any way a competing product to the memory management unit from a 
minicomputer produced 20 years earlier.

> > Can any programmer or electronic designer honestly claim to have never
> > read somebody else's code/schematics and taken ideas from it? Because I
> > would doubt it.
> >
> 
> Since I have an engineering background I know everything we do today is
> built up on the knowledge and inventions of the people before us. Having
> said that we would never get anywhere if all we did was copy and paste
> somebody elses work and never try something  slightly different. If I

Of course not. As I kaep on saying, I like to see source code and 
schematics to get ideas. Not to do large-scale copying of other people's 
work. 

-tony