Re: The Denis Prize

"Bricklen" <bricklen-rem_at_yahoo.comz> wrote in message news:tbaUb.6777$An3.5365_at_edtnps84...
> Howard J. Rogers wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> Howard, a quesion if I may. Are there any legal issues surrounding this?
> What I'm wondering is if you pay the $$ to the developer of this
> software, does that make you the legal owner of it, to license/sell/do
> with as you please? Or do you plan on turning around and publishing it
> to the public domain (or even licensing/selling it to Oracle) ?
>
> Great idea though, and it is strange that Oracle hasn't devoted more
> time (or at least success) to this project on their own.
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Bricklen

Good question. I wouldn't expect to own it, but I'd expect it to become open-source, public domain, call it what you will. And as such I'd expect to be able to cite it in papers I wrote (and others would be able to do so as well) with appropriate attribution.

I suppose I didn't really think this one through very well, did I? My model was Richard Feynman offering US$1000 for an electric motor less that 1 inch in size and something else which escapes me now, back in the 50's I think - which prizes are generally considered to have kicked off the entire nanotechnology thing. But when someone turned up on his doorstep to claim the motor prize, he had to run down to the bank to get the cash... it was kind of an informal-but-my-word-is-my-bond thing.

Same deal here. The test is whether it makes me think "Ah! That's practically as good as the Windows install", which is a bit subjective I suppose, but will have to do. And if the endeavour can kick off some more general 'ease-of-install' thinking in the Linux community, so much the better. But yes, for it to do that, the solution would have to become open source or similar. I certainly didn't intend to make money out of it.

Regards
HJR Received on Thu Feb 05 2004 - 01:08:05 CST