Comment by madrox
7 years ago
Interestingly, this isn't just isolated to open source. I've heard similar sentiments expressed by artists of popular works, including but not limited to:
- Game developers
- Authors of popular novels that have yet to finish ("GRRM is not your bitch")
- Star Wars
As a game developer: Amen!
I had been doing that a long time when one of my producers (on his first game) wanted to be on the forums to interact with "fans". I think he was excited and thought it would be satisfying to interact with people who were playing the game we developed. I remember thinking it would be like that when I started. Don't get me wrong, most gamers, like most people, are terrific. But they get drowned out by the disgruntled.
Then you better stick to that classical sales model that seems to be on the way out. The minute you sell the full package of an unfinished products, people will feel entitled to what they expect it to be (rightfully, imo). So you'd should avoid Pre-Purchase, Season Pass and some degree Early Access. I'm torn about the latter, since it is supposed to be sold "as is" with no expectations, but don't think this is was most actually do.
Also how do you think about post launch updates to fix bugs? Those seem to be generally expected as well, now.
> Also how do you think about post launch updates to fix bugs? Those seem to be generally expected as well, now.
Personally, I'd say the consumers are entitled to those, too. Your comment made me think of various games where I think that wasn't the case -- and that's mainly because those games were finished (and polished) before release.
I never expected any bugfixes for Games such as Starfox 64, Zeldas, Super Marios, and various others out of my old SNES and N64 cartriges. Because they worked. They were finished. Funny enough: Super Mario Odyssey had some a-ha moment for me because it also worked just fine literally out of the box, which is something I'm not seeing often enough anymore.
But honestly, launches nowadays are usually far more on the side of Games like Elder Scrolls: Oblivion than those examples.
Imagine a regular software engineer in $MARKET going "ugh, all these people we've sold buggy software to at full price now think they're entitled to bugfixes."
OTOH, there are of course some games where the effort put in by the developers far exceeds what any customer could reasonably expect. Terraria would be a great example for this.
Thanks for the career advice.
With open source you have an easy recourse: the fork.
With a game, movie or another peice of culture, the law can hinder your fork. If you want to make the Star Wars episode you wish had existed, you have to navigate the tretcherous waters of fair use and copyright. There are also plenty of tales of indie game developers attempting to remix a game from their childhood on a new platform only to get a cease and desist as soon as the rights holders get wind of it.
You are perfectly entitled to write that Star Wars fanfic. Here's a whole directory of it: https://www.fanfiction.net/movie/Star-Wars/
You are not entitled to make money off it, just like you aren't entitled to make money off that open source project you forked.
Amazing. Your comment is wrong on every respect.
Whether you are entitled to write fanfic is not a straightforward case. As https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_issues_with_fan_fiction documents, some authors allow it, some don't, and fanfic sites pay close attention to who does. The fact that you can write Star Wars fanfic is not entitled under law, it is entitled by implicit or explicit permission from the copyright holder. Star Wars is OK. Pern? Not so much.
Oh, and sometimes you can both write and sell fanfic legally, no matter what the copyright holder thinks. For a famous example, Bored of the Rings is legal because it is marked as parody.
Moving on to open source, you are even more squarely wrong. The definition of open source, as found at https://opensource.org/osd-annotated, in item #6 says that commercial use must be allowed. In other words anyone is free to try to make money off of that open source project they forked as long as they follow the license.
In fact the term "open source" was invented as part of a marketing campaign to encourage the use of free software for commercial purposes. Far from "you can't make money from this", the whole intent was to encourage people to try to make money from it. And seeing that you could, to encourage businesses to make more of it! (This marketing campaign was successful, which is why you both have heard of the term some 20 years later, and everyone uses open source software.)
Now the license may restrict what business models are feasible. For example you can't edit GPL software then sell it as proprietary. But that is a MAY, not a MUST. As an example, selling relabeled BSD software commercially is both explicitly allowed and occasionally encouraged.
2 replies →
You are not entitled to make money off it, just like you aren't entitled to make money off that open source project you forked.
You are absolutely entitled to make money off of an open source project you fork. As long as your fork provides value you that someone is willing to pay for.
4 replies →
> You are perfectly entitled to write that Star Wars fanfic.
Nope. It's a derivative work, and, as such, requires the permission of the people who own the copyright and trademarks.
> You are not entitled to make money off it
This matters less than you may think. There's a four-part test [1], and profit is considered, but the work not being for-profit doesn't make the work legal.
[1] https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107
Here's an old-ish article I like to link to, on Waxy.org, called "No Copyright Intended":
https://waxy.org/2011/12/no_copyright_intended/
> Under current copyright law, nearly every cover song on YouTube is technically illegal. Every fan-made music video, every mashup album, every supercut, every fanfic story? Quite probably illegal, though largely untested in court.
By all means, read the whole thing.
Here's a lawyer's take on it:
https://www.traverselegal.com/blog/can-derivative-works-be-c...
> Image yourself an artist (of any sort) who has drawn such great inspiration from another (copyrighted) work that you would like to modify that work to create something new. Are you allowed to do so? Could you get a copyright to your new creation? As with most questions in law, the answer is: it depends.
> “A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations, elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent an original work of authorship” (17 U.S.C. § 101) is called a Derivative Work. The original copyright owner typically has exclusive rights to “prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work” (17 U.S.C. § 106(2)). It is considered copyright infringement to make or sell derivative works without permission from the original owner, which is where licenses typically come into play.
Again... make or sell. Not making a profit off the work doesn't necessarily protect you.
There's a huge difference.
The copyright and trademark owners may choose to ignore your little fanfic hobby. (Or they may not.)
In the case of open source software, you can fork it (or not) and--assuming you abide by the license terms--you can do anything you want including making money of it.
And that's the biggest misunderstood concept in free software. "Free" here doesn't mean free of money but freedom. FSF actually encourages requiring money for software.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.en.html
2 replies →
Except you absolutely are allowed to make money from open source projects you fork. The only limiting factor is what license you need to provide with it (and potentially give up your new source code), but you can even make money from GPL code.
Isn't your second point precisely part of the difference? With an open source project and an appropriate license, you may very well be able to make money of a forked version of the project.
1 reply →
If you are productive you will have enemies.
Perhaps even, the more productive you are, the more enemies you will make.
People who are particularly unproductive tend to think that the world owes them something.
As Carnegie used to write, "no one ever kicks a dead dog". Also, the more important the 'dog', the more satisfaction some people derive from kicking it. So unfounded and nasty criticism is probably best seen as validating that your work is making some impact.
Must remember that next time I get downvoted or roundly abused on here, thanks. Well, you know, when it's not deserved.
p.s. Was gonna ask "Which Carnegie?" but Google says Dale.
edit: Nice to see my work is making some impact. :-)
Continuing your list:
- Twitch streamers
- songwriters
- composers
- screenwriters
I think it might be a part of any artistic endeavour: you'd probably have to have a list of creative efforts that don't have this problem to try to get a smaller list.
As Steven Pressfield tells us in The War of Art:
"The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation."
Thank you for pointing this out, there are so many niches where fans/consumers are taking the creators to task for some grievance or other.
One positive way to interpret this is to recognize that fans are passionate and want the project to succeed and fulfill all their dreams.
But reality is a harsh mistress and not all dreams will be realized.
This is the rational approach, but it is not in accordance with human nature.
Human nature is fanboys. Picture sports supporters. They will perceive a relationship that you may have never intended. They will wave your flag and they will sing your praise and they will cheer you on. And they will expect you to live up to the grandiose image they have of you, and will punish you when you "betray" them.
I think people are certainly taking note of these "entitled" comments when they decide what to get emotionally invested in. If I know ahead of time you "wont be my bitch" maybe I'll save myself some grief and not get started with your series.
Bitcoin is an interesting case. It has very deliberately rewarded it's early adopters and fanboys, and that strategy paid of very well.
To be fair, there is a difference between someone who gives away something, be it software or otherwise, and someone who sells something.
Not the same thing at all - those are commercial products. If someone has paid for a product and feels it was missold then yes, they are entitled to leave a review. Especially since cinemas don’t offer refunds to dissatisfied customers.