Re: BitBucket: GPL-ed KitBeeper clone

Jamie Lokier
2003-04-08T23:08:15Z

Larry McVoy wrote about unreleased improvements to Bitkeeper:
> [...] we're worried about the open source guys stealing them.

Seriously, do you see it as "stealing" if someone mimics your best ideas?

What if they believe they had the idea too, but you implemented it first..?

Personally if someone releases a piece of software that contains an
idea similar to one that I've had, and they did a great job of
implementing or just plain explaining the idea, and they did it before
I even started, I _feel_ deep in my gut that I've lost something due
to their action.

(Forget about philosophy and economics for a moment. This message is
about gut feelings and psychology.)

In other words, if someone releases a great implementation of an idea
long before I would have done so, even if I would never have gotten
around to it, I _feel_ much the same as if the idea had been stolen
from me. They get the credit, I lost the opportunity for credit.

This is obviously not a fair reflection on their great work - of
course they deserve heaps of credit for their work. It stills feels
painful though.

This horrible feeling is much worse when the other person insists that
they alone had the idea and I, if I ever do anything with it later,
will be accused of copying their superior thinking - something that I
sometimes cannot disprove.

When that happens, not only is my opportunity for credit lost, my
integrity is doubted as well.

To avoid that horrible consequential feeling, it seems safest not to
build too much on the ideas of others, lest I be accused of "stealing".

While that does make me feel a bit better in some ways, it does not
seem a good way to live when I take a more objective perspective.
Also, it does not seem very great in terms of bettering society and
other other-person-oriented ideals.

That's why I prefer the idea of "sharing" ideas, and promoting that as
a way of thinking about ideas, so that thay are not perceived as owned
by one person or another. (Ironically, this is my response to painful
feelings that I have due to a personal sense of certain ideas being
owned by me but acted out by others).

Although that does leave me feeling a little uneasy too, it is not
such a horrible feeling as being on a knife-edge race to implement
things just before the other person, just so I can be perceived as
"the" originator of an idea. Another reason I don't like that kind of
race is that if I win, how must the person I beat feel?

Well, this wasn't meant to be a rant about my personal psychological
issues but it has turned into one :) The point was to illustrate
underlying reasons why at least one person on this list believes it is
better - kinder, fairer - to think of building upon another person's
brilliantly expressed ideas as "sharing", rather than "stealing".

For me, the principle of open source vs. closed source flows from
that. For me it has little to do with access to source. (I can
reverse engineer a binary if necessary, for the time being). It's
about permission, praise, encouragement, and ultimately happiness.

Not that the issue is ever that simple.

It also underlines the importance of granting credit where it's due -
not just as a line in a copyright notice, but with full recognition of
the work done to refine a difficult idea. And, Larry, you're right
that years of hard work can be cloned in a few days. It does suck
when someone does that and then takes all the credit for the result -
whether that's personal or economic in form.

I guess the economics of ideas, implementations and credit has plenty
of maturing left to do.

-- Jamie