All of the code examples, javascript snippets, user scripts, utilities, blog template add-ons and so on I write and post about here are put in the public domain, unless otherwise mentioned, or bound by related lifted-in code with viral licenses. It is my gift back to the online community, encouraging others to join, pick up ideas or good practices, and hopefully share their own ideas and findings, too. Especially including picking up on ideas I strew about, building Something Real on top of them. After all, the value of an idea is close to zero on its own, but follow it through, build and maintain it well, and its value skyrockets.
A free exchange of ideas, knowledge, experiences, practices and tools is what makes the web this great environment to work in, and with, and I want to do my part in fostering that spirit. Occasionally lifting DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) to Don't Repeat Others Either, when possible; my own time spent at writing something really good, evaluating or researching something, would ideally not be useful to myself alone, but to you too.
Licenses make that more bothersome. A Creative Commons license, while nice in spirit and generally about sharing, still brings law to code, and even if that is just about proper attribution, it raises barriers. Where would you have to show what author how, in the context of your derived work? What constitutes a derived work, in terms of code? And so on, in endless cascade. This code is mine, and it is yours, and we may all do what we like with it. Credit me if and however you feel appropriate and I will be glad, or do not, and I will respect that too. I encourage you to keep docs and pointers around, following and spreading healthy practices, sharing and contributing, but will not force you to do either by power of law. I will never write Greasemonkey scripts that are more license text than code, but feel a bit sorry for those who do.
Share and enjoy!
Credit should be given where its due, and licenes like CC just re-assert that. This works more for upcoming scripters and coders, rather than those already well estabilished.
ReplyDeleteI guess once someone makes a name, their work is easier to distinguish and hence doesn't need a special mention, but those who are starting new need to get feedback (the more the better), and hence the more people who get to know where the code came from, the better it is.
Its not restricting, but an indirect way to spread word about ones'self...
To me, no code has enough personal footprint to be distinguishable as from any particular source, most notably not when running. (Which is not a crucial issue to me, hence my placing this in the public domain.)
ReplyDeleteIf somebody would opt not to use my code, or yours, because it has some red tape that comes along, requiring them to expose our names and the nature of our contributions in their end product somewhere, it's a restriction, whatever the reasoning or purpose was behind choosing that license.
I don't mind the CC license per se; it works great for graphics, music and similar works of art, but I find it a subideal match for code, and frequently reinvent CC:ed wheels, to avoid something full of territorial (or rather ancestral) markings that incurs time penalties on me in finding out where and how to expose them, besides adding up to clutter levels somewhere.
And maybe it's just that I choose to believe in common courtesy and that people give credit where they feel credit is due, without forcing them to with a pack of lawyers or terms in legalese. (Which I do without having made any particularly big name of myself.)
I think each of us thanks the person that give them the oppurtunity to learn. I personally am grateful to you for showing me new ways of doing things.
ReplyDeleteI have some queries if you would kind enough to explain them...
I have put up the calendar on my own blog but everytime it shows done, with errors. The calender works but I would like to know how can I do away with these errors.
I tried using the Next/Previous Blog hack. Been tinkering with it for the past 12 hours but couldn't get it to work. I wanted to put clickable permalinks of next and previous posts and no accesskeys.
regards,
Rikki(roodhra@gmail.com)
PS: your new addition of google earth is really cool but I just wanted to tell you that in my browser it is crashing and also that it eats up most of my bandwidth.