P3D Re: 3D-CD glitch...

[roberts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (John W Roberts)]

>Date: Tue, 3 Feb 1998 19:24:07 -0700
>From: Dan Shelley <dshelley@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: P3D 3D-CD glitch...

>A new development:

>There is a member of Photo-3D who has decided that their past posts in
>the P3D archives are their property, and therefore they may not be
>included in the archive copy that Bob was going to submit to the 3D-CD
>project. 

I would urge that person to seriously reconsider their position. If they would
relent, all might even at this point be forgiven, and P3D could go on undamaged.
If they do not find it possible to do so, I would echo Bob W's urging that they
unsubscribe from P3D to avoid doing it more harm, or at the least resolve
never to post again. Furthermore, if they intend to prevent individual use,
they should give us fair warning with a single post, so we can purge all
records of them from our own files.

Dan didn't say whether the person stated the reason for the property claim,
i.e. hope of making money or concern over privacy. If it's hope of making
money, I would submit that the chances of making any significant amount are
very small, and this is a recurrent problem in 3D - owners of tiny little
pieces of intellectual property (as opposed to major inventions) are so keen
to squeeze every fraction of a penny out of it that they stifle the growth
(and chance for future profits) that 3D should be enjoying. If the primary
issue is privacy, I would again echo Bob W's comment that nobody who posts
to P3D has any reasonable cause to expect that it will remain "private".

Setting aside for the moment any legal considerations, I would prefer that
use of my posts from the archives follow certain policies of good manners.
In particular, I have no objection to them being included with everybody
else's messages in the body of the archives, or being quoted (at least the
ones where I was correct :-) in technical 3D discussions. There's considerable
"horseplay" on the list, that needs to be kept in the context of the course
of discussion to be accurately representative of what the poster was trying
to convey. I would consider it inappropriate for someone to take a quote out
of context so it would appear that I was saying something I did not intend
to say, and it would probably be inappropriate for someone to publish a
"collected works of John Roberts" without previously checking with me, since 
it was not my intention in my posts that they all be gathered together 
outside of the context of the ongoing discussion on the mailing list.

But everything in the previous paragraph could probably be considered a
matter of good net etiquette. Perhaps if some sort of request from the
list management (along those general lines) could be put on the disc,
the person would be willing to withdraw their objection. I consider P3D to
have a very positive effect on the promotion of 3D, which in turn benefits
most of its readership, so in general we ought to be happy for P3D to be
read as widely as possible, as long as the material is not abused.

(My opinions.)
John R


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