>> How are you going to estimate the worth of contributions *before* we have >> AGI? I mean, people need to get paid in the interim.
For my project, don't count on getting paid in the short-term interim. Where's the money going to come from? Do you expect your project to pay people in the interim? If the corporation does have an influx of cash (due to an intermediate success), a consensus of active contributors would have to decide how much to share out and how much to retain as seed money (and I would push real hard for the majority, if not all, of it to be retained as seed money -- unless it were the result of a single or small number of contributors who needed to be rewarded with a substantial chunk). If the corporation has an influx of cash due to an investor or benefactor, it would all be kept as seed money to hire individuals (whose contributions would be recognized at a reduced rate due to their paid status). >> Self-rating is easy, simple, and can be corrected by peers if necessary, eg >> "hey, this idea is actually due to ____". Self-rating (like self-evaluation) is worthless. >> You have not defined these "arrangements" and your scheme, if too complex, >> would lack transparency. Complexity does not eliminate transparency. It is merely frequently used as an excuse for not being transparent. All arrangements will be transparent after being entered into. I'm not pre-defining them because I want flexibility and because, quite frankly, I expect that the best suggestions are going to come from the people who want to enter into the agreements. >> I think contributions should belong to the very people who contributed them, >> as recorded by the contribution history; and that includes code. They can >> later take the code and use the code for outside projects, *provided* that >> they pay for the price of those contributions. Let's call this the " >> outside project indebtedness" clause I understand the thought here but what happens when the code has been heavily modified by multiple individuals (several of whom have put in more work than the original contributor) or when the current code is a fusion of code initially separately contributed by several individuals, modified by several more, fused by yet another, and then modified by several more? Whose code is it? Attribution is a huge problem. >> I'd champion open access to the body of work once a member agrees to the >> terms. How do you determine who "needs" to know something? If someone is going to work on the module's internals to give it a new capability or improve it's performance then they need to know. Otherwise, all they need to know is the module interface. People obtaining access to multiple modules and not contributing anything back are going to be deemed as not needing to know anything. >> Under the "outside project indebtedness" clause, "idea bleed" can be >> prevented (and in a mutually beneficial way too). Also, you seem to want >> too much secrecy, which may turn off people. I guess what people want is >> more openness, even though this consortium cannot be exactly called >> opensource / free. To implement your "outside project indebtedness" clause, you have to be able to track idea bleed. I contend that this is simply impossible. >> Also, you seem to want too much secrecy, which may turn off people. I guess >> what people want is more openness, even though this consortium cannot be >> exactly called opensource / free. Hmmm. All I'm doing is restricting detailed, low-level information access to an intent-to-contribute basis and asking for contribution in return. As I said, if you want to whip through each of the modules in turn and improve them, you'll have access to everything. I'm just actively slowing down the people who are only in it to harvest and run. I don't believe that "people" want unfettered access to their work without a benefit to them. >> NDAs are very common and should not be a problem, given that people can >> start outside projects under OPI. NDAs are very common and fundamentally useless *except* as an understanding to keep honest people honest. The "honor" contracts do the same thing without the legal intimidation factor (which I've repeatedly seen stop people from joining and contributing to projects that they'd otherwise have joined). >> It seems that your strategy is based on trade secrets instead of patents. An accurate assessment. >> Asking a member to "keep contributing to gain access to the source" sounds >> like the "corporate ladder". Also, some individuals may be able to >> contribute at the top level yet suck at the bottom levels. I don't understand your concept of a corporate ladder. You seem to have an innate distrust of organized organizations. I, personally, have far more of a fear of organizations that "trust" people to act in the best interests of all even when there are *very easy* alternatives that are far more lucrative personally. Further, people contributing even to the non-AGI portions should be as valued as the AGI-contributors since they thereby free the AGIers to work on AGI. It seems to me that it is your scheme that has absolutely no incentive for "mere community-builders". >> If you don't mind, my overall impression is: lack of transparency, too much >> hierarchy and authoritarian. Huh. What isn't transparent? Why isn't a hierarchy based upon wilingness to contribute a good thing? How are you going to prevent your project from being harvested and dumped? >> I hope to create a project where members feel *happy* in it, instead of like >> a torture chamber. And the implication is that my system will make members feel unhappy and tortured . . . . OK, Why? >> I guess the most difficult part is to convince people that this really is a >> meritocratic system and that everyone's efforts will be recognized and their >> ambitions realized. For this we need openness, trust, and integrity. Where you're not succeeding is in convincing me that my contribution won't just be harvested and used somewhere else. You have absolutely no way to enforce trust and integrity that I give a chance in hell of working in the real world. I also don't believe that your system will be successfully meritocratic. ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=231415&user_secret=e9e40a7e