On 18.02.15 06:44, Bruce Layne wrote:
> They do admit that LinuxCNC is the underlying software, but claim they
> made substantial improvements, when they apparently paid for open source
> code to be developed by someone else.
No, it makes no difference whether a contractor works on-site or off -
copyright belongs to the employer. As the paid work has been made
available to LinuxCNC, IIUC, then all rational and reasonable open
source hopes and expectations have been met, I believe. It seems petty
and irrational to deny the substantial contribution they have in fact
made. Funding a skilled off-site developer (sometimes from the OS
community) to improve OS software is not common. (E.g. Nick Clifton has
done a lot of v850 work on binutils and gcc for NEC, AFAIR.)
The gift is in fact threefold, as the paid OS developer's skills are
also developed by the project, and it helps to keep the wolf from the
door. (Or maybe better still, pays for new toys.)
...
> Tormach users will be very well served by LinuxCNC software and MESA
> Electronics hardware, but I think it's interesting that Tormach seems to
> feel the need to imply that they did the development.
If they paid for it, then they did it. (They own the copyright, and
their copyright assignment is required before it can become OS in
LinuxCNC. And I appreciate their generosity.)
> They're a fairly small company and they do a lot of good development,
> but they must feel that they can't allow a market impression that they
> are integrators, putting together tools that others provide. Does
> anyone know if they created their nice looking graphical front end, or
> did they subcontract that as well? It's fine by me either way, but I
> am curious.
Not just curious, but remarkably negative about a substantial and useful
contribution to the LinuxCNC community, AIUI. Do you also expect Lenovo
or Dell to shout the names of manufacturers of their system components,
whether interface cards or hard drives, or is this disdain targeted?
> Maybe Brian Williams took a job as the marketing director at Tormach.
> If they blog about their helicopter being shot down behind enemy lines,
> and using a PCNC 770 to manufacture the parts they needed to repair the
> helicopter, I'm calling BS. :-)
When you invent such BS, then whose BS is it?
It seems unreasonable for any CNC vendor to advertise for suppliers of
components, whether power cords, mother boards, or interface cards, when
what they sell is a performance package. It is often an OS licencing
requirement that the software application's presence in the marketed
product be stated, but that is rarely so for purchased components.
Your remarkably negative take on this collaborative contribution to OSS
surprises me. Would you rather have them use Mach3, and leave LinuxCNC
to its own devices?
Erik
--
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
- Philip K. Dick
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