Open letter

[Don Tillman]

   From: "tomg" <vco at mindspring.com>
   Date: Wed, 7 Apr 1999 15:41:09 -0400

   I'm not sure what's going on. It's all a bit too much for me to deal with.
   In the past two weeks I have had to try to stop several attempts to put
   some of my designs into commercial production. To be sold on the list! 

   For the record nobody has my permission now or ever to sell anything of my
   design on the list. Only Adrean has permission to display any of my designs
   or WebPages. 

Remember the Pablo Picasso quote: "Good artists copy, great artists
steal".  Of course he stole that very line from Igor Stravinski.  (Or
something like that, I get the attributions confused.)

Unless you have gone to the trouble of patenting your designs, anybody
can go into production with them.  'Twas ever thus.  Similiarly a
number of the designs that you have posted were copied wholly or
partially from others without their permission.

So what if someone someone goes into production with one of your
designs, my designs, JH's scanner, Uncle Bob's filter, or whatever?
Will they make any money on it?  Should they share the money with you?
What if they lose money, or the product explodes and hurts people?
Should you be held responsible then?  

In my experience the only workable solution for this type of situation
is for production-guy to go into production with a design grabbed from
design-guy, but hiring design-guy as a consultant to handle the
details in adapting the design to the actual product, as well as
handling production problems that come up, later products and
variations.

Given that scenario, everybody benefits.  Design-guy publishes his
work and makes it known that his consulting services are available,
readers of design-guy's work benefit, production-guy benefits,
design-guy gets paid for his consulting services, folks get to use the
product, and all is right with the world.

  -- Don