[sdiy] OTA book on eBay

[cheater cheater]

Harry! you exactly understand what I mean and am concerned about.

On 10/13/05, Harry Bissell Jr <harrybissell at prodigy.net> wrote:

> What should happen is that someone who NEEDS the
> information (perhaps on list) should request it...and
> some other person (perhaps also on list) should send
> them a copy, and enjoy a large steaming mug of STFU
> all around.
>
> I have received some material, and have sent some
> material. The material I received was sent at no cost
> to me (or profit to them) and what I sent was as no
> cost to them (or profit to me).
>
> Help each other out folks... this is the closest that
> we might get to 'fair use' of those obsolete and
> unobtainable documents.

That's so true!
Are we doing SDIY to create better and nicer synths, or are we doing
that to put our nametags on things, to get money, and to sue people?

Being a student of mathematics, I'm totally stunned by some tactics
used in computer science and electronics, sciences so near it would
seem.

Mathematics is all about knowledge.
Suppose Riemann decided to copyright his notion of integrals and
decided to explicitly deny and disallow all uses of his work outside
his own books.
Where would mathematics be today, several hundred years later?
Would you be reading this email?
Would electronics, especially as you know it today, exist?

Yet, people in computer science and electronics still go around
greedily concealing their IP.
I guess if the people generating the IP would decide on who can get to
see it, the world would be a much better place and people would be
smarter. But instead it's the bosses who decide and the cubicle
inhabitants who create. And the bosses don't appreciate the higher,
ideological aspects of knowledge.

Don't think this is how it should be or must be, either.
In Japan (where everybody understands that healthy industry =
prospering industry) people share their findings. Nintendo, Sega and
Sony would show early prototypes of their consoles to the others. They
knew that hiding things is not the way to go. They knew that if you
work with your competition, you will, sooner or later, get something
back from them, be it help, constructive feedback, or respect.

It comes to my mind how many monasteries in the middle ages would
specialise in copying books. Indeed an important thing, this preserved
most of the knowledge we have now and have based our civilizations
upon. In those times, it was knowledge that nearly nobody had or
understood. Many of those people copied books without understanding
them; all they knew is the extremely utter importance of preserving
this knowledge that they had dedicated their lifes to guard.

For me, information such as presented in old, impossible to get
manuals, technical books, schematics, and catalogues is such
knowledge, a special kind of "old magic" that nobody can learn
anymore.
If we keep on fussing about who should get "dead prez", there might be
no sorcerors... and the magic will be gone forever.

cheers,
D. 8(

P.S.
Rainer:
eyeballing someone = looking at them
getting eyeballs = getting noticed
dead prez = "dead presidents", US dollars have presidents' faces on
them, and all of those presidents are long since dead.