Thread: Questions for developers

I am sorry what exactly is "stealing".

Originally Posted by qjones

I am sorry what exactly is "stealing".

stealing

Steal \Steal\, v. t. [imp. Stole; p. p. Stolen; p. pr. & vb. n. Stealing.] [OE. stelen, AS. stelan; akin to OFries. stela, D. stelen, OHG. stelan, G. stehlen, Icel. stela, SW. stj["a]la, Dan. sti[ae]le, Goth. stilan.] 1. To take and carry away, feloniously; to take without right or leave, and with intent to keep wrongfully; as, to steal the personal goods of another.

Maugre thy heed, thou must for indigence Or steal, or borrow, thy dispense. --Chaucer.

The man who stole a goose and gave away the giblets in ?lms. --G. Eliot.

2. To withdraw or convey clandestinely (reflexive); hence, to creep furtively, or to insinuate.

They could insinuate and steal themselves under the same by their humble carriage and submission. --Spenser.

He will steal himself into a man's favor. --Shak.

3. To gain by insinuating arts or covert means.

So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. --2 Sam. xv. 6.

4. To get into one's power gradually and by imperceptible degrees; to take possession of by a gradual and imperceptible appropriation; -- with away.

Variety of objects has a tendency to steal away the mind from its steady pursuit of any subject. --I. Watts.

5. To accomplish in a concealed or unobserved manner; to try to carry out secretly; as, to steal a look.

Always, when thou changest thine opinion or course, profess it plainly, . . . and do not think to steal it. --Bacon.

To steal a march, to march in a covert way; to gain an advantage unobserved; -- formerly followed by of, but now by on or upon, and sometimes by over; as, to steal a march upon one's political rivals.

She yesterday wanted to steal a march of poor Liddy. --Smollett.

Fifty thousand men can not easily steal a march over the sea. --Walpole.

Syn: To filch; pilfer; purloin; thieve.


Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.


stealing

\Steal"ing\, n. 1. The act of taking feloniously the personal property of another without his consent and knowledge; theft; larceny.

2. That which is stolen; stolen property; -- chiefly used in the plural.


Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.


stealing

n 1: the act of stealing; "the thieving is awful at Kennedy International" [syn: larceny, theft, thievery, thieving] 2: avoiding detection by moving carefully [syn: stealth]


Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University


stealing

See THEFT.


Source: Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary

Originally Posted by Rob Withey

Someone might wanna change the project description here that says it's open source and feel free to download the code:

http://www.mp3car.com/software.php

i'll get to that

Originally Posted by bgoodman

the open/closed source status of media engine is not up to public opinion

The actual open/source status of ME is not up to public opinion true BUT the perception of weather it is open or closed source is. That is what I wanted to find out in the poll.

Its been said like 10x it isn't open source at the moment. They have said you can submit your own code if you want (well, I'm not sure that invitation is open any more.. but whatever)..

Its a small project (well, i mean that relatively.. its a great piece of software and a BIG project of course.. but small in # of developers). They aren't using a source control that I know of (certainly not a public one) so that solves that question too..

Now, while I think people are taking this REALLY personally, I can't really blame the developers. They have put a lot of work into this, and it IS their pool, so swim to their rules or get out I guess.

Originally Posted by phat_bastard

Just wanted to chime in on this.
First off, I'd like to state that I'm going to discuss this situation with CarComp and the rest of the main contributors, and we may or may not revise the status of the project. For the record, although I have at times suggested we close the source up, it was never discussed amongst all the contributors, so as I see it we really shouldn't call it open source or closed source at this point in time. To be perfectly honest, M/E has never been truly open source because we've never distributed a license with it, and have never made the source truly available to everyone.
..

Well by now I understand that it is now officially closed. The fact that there was no code and no license was what prompted me to try and understand the status. You did make the code available in earlier version. I found an open post with a link to the source on the forum. I guess it is so old that you don't remember anymore. BTW, since there was never a license only statements like "Feel free to download the source code and edit it as much as you like..." I guess the current code really doesn't belong to anyone.

Originally Posted by phat_bastard

Additionally, the overwhelming amount of time that's been put in by CarComp would in my eyes make a great deal of the source a work of his own. Making available the small pieces of code that have been gleaned from public sources and one-time contributors would give you about 20% of a workable program. Without the primary initiative he's taken, and the glue that he's added to the work I've contributed there would be no Media Engine.

I think ME is great, I also think that the work that CarComp and your self put into it is extremely valuable. However, The Linux kernel is "a bit" bigger, iptables is "a bit" bigger, and so is openoffice. Linus will always "own" the kernel but since he made it open source he doesn't care that ppl download and change it. I have contacted Alan about the networking stack (when I was working on it) as well as maintainers of iptables and ebtables and never got the treatment that your fellow developers gave me on the IRC channel. It went like this:
me> hello I am trying to get into working on ME
him> ok
me> can you point me to a cvs
him> what can you do for ME
me (confused)> what do you need
him> serial events
me> what kind of events
him> events and stuff
me> OK, I guess I can work on that. Do you need signal based events or data based events
him> ?
me> signal, like crs-rts or data like xon/xoff
...no more response. I know that he didn't go anywhere since he kept chatting with others. I figured that was just the usual, let's make him go away.

Originally Posted by phat_bastard

Nevertheless, we are constantly accosted by people who feel they have a right to demand the entire source without displaying a compelling reason, or even a remedial grasp of ettiquette. Furthermore, contrary to the babbling I've seen in IRC, if we discuss this issue and do decide to make M/E a freeware instead of open source project, that does not imply that at some point it will become commercial. Free is still free even if it isn't open source, and that's what most of the people who use M/E really care about (or so it seems IMO).

If the project is open source ppl have the right to demand the source no matter how they do it. I can definitely understand the advantages of closed source freeware. If that was what the project was It would have been clear. I think that at the beginning it was great to call it open source since CarComp liked the ideas of other ppl doing stuff for him. Later on when no one (or very little random ppl) did it became a chore.

Originally Posted by phat_bastard

Second, you make a good point regarding the amount of other openly distributed / published code inside M/E. I am very hesitant to release my work to be stolen, bastardized or broken by the myriad of unexperienced VB kiddies out there that learned to code yesterday after they downloaded a copy of VB6 on Kazaa, or by some fly-by-night software company who could profit by obfuscating our hard work and packaging it as their own - knowing we could never afford to take them to task in court. Nevertheless, it is more than somewhat unfair to deny due credit and source accessibility to all those who've made direct or indirect contributions. This is an issue that I feel needs to be addressed, and I welcome you to the #mp3car channel to discuss this.

When a project is truly open source each download starts a new tree. Like Linus wrote to the NUMA ppl about patching 2.4.19: "2.4.19/ is my tree, I don't patch my tree with patches from just anybody. I will not even give you a chance to prove to me that you are worth it. What you need to do is build your own tree and then convince a person whos opinion matters to me to talk me into it". If you don't want somebodys code just say no. They may still think is great and enjoy it and if someone else wants it you can point to their tree.

Originally Posted by phat_bastard

I'm sorry if you don't like using IRC, but that's just how we communicate (which considering the state of things lends reason to question it's fitness).

It isn't that I don't like IRC, I just think it takes too long and the above example just got me turned off about it.

Originally Posted by phat_bastard

Finally I would like to comment about your thoughts on managing the source, and the issues M/E has enjoyed or been plagued with because of it's open source status. As a major contributor and experienced VB programmer, I can tell you that the primary reason this subject even came to be discussed is because two people are doing 95% of the work, and a lot of that work involves fixing tons of code that was / has been contributed over the life of the project. We've at times seen people spend a sickening amount of time to add in a feature that someone else was already working on. Another thing that's caused problems is that there are no defined standards for syntax and variable / control naming, which causes even more problems which we the primary developers have to sort out. Sometimes people will go to great lengths to do something because they're completely inexperienced in coding (anything), and then we get that code to look at and merge and find that 90% of it was unnecessary / inefficient / poorly implemented. Although there have been significant improvements added by one-time contributors, in looking back at how the project has evolved we've found that most of those additions have been (or need to be) completely re-written because the contributors were unwilling to adapt their code to differing standards or finish the fine details that have made this software what it is.

Managing the source for this project should not be that hard. A simple patch procedure would get most of the work done. You and CarComp should definitely agree on coding standards. If ppl cannot or would not use them their patches will not be applied.

Originally Posted by phat_bastard

In closing I welcome your ideas on how to handle these issues, and I emplore you to get into the irc channel and discuss this with us in realtime. To not put too fine a point on it, if you think you're capable of handling all these issues while honoring the interests and efforts of the primary contributors, then you're more than welcome to do so.

From comments on the other thread and by the welcome message on the IRC channel I understand that the source is now officially closed and that I will not be welcome to join. Based on this post I have to say that I was surprised to see how professional and to the point you are. My encounter with the developer on the IRC channel and carcomp's response on the forum led me to belive that your team just don't understand what open source is at all.
All that I wanted is to spend sometime working on code that I am using. Since I had specific needs I didn't want to complain about it, I didn't want to nag about the next release or to bother anyone with feature requests. All I wanted is just to put it in myself. As in turns out, that was too much. I guess I will have to start from scratch instead of from a great base called ME.

the example above where you chatted with him.. carcomp is on IRC at work.. so am I.. i could be in the middle of a conversation and drop it totally to attend to work

on the preview screenshot of ME V2.0 doesnt it say open source at the top left corner?

Originally Posted by bgoodman

stealing

Steal \Steal\, v. t. [imp. Stole; p. p. Stolen; p. pr. & vb. n. Stealing.] [OE. stelen, AS. stelan; akin to OFries. stela, D. stelen, OHG. stelan, G. stehlen, Icel. stela, SW. stj["a]la, Dan. sti[ae]le, Goth. stilan.] 1. To take and carry away, feloniously; to take without right or leave, and with intent to keep wrongfully; as, to steal the personal goods of another.

Maugre thy heed, thou must for indigence Or steal, or borrow, thy dispense. --Chaucer.

The man who stole a goose and gave away the giblets in ?lms. --G. Eliot.

2. To withdraw or convey clandestinely (reflexive); hence, to creep furtively, or to insinuate.

They could insinuate and steal themselves under the same by their humble carriage and submission. --Spenser.

He will steal himself into a man's favor. --Shak.

3. To gain by insinuating arts or covert means.

So Absalom stole the hearts of the men of Israel. --2 Sam. xv. 6.

4. To get into one's power gradually and by imperceptible degrees; to take possession of by a gradual and imperceptible appropriation; -- with away.

Variety of objects has a tendency to steal away the mind from its steady pursuit of any subject. --I. Watts.

5. To accomplish in a concealed or unobserved manner; to try to carry out secretly; as, to steal a look.

Always, when thou changest thine opinion or course, profess it plainly, . . . and do not think to steal it. --Bacon.

To steal a march, to march in a covert way; to gain an advantage unobserved; -- formerly followed by of, but now by on or upon, and sometimes by over; as, to steal a march upon one's political rivals.

She yesterday wanted to steal a march of poor Liddy. --Smollett.

Fifty thousand men can not easily steal a march over the sea. --Walpole.

Syn: To filch; pilfer; purloin; thieve.


Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.


stealing

\Steal"ing\, n. 1. The act of taking feloniously the personal property of another without his consent and knowledge; theft; larceny.

2. That which is stolen; stolen property; -- chiefly used in the plural.


Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.


stealing

n 1: the act of stealing; "the thieving is awful at Kennedy International" [syn: larceny, theft, thievery, thieving] 2: avoiding detection by moving carefully [syn: stealth]


Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University


stealing

See THEFT.


Source: Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary

Thanks for the info. That is great and all... but what I meant was how does the meaning of "stealing" apply to open source code, and someones "ideas".