On Aug 27, 9:02*pm, "Morgans" wrote:
wrote

IMHO there should be NO MORE "open source" aircraft projects, until
somebody gets around to implementing a public, vendor-neutral RCS
(revision control system) *for aircraft development, so that _any_
designer can submit and begin new projects and contribute to those of
friends and peers.

This is something that perhaps the EAA could sponsor?

I doubt there is enough interest to make it worth EAA's while, or anyone
else.


SNIP


Plus, many that are designing and building their own are not capable, or
don't desire to put it all down in a computer. *What does that really gain
them?


Peer review, CAM support (and everything it implies), known revision
history, peer contributed support documentation, Preexisting
algorithms for doing structural, aerodynamic and flutter analysis,
language portability, a common persistent knowledge base, and
diversification of liability to name a few.


*A couple good shop sketches, and start building, is their most likely
course of action. *If they do find the need to vary the design to
accommodate some needed change, why would they want to take the time to go
put the change into the computer. *Only someone who is planning to publish
the design, or otherwise go into business would do that,


There are quite a few folks who use CAD as a primary design tool. A
cocktail napkin sketch is usually as far as I go before CAD.


and they sure are
not going to be interested in publishing the changes, and giving the whole
thing away for free!


In open source environments intellectual property is considered a
marketing resource, not a product. That doesn't preclude it from
positively effecting revenue. What you typically find is that the
development cycle itself becomes a pre-release marketing campaign,
and subsequently once production is in place you have customers (who
are often also contributors) already standing in line.

If you were going to make a business out of it, the appropriate place
for revenue generation would be in support. So for example, you could
give the plans away for free, and put your cell phone on a 1 900
number to answer builders questions.


I won't call you and others like you cheap *******s (g) because I don't know
you. *That is kinda' tongue in cheek, but I think the basic idea conveyed is
correct. *You just will not find a lot of people giving away something as
valuable as an airplane plan for free, when they could be selling it.


For small runs, (like plans) copyrights generally aren't very
valuable. The ratio of litiigation costs vs. revenue recovered just
don't add up. So the value of a plan is really the exclusive posession
of it (which diffuses as popularity increases, since the probability
of public release increases). It is worth noting that reselling plans
you've bought, unless they are licensed non-exclusively, may be just
as much a violation of copyright as making copies and selling them. It
isn't the paper you pay for when you buy plans, but the ideas on it,
and your license will generally restrict you from transfering the
ideas, even though you own the paper.

There are designs that are out of copyright, but people still sell
plans for them. This is the same thing as reselling copies of Open
Source CDs. You are selling the media only, the intellectual property
isn't yours to sell.


If you want to buy plans, there are boatloads of people willing to sell them
to you for a couple hundred per pop. Buy a few plans and change and scale
them like you need them to be, for your needs.

Sorry I'm not more optimistic, and I really don't intend to offend. *That
just is the way I see it.
--
Jim in NC

No offense taken. Please consider my words with the same grain of
salt.

My interest here is not in saving a few bucks, but rather creating a
means for storing all of this knowledge that is dying off. There
aren't that many people who know how to do this stuff, and a big
honking public repository isn't such a bad idea IMHO. If it can be
done in a way that is consistent with the best available practices in
digital publishing, even better.

There seems to be this assumption around that open source means no
revenues can be generated. That is anything but true. There are
hundreds of open source products that have revenue generating support
infrastructure behind them. Often open source products create markets
for other products that would never have existed otherwise. (a large
percentage of Internet enabled products for example)

Also, there is such a thing as people who WANT to contribute to the
public domain! Should they be denied the right to do so? Some people
think so, which is why the GPL came into existence in the first
place.

The core questions a

1. Would it improve the quality of the available intellectual
property?
2. Would it improve the popularity of homebuilding?
3. Would it positively effect net revenues for business's in
homebuilding?

While there would be some winners and some loosers, I believe the
answer to all three questions, over the long term, is yes.

Matt