"as soon as something turns into a PR war, nobody is ever going to see the facts anyway" (at about 13:30)
I had this start to happen to me once with software. It was really, really horrible.
The video gets really sad towards the end. The Arc developer says "shareware wasn't really about the money, it was about the mail", meaning fan-mail - that turned to hate-mail.
It seems like this guy had the same attitude to software as Phil Katz - that it was emotionally very important to him, as a way of being appreciated.
That same sentence stuck a chord with me too. We all know it's true: perception trumps reality. In this case the guy had to chose between fighting a PR war (which he didn't want to do - he wanted to win on merit) or losing everything he worked so hard for. Harsh.
Don't get me started on hate-mail. People see it as a joke, as a bit of harmless fun. But vicious letters can do very real damage. Look at what happened to Kathy Sierra and so many others...
Having considered it overnight, I now think that the PR aspect was a red herring. The key issue was that Phil Katz provided an improvement that people wanted - and Thom didn't.
Although Thom claimed in the video that a licensee of his provided a version that was even quicker and smaller that Phil Katz's, I'm willing to assume that that (very valuable) improvement wasn't free (or shareware).
Phil Katz provided: fast, small, free. People wanted: fast, small, free. Phil wins.
Users are very appreciative if you meet their needs... and they'll be equally appreciative of someone else who meets their needs better. They are not as loyal as a dog (dogs being loyal... and awesome). Users are only loyal if you keep on giving them what they want (or trap them). It's just a pragmatic, business-like appreciation - not love. The technology love, of creating something new, or achieving something difficult, is a different kind of thing altogether, which has little to do with users. And which I think is a genuine love.
The point was that Katz (allegedly) took the source code of arczip, improved it, and called it pkzip. This was in violation of the license agreement.
If you then have to start a lawsuit against the person who has stolen your code (to protect your business), and get hate mail instead of fanmail motivation to keep fighting vanishes. This is what happened to the arc people. Coding was fun, fighting legal battles... not so much.
Phil gave something away that wasn't his. He made a lot of money by selling the same thing to businesses. He destroyed a family business in the process.
It's not about PR. It's not about which product is better. It's about right and wrong. If the video is accurate then what Phil did was pretty despicable.
I definitely agree about the right and wrong thing - but what's the most effective way to deal with it? I've been in this kind of situation before, and it was profoundly upsetting for about 6 months, and it's still a negative thing, years later. I did not deal with it well. My interest is in learning how I could deal with these issues better next time - without people hating me, and me becoming bitter (er, more bitter).
It's easier to see it in another person (e.g. Thom) and therefore learn about it, than in oneself. So...
The only way I can see for Thom to have gotten through this, was to have made similar speed improvements to his own code (even if it meant getting someone else to do it for him, if he wasn't an assembly hacker). Then, whether he sued Katz or not, he would have won, and been happy. If you stop users from getting a better product, and you won't supply it yourself, they won't like you one bit. I don't think people's good opinion should matter to me, but it really, really does. I really don't like it when people are angry with me, even when it's their misunderstanding. I like fan mail.
There's a tendency in everyone to think that because you were the first to do or find something, that it somehow belongs to you... Many people think of Microsoft as inventing the computer and the internet - because Microsoft brought it to them. It's as if the delivery guy somehow created it! Prometheus gets credit for fire (but he stole it!) I strongly have these feelings myself, and there are good justifications for them (in motivating people to find stuff, do stuff, be first) - but it's just not true, in a philosophical sense. When you're first, it's partly a blessing. You can't claim 100% responsibility for the opportunity that came to you, or for the existence of the thing that you found. You can claim preparedness, recognition and acting on it. Thom had an opportunity to create Arc - and he did. Then Katz came along with speed improvements - round 2.
I believe that thinking purely in moral terms doesn't always give you the best outcomes, as in that saying "would you rather be happy or right?"
We can't stop people from abusing our trust - but do we have to become victims to it, so we have no choices in our response to it? Or does our universe of options contain paths that lead to outcomes we'd be happier with?
I'd like to learn how to handle this kind of situation better next time - so I'm also interested in how Google will handle that open source copy of their PageRank patent... I think they'll handle it adroitly, in a way I could learn from... (maybe offer to employ the guys? or maybe just ignore them, if they don't get anywhere?)
BTW: I think PKarc was the copy + improvement; PKzip was a complete rewrite, and non-infringing. Not just alleged, but "proven" in court.
(I hope the different threads of morality, ownership and how to best handle it are not too intertwined in this rambling comment - I've tried my best to untwine them, but I'm very tired, and don't think I've succeeded).
You've raised a lot of interesting questions, and I cannot possibly respond to them all.
I think you'd enjoy The Paypal Wars (Jackson). It's about how Paypal survived unfair fights with much bigger companies. Fascinating story. And it shows how sometimes there are options that lead to better outcomes... you just have to be willing to fight hard.
What happened? She got death threats because she said something about bloggers having the right to moderate/delete comments. From what I gather, somebody posted an anti-Sierra message and then a bunch of people (who didn't even know her) started harassing her. It makes no sense.
Quote:
It's not clear what provoked such a vitriolic response to Sierra. She attributes it to comments she made a year ago in support of bloggers' rights to delete comments on their own blogs.
Reaction to Sierra's announcement was swift and polarizing, with many people remarking on the viciousness of the commentary, and others defending the original posts on meankids.org as non-threatening satire.
It's a kind of trolling. I can see that violent sexual threats could really get to you - I've never experienced that. But I want to share something I found about trolls:
Trolls used to be able to get to me, by combining factual argument with their vitriolic, because I found it hard to separate the two. But I discovered that by ignoring the factual part, and just reading the vitriolic, it just sounded so ridiculously childish and nutty that it didn't affect me. It exposed where they were coming from - and then I could assess the factual part separately. However, I choose to not have anything to do with such people, since they're not actually that interested in the factual argument anyway, even if it's true. Life is too short.
Wow. Very interesting read. The bottom-line: learn to be comfortable with yourself as you are now; sober, without having to find the bottom of a liquor bottle.
Reminds me of Gary Kildall (the guy IBM asked for a PC OS before Bill Gates). He loved coding for the joy of it, but became bitter, and died after a bar fight. This bit was new to me:
When IBM called, Bill Gates told them that CP/M wasn't his and directed them to Gary Kildall.http://www.freeenterpriseland.com/BOOK/KILDALL.html
Please, if you live a sedentary lifestyle, exercise. If you don't exercise 30 minutes a day 3-5 days a week, try and exercise more. Some more recent studies have indicated that exercise may be the best way to get the brain to repair itself.
thanks - I do feel much better when I exercise, and also much clearer (which, for me, equals more intelligence in practice).
I've been getting back into exercise over the past few weeks, but I've found I have to ease into it gradually, or I get sick. I'm up to 20mins, 3 times pw. I'll keep in mind that level you you mention, of 30mins, 3-5 pw
edit : Its about Phil Katz from the original author of ARC which was the software Katz allegedly modified to produce PKARC.