I went to my WordPress dashboard this morning and saw an incoming link to the article Building Subversion 1.2 on Solaris 9 that I wrote back in May of this year. When I click on the link, I see this complete copy of the article with what seems like no attribution whatsoever, until I get to the bottom. Then I notice the posted by links from the site is included. I also notice that the header that was copied does link to the original posting, even though the posting is still copied word for word.
So as I sit here thinking about it, I realize that I’m not really sure how to feel about this. On the one hand, I’m flattered that someone thought that the article was informative enough to post word for word on their site. On the other hand, it looks like a sloppy attempt to assume content that the site owner didn’t write, with only accidental attribution because it was copied and pasted from a web browser that happened to include the links with attribution.
From time to time, I actually go back and update certain articles if I learn more about the subject I was writing about at the time. Wouldn’t it make more sense to just link to the article in case new information becomes available or additional comments are posted telling me how completely off base I am?
The bottom line is I realize that I don’t really care that much as I think about it, but I wouldn’t be thinking about it at all if I understood the intent. It seems kind of stupid to post content like this if you haven’t done it, rather than link to something where a conversation can begin about whether the diagnosis is right or not.
It just seemed weird. I really don’t care about “ownership” of the content very much. It just seems odd behavior considering the subject matter.
Interview with Karl Fogel of Subversion and CollabNet – Free registration required, but good article. Karl discusses his role in the Subversion project and some of the skills required in order to run a project like Subversion.
Podcasting search engine Podscope launches. – If I read this right, this actually indexes and searches the audio files.
Downloading ‘myths’ challenged – “People who illegally share music files online are also big spenders on legal music downloads, research suggests”. Duh.
Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress is interviewed on the latest InfoTech Podcast.
I just synched the iPod and I’m ready to go listen to it during my 1+ hour commute to a training centered around The New Art of The Leader.
This morning as I was browsing around I ran into the home page of Dan Bricklin, the co-creator of Visicalc (the first computer spreadsheet program) and Dan Bricklin’s Demo II, a really useful program for creating interactive screen demos of products (a product which I still miss because I used it a lot to get ideas in front of users quickly without having to code anything). Boy, I’d love to have a product like that around again!
As I read through some of the stuff on his site, I started getting a little nostalgic. The early days of the PC was such a cool time. I decided I might do some searching on where the hell Peter Norton ended up, who as goofy as it sounds, was someone I really looked up to as a young 13 year old getting into programming.
In that search, I found this article on denounce.com that made me laugh. For those old enough to remember (I can’t believe I have to say that now), this historic pose was on every book worth anything on computers at the time. The article was funny, and I thought I’d post it up.
I still haven’t found any good information on what happened to Peter Norton except that he apparently collects art or something now. If anyone has any links shoot them over in the comments section.
As a side note, Dan also goes through his current podcasting setup, for those interested.
Bieber Labs 