Re: No call for Ada (was Re: Announcing new scripting/prototyping language)

["Alexander E. Kopilovich" <aek@VB1162.spb.edu>]

Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:

> >> >> >Modern science deals also with budgets, management, conferences, grants,
> >> >> >degrees and citations.
>
> the point was that scientists do not willingly anticipate all that
> bureaucratic dances, you wrote about. No more than Ethiopians do
> hunger.

You use too old information. Yes, just a century ago there was little of those
things, and vast majority of scientists despised them. Even later, before WW2,
most scientists still despised those (already growing) things. But after WW2
the situation started to change rapidly. As it was said once "the Science
engaged in strong interaction with Government" (and then with big businesses
and general bureacracy as well). In 1970th it became clear that those things
entrenched firmly in science, and that most of dislike that (marjority of)
professional scientists show for them is just a display for outsiders and,
perhaps, partly a homage to the tradition. Characteristically, that these
times the more a scientist is honest and frank - the less s/he frowns at all
those things (which is quite opposite to that was, say, 50 years ago).

> It is merely the price scientists should pay for having an
> ability to do science.

No, these days majority of professional scientists recognize all that not as
the price, but as the elements of more or less natural collaborative
environment. Althought you certainly may say (as some others do) that there
is no contradiction, as this collaborative environment is exactly the price
for having an ability to do science. And that is the key - "to do science".
If you want TO DO SCIENCE then this is The Way. When the primary goal changes
from "to know" and "to understand" to "to do" then the natural form of
cooperation changes accordingly.

> >> Where you saw individual software sellers?
> >
> >I'm quite surprised by this question - don't you know, for example, that many
> >authours of shareware products are individual sellers? Don't you know that
> >sufficiently many of those shareware products have significant customer base?
>
> Shareware products are irrelevant for the software market. They get
> probably less than 0.1% of its volume.

You are surprizing me again - you are looking at the current proportion only,
that is, at the proportion of current shareware products in the whole current
software market. But you seem not interested in how many commercial software
products or their parts started as shareware products, and not interested in
how many shareware products are used internally in software development, that
is, as tools and components used in a development of commercial products.

One real little example of that kind: several years ago one software company
bought my shareware Delphi component for use in its commecial product - some
sort of banking software. A year of so ago my friend who works for a bank
told me that she saw exactly that component in new system, which her bank
recently bought.

Other little examples - of another kind: there is a populat text editor
UltraEdit and a popular visual diff tool Araxis Merge (both for Windows) -
both shareware. I know that among regular users of these tool are software
engineers working for big and well-known vendors, so these tools actually
participate in development of quite expensive commercial products.

The point here is that you can't recognize use of shareware tools and
components in commercial products (as well as shareware products as prototypes
for a functionality) by external observation.

Although it is true that in Ada world a shareware product is unseen or almost
unseen - and I see that as symptom of weakness of this world (note carefully
- not a cause, but just a symptom).

> They are also irrelevant for software development as a phenomenon.

Phenomenon? Is accounting a phenomenon? Is scientific or engineering
computation a phenomenon? By the way, the WordNet tells me that:

phenomenon -- (any state or process known through the senses rather than by
intuition or reasoning)

Do you really think that software development is known through the senses
rather than by intuition or reasoning ?

> Because, it is clear that
> software cannot be produced by individuals,

It is not clear for me. Can an individual produce a novel? Well, a big novel,
in several volumes? Of course not - because a paper must be produced (even
for original writing) then the book must be printed in several thousand
copies, than these books must be sold to thousands people. Certainly an
individual can't do all that job. So why we still speak about the so-called
"authors" as creators of novels?

> at least at the current level of technology.

Individuals are very different in their abilities, software is very different
in its various scales, and current level of technology is a mythical thing
along with man-year (do you remember man-month?).

> So shareware gives no answer to the question, how
> humankind should organize software development.

Humankind organizing software development... it's impressive. Worldwide
Softlag Archipelago, I suppose?

> >For example, if you product faulted and the user has right to sue for that
> >then s/he will sue *you*. And then you'll spend time in court, you'll spend
> >money for lawyers, and even if you win the case, you still may be ruined. And
> >your competitor can relatively easily provide 10 doubtful cases for you -
> >just to keep you detracted from your business for some time and as a
> >consequence - ruined.
>
> Why this does not happen (or very limited) in 90% of all other areas
> of business activity, where one can sue? What is so special about
> software, which forces us to treat it otherwise?

This does not happen (or almost does not happen) in traditional areas where
stable experience is present - for example, there is commom understanding
that you can sue for a rotten food, but you can't sue if you dislike the food
because it does not correspond to your taste. Also you can sue if a little
rain destroys your shoe immediatealy after you bought it, but you can't sue
if it appeared that you bought a shoe of wrong size and it does not fit your
foot.

But there is no such traditional common understanding regarding software
products - not only because software is too young (about two decades of more
or less wide public use), but also because software is too generic notion.
Look at computer games - is it software? If yes than what can be a valid
cause for a suit? The game annoys me? The game damaged eyes of my child?
The game attracted my child too strong? Then look at text editors (not 
necessarily MS Word). Can I sue the vendor of my text editor for passing my
typo (well, very unplesant typo) into important printed document?

> I read Microsoft license. Did you?

I never read licences - they are so boring (I was told), and I have no
intention to sue software vendors.

> If yes, then tell me what kind of
> knowledge one have to possess to really understand all the secrets of
> words "NO WARRANTY"?

The WordNet tells me that:

guarantee, warrant, warranty -- (a written assurance that some product or
service will be provided or will meet certain specifications)

So "NO WARRANTY" in the context of a license for some product should mean
that there is "NO WRITTEN ASSURANCE THAT THIS PRODUCT WILL MEET CERTAIN
SPECIFICATIONS".

Quite clear, I think. In short: "You can't sue".

> >What I see in reality is quite rapid progress. One may clain that the progress
> >might be more rapid and more comprehensive if some other rules were in effect.
>
> So far the only "rapid progress" you have specified was the number of
> users. It is irrelevant.

Not just number of users, but many new categories of users and many new
sorts of applications.

> >> 3. It gives customers no protection from fraud;
> >
> >But that gives vendors protection from dishonest or simply ignorant suits.
>
> The legal system. It has been worked so far, so I don't see why it
> should collapse because of software.

You mean suits about software or use of software tools within the legal
system? Or the problem of how court, being a user of software will sue the
software vendor?

> Anyway, if you think it would, then prove it.

Quite strange "then". Are we already in court, where I must prove all my
statements? Anyway, there is nothing to prove.

> >> 4. It imposes real threat to basic human rights (see DCMA)
> >
> >I can't see how introduction of liability of vendor will prevent or destroy
> >DCMA and alike.
>
> Because you will not need "right of software use" to get money from.

So you suppose that software vendors will happily give away their source of
income and endorse the new one, which you propose, however murky and
unexplored it is? Or you think that the State will go forward and suppress
their resistance? Well, possibly there are states that indeed are ready to do
so, but those countries do not determine the software market, at least
currently, and probably they will not determine it in near future.

> >Generally, I don't see how can your "insurance" (or liability) decrease or
> >suppress "right of use". I think that you propose to add that liability to
> >"right of use".
>
> I propose that bare "right of use" licenses shall be made void. If
> Microsoft writes "NO WARRANTY", then it automatically loses its right
> of *any* legal protection against piracy.

So you indeed propose to add liabiality of vendors to the "rights of use"
for users. The worst of both worlds in a single bottle. Made in State.

> Everybody knows that the copyright protection laws work much
> less efficiently and have much more nasty side effects than ones
> regulating product quality.

Not everybody. For example, I suppose that most authors - both in literature
and in science - do not know that. I think that they will not be happy if
their copyrights were linked with their liability so that every dissatisfied
reader could sue them. And I doubt that the quality of literature and science
will advance with introduction of that liability. 



Alexander Kopilovich                      aek@vib.usr.pu.ru
Saint-Petersburg
Russia