Copyright considerations

[BigEd]

Certainly worth starting a new topic if you have something to discuss outside the thread you're in... always worth having a quick check for previous threads, but it's easy enough to cross-link if the connections are discovered later.

[GARTHWILSON]

BigDumbDinosaur wrote:

kveroneau wrote:

I do kind of want to start a new topic now discussing what people think of modern people learning programming through languages such as Python, Scratch, Ruby, among other languages...

I seem to recall that such discussion occurred in the not-too-distant past.

It might have been page 8 of the topic "Current 6502 kits," at viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7470&start=105

Quote:

My take is no one really learns much about how computers work by programming with high-level languages.  There is too much abstraction involved.

The son of a friend of mine does website design using PHP, Javascript, etc.  He is very good at that, but hasn’t a clue as to what is going on behind the metaphoric curtain.  I’ve showed him some 65C816 assembly language and the steps I take to write, assemble, test and debug a program.  He had no idea such a thing existed, his view of software development and much of computing in general being shaped by the education he received in college, constant use of Microsoft Windows, and the IDE he uses in his daily work.  Apparently, assembly language was never mentioned in any of his college courses.

<thumbs up> I commented on that in the above-mentioned topic, at viewtopic.php?p=98820#p98820, and there's enough there that I won't repeat it all here.  On another forum, someone who had worked with C and its descendants admitted he didn't even know what hexadecimal was.  I couldn't believe it!  On the HP calculators forum there's a topic Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you, and about 20% of the way down the page, I have some links to articles telling why it's harder and less inviting to kids to get into programming today than it was 40 years ago.

Quote:

Getting back on-topic (sort of), as Gordon noted, Lee Davison’s EhBASIC was a respin of MS BASIC.  Since MS BASIC is copyrighted software, with a reverse-engineering clause in the license, and since that copyright is current, Lee’s respin is technically a form of infringement.  While it is unlikely Microsoft is going to devote any legal talent to prosecuting an infringement lawsuit on 1970s-era software, you should be aware of your exposure should you bundle EhBASIC with your product.

Didn't he add quite a bit and improve it?  I never used it, but when I took a quick look at it years ago, it seemed to be really good considering the memory limitations, and better than I remember MS's GWBASIC for the PC being.  If Lee didn't have any trouble from MS about copyrights, I really don't think you will either.

[BigDumbDinosaur]

GARTHWILSON wrote:

BigDumbDinosaur wrote:

kveroneau wrote:

I do kind of want to start a new topic now discussing what people think of modern people learning programming through languages such as Python, Scratch, Ruby, among other languages...

I seem to recall that such discussion occurred in the not-too-distant past.

It might have been page 8 of the topic "Current 6502 kits," at viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7470&start=105

That was it, I think.

Quote:

Quote:

My take is no one really learns much about how computers work by programming with high-level languages.  There is too much abstraction involved.

The son of a friend of mine does website design using PHP, Javascript, etc.  He is very good at that, but hasn’t a clue as to what is going on behind the metaphoric curtain.  I’ve showed him some 65C816 assembly language and the steps I take to write, assemble, test and debug a program.  He had no idea such a thing existed, his view of software development and much of computing in general being shaped by the education he received in college, constant use of Microsoft Windows, and the IDE he uses in his daily work.  Apparently, assembly language was never mentioned in any of his college courses.

<thumbs up> I commented on that in the above-mentioned topic, at viewtopic.php?p=98820#p98820, and there's enough there that I won't repeat it all here.  On another forum, someone who had worked with C and its descendants admitted he didn't even know what hexadecimal was.  I couldn't believe it!  On the HP calculators forum there's a topic Kids can't use computers... and this is why it should worry you, and about 20% of the way down the page, I have some links to articles telling why it's harder and less inviting to kids to get into programming today than it was 40 years ago.

In your earlier post, you mention how some comp-sci majors’ knowledge is all software, and mostly high-level stuff.  That’s all well and good, but someone has to design the language compiler, someone has to design the assembler, someone has to design the circuit on which all that will run, etc.  At least in the USA (and probably Canada), the number of comp-sci types coming out of college who are able to go down in the basement and get the furnace and water heater going, metaphorically speaking, seems to be diminishing.  Not a one of my computing acquaintances in my area knows diddly-point-squat about hardware or assembly language.  They all think I’m a dinosaur because I monkey with machine code, chip registers and such.  They don’t seem to recognize that someone has to know that stuff, else their laptops would be useless and the Internet even more useless (which it already is in some ways).

Quote:

Quote:

Getting back on-topic (sort of), as Gordon noted, Lee Davison’s EhBASIC was a respin of MS BASIC.  Since MS BASIC is copyrighted software, with a reverse-engineering clause in the license, and since that copyright is current, Lee’s respin is technically a form of infringement.  While it is unlikely Microsoft is going to devote any legal talent to prosecuting an infringement lawsuit on 1970s-era software, you should be aware of your exposure should you bundle EhBASIC with your product.

Didn't he add quite a bit and improve it?  I never used it, but when I took a quick look at it years ago, it seemed to be really good considering the memory limitations, and better than I remember MS's GWBASIC for the PC being.  If Lee didn't have any trouble from MS about copyrights, I really don't think you will either.

The reverse-engineering clause in commercial software licenses effectively prohibits a Lee Davison or Garth Wilson from adding to and improving the licensed product.  That’s why the NU General Public License (GPL) and its friends became so important to the Open Software movement.  I personally would never license any of my work under the GPL, mainly because doing so effectively gives away not only your work, but your right to control what happens with it.  I’m okay with my work being used by others for personal pursuits.  However, I don’t want anyone profiting off my work without my permission, which is why I will never license anything under GPL or other licenses of its ilk.

Geoff Graham has an interesting write-up on his experiences with GPLing some of his work.  It’s worth reading.

[GARTHWILSON]

BigDumbDinosaur wrote:

In your earlier post, you mention how some comp-sci majors’ knowledge is all software, and mostly high-level stuff.  That’s all well and good, but someone has to design the language compiler, someone has to design the assembler, someone has to design the circuit on which all that will run, etc..  [...]  They don’t seem to recognize that someone has to know that stuff, else their laptops would be useless and the Internet even more useless (which it already is in some ways).

That's precisely my point in one of the posts or links in them.  I make the analogy of getting kids excited about driving a formula car over 200mph but they don't realize that car is not going anywhere without mechanics and engineers designing, making, and supporting it.  The same goes for flying high-performance aircraft.

Quote:

I personally would never license any of my work under the GPL, mainly because doing so effectively gives away not only your work, but you right to control what happens with it.  I’m okay with my work being used by others for personal pursuits.  However, I don’t want anyone profiting off my work without my permission, which is why I will never license anything under GPL or other licenses of its ilk.

Due to having too many interests going, I haven't made any progress in this matter of copyrights, so I'm still stuck at wanting something that lets others use my materials freely, even if it's part of their making money, as long as they can't claim it as their own and lock me out of my own creations and say that I'm violating their copyrights.  I would also like for them to give credit where credit is due.

This topic has wandered, which is fine since it's a nine-year-old topic in its 5th page.  I figure it has kind of run its course, and although new, laser-focused replies might be added occasionally, small branches like the one above regarding how to deal with the copyright situation to provide education about the innards of BASIC or Python or Scratch are ok.

[barnacle]

The concern about kids not understanding the basics is serious: the company for which I worked is still trying to find an on-the-metal engineer who could handle both hardware and software for four years after I retired... which is why I am once again working from them a couple of days a week even though I'm in Potsdam DE and they're in Cambridge UK.

The success of Ben Eater's youtube channel is indisputable as is that of SLU4 and James Sharman and Big Clive and a couple of dozen others... and there are a handful of focussed fora like this, like AVRFreaks (before it was eaten), and others. But I wonder how many of the participants are of retirement age? How many are school-age kids? I suspect the weighting is far more to the former than the latter.

I grew up when there were half a dozen hobby electronics magazines; I was introduced to electronics courtesy of an engineer godfather and a cats-whisker radio. But these days the barrier is simply too high... even getting components is a pain; either ridiculous prices (and postage) from eBay sellers selling individual (and probably suspect) parts, or twenty or thirty euros/quid/bucks postage unless you buy fifty or a hundred quid's worth of parts from the big players. As a kid, I could wander down to the local radio repair shop (remember those?) and buy components directly; when I started work, stores like Maplins would work with the magazines to stock parts for this month's published projects. And yet some things are ridiculously cheap: I used to etch my own PCBs (badly); now it's JLCPCB for a couple of quid.

Maybe electronics just isn't a fun hobby for a twelve-year old? They'd rather play the games than learn about the tech than enables them. I don't know what the solution is, but I'm pretty sure it isn't required school courses in either software or hardware. It might help if there were lower level courses at university?

Neil

[BigDumbDinosaur]

barnacle wrote:

The concern about kids not understanding the basics is serious...Maybe electronics just isn't a fun hobby for a twelve-year old? They'd rather play the games than learn about the tech than enables them. I don't know what the solution is, but I'm pretty sure it isn't required school courses in either software or hardware. It might help if there were lower level courses at university?

Most children tend to follow in their parents’ footsteps (I’m cheerfully assuming the nuclear family is still a thing ), especially the footsteps of the breadwinner.  If that parent is a mechanical engineer and designs bulldozers, chances are at least one child will develop an interest in earthmoving machines.  On the other hand, if both parents are liberal arts professors teaching Etruscan Cave Painting, it’s a good bet that none of their children will ever get interested in contraptions that dig holes in the ground, and may well grow up in total ignorance of the scientific and engineering world.

My opinion is mom and/or dad needs to spark interest in their children at a relatively young age.  I suspect that is happening less often these days, what with single-parent households that often deprive children of contact with a strong father-figure.  While women have made inroads into the so-called STEM fields, they are still a small minority, which implies that if a child is in a single-parent household, he/she most likely will not get any exposure to STEM, since it’s likely mom won’t be in that field.

I was an orphan, so I didn’t have anything to get me interested in technology until I was fostered out at the age of nine.  Neither of my step-parents was technical (he was a commercial artist and she was an executive secretary), so there was no STEM exposure to be had there.  That came from contact with an “uncle” (my stepfather’s older brother) who was an aviation electronics expert and had flown on B-29s as flight engineer during World War II.  You can guess where my interests went once he came into my life. 

[GARTHWILSON]

Ah Neil, what nostalgia!  I'm tempted to re-hash the reminiscence, but I see we recently did that at the top of page 8 of the "Current 6502 Kits" topic.  Interestingly, I just saw that Unicomer Group is trying to bring back Radio Shack (which I think the Brits called "Tandy").  I have occasionally ordered things online from RS in the last few years, but the stores have been gone except for just very few privately owned ones. It'll be interesting to see what happens.  And BDD, so right.

[BigEd]

BigDumbDinosaur wrote:

I was an orphan, so I didn’t have anything to get me interested in technology until I was fostered out at the age of nine.  Neither of my step-parents was technical (he was a commercial artist and she was an executive secretary), so there was no STEM exposure to be had there.  That came from contact with an “uncle” (my stepfather’s older brother) who was an aviation electronics expert ...

I do believe uncles and aunts, and other extended family, are often an influence - to "inherit" all ones interests, ambitions, and sense of the world just from the primary caregivers is very limiting.

GARTHWILSON wrote:

This topic has wandered, which is fine since it's a nine-year-old topic in its 5th page. I figure it has kind of run its course, and although new, laser-focused replies might be added occasionally, small branches like the one above regarding how to deal with the copyright situation to provide education about the innards of BASIC or Python or Scratch are ok

Just to note, although I hear what you say it doesn't seem ideal to me. Far from it. When someone writes

Quote:

I do kind of want to start a new topic now discussing what people think of modern people learning programming through languages such as Python, Scratch, Ruby, among other languages...

I am just baffled as why they didn't do it. Is the barrier so high to starting a new topic? One thing is for sure: here, whether it's obvious or not, all the same people will see your new topic - don't use existing threads for attention, it's not needed. Use new threads so we get a sense of coherency and can rediscover interesting threads later.

[gfoot]

barnacle wrote:

But I wonder how many of the participants are of retirement age? How many are school-age kids? I suspect the weighting is far more to the former than the latter.

I used to read the reddit for Ben Eater's channel, and there were at least a couple of children having great success there. So they do exist! But it's rare. It's also not as biased towards retirement age as you might think - unless you guys are all lying to Google about your ages! Here are my YouTube age statistics for long form videos (shorts are a whole other story but not very relevant here):

So, not many retirees. I suspect they either prefer written documentation over videos, simply don't use YouTube, or just know so much more than me about these topics that my videos are not interesting to them.

And let's not get on to gender statistics as that is truly depressing.

Quote:

Maybe electronics just isn't a fun hobby for a twelve-year old?

I don't think it's ever really been mainstream, has it? I am glad at least that my children were exposed to programming at school (Scratch, Python, C and others), which I was not, as well as some electronics but not much. But just as when we were young, if you really want to get good at this, you need to actively pursue it in your free time. This is the kind of thing I hope interesting YouTube videos can help with - demonstrating that these things are possible and accessible.

[barnacle]

Curiously, my godfather (who wasn't, actually, for complicated reasons which are far too long a story) was an aircraft mechanic in WW2, based in Canada and working on Lancaster bombers. As a child, my train set was controlled with the panel lighting dimmer from a Lanc. My father was definitely interested in amateur electronics, but never had any great talent; he was completely lost with microprocessors - less the how, than the why of programming them.

I have tried to interest my granddaughter - just turned 13 - but there's nothing there. She speaks three languages and is a dab hand with paint and paper, but has no interest or talent as yet in anything mathematical or technical beyond playing video games.

Neil

[plasmo]

Return to the topic of Lee’s EhBasic, he had also ported EhBasic to 68K which was when I first learned about EhBasic. 68K EhBasic has some bugs and very little documentation so looking for more info I ran across 6502 EhBasic. I’ve included EhBasic in many of my 68K ROM distributions. Now I wondered how long the shadow of copyright follow the life of a person? If you’ve learned something from copyrighted software in your youth, does everything you do in later life in that subject matter area belong to the original copyright? More importantly, are you always under the threat of being sued by the original copyright holder?
Bill

[gfoot]

I think it depends how litigious the copyright holder is. Did you hear about the enthusiast restoring a car on YouTube who, due to referencing the name "Eleanor", was held to be infringing the copyright for a movie, and ended up having to not only abandon the project, but also give the partially-restored car, spare parts, etc to the copyright holder in settlement? Tens of thousands of dollars' worth of parts lost. It's absolutely crazy how much power can be wielded if you know what you're doing and don't care about your public image.

[BruceRMcF]

plasmo wrote:

Return to the topic of Lee’s EhBasic, he had also ported EhBasic to 68K which was when I first learned about EhBasic. 68K EhBasic has some bugs and very little documentation so looking for more info I ran across 6502 EhBasic. I’ve included EhBasic in many of my 68K ROM distributions. Now I wondered how long the shadow of copyright follow the life of a person? If you’ve learned something from copyrighted software in your youth, does everything you do in later life in that subject matter area belong to the original copyright? More importantly, are you always under the threat of being sued by the original copyright holder? ...

Note that a copyright is not a patent ... it is not intellectual property on "a way of doing something", it's intellectual property in that specific creative work. "Tips and tricks" that you've learned along the way may result in a some stretches of code that parallel code you saw doing the same thing, but the copyright holder has to make a reasonable case that a substantial portion was copied.

Precedents on this issue in written creative works are where the "both less than 10% of the work and less than three paragraphs are OK" rules of thumb have come from.

One approach would be to take a "not ready for prime time" open source Tiny Basic like https://github.com/CorshamTech/6502-Tiny-BASIC (GPL) and fix the bugs and extend it, or to take Tom Pittman's Tiny Basic http://www.ittybittycomputers.com/IttyB ... /index.htm (source released with permission grant) and extend it.

The challenge is extending it without taking from copyright protected source. So, for example, while the CX16 "math" source would be an attractive starting point for adding floating point, it started with the CBM V2.0 math and upgraded it, so untangling what is under copyright is not worth the trouble.

One approach is to look to a fractional number format that would be less work to implement, such as a 3+1 byte rational number format, with 24 bit numerator and 8 bit denominator.

[jgharston]

barnacle wrote:

The concern about kids not understanding the basics is serious: the company for which I worked is still trying to find an on-the-metal engineer who could handle both hardware and software for four years after I retired... which is why I am once again working from them a couple of days a week even though I'm in Potsdam DE and they're in Cambridge UK.

Interesting. I keep seeing jobs adverts for such developer work, and apply for them, only to be told "sorry, you're not what we're looking for", and see the job advertised again. Digging into it, it appears they are only prepared to consider somebody who is already actually employed doing the exact job they are recruiting for, and not actually being employed to do the exact job *today* kills your application. They won't consider anybody who has past experience, and they won't consider anybody who's experience isn't exactly 100% what they want. But, programming is programming is programming is programming. Nobody advertises for a "driver" and kicks you out because you drive a Corsa and not a Polo, but that's *exactly* what the computer engineering industry does.

I keep reading candidate skills advice that says to talk up hobby projects, and contribute to shared projects, but all but ALL vacancies demand *explicitly* /paid/ experience. 30 years programming expeience? Nobody /paid/ you to do it? **** OFF!

It also doesn't help that recruitment agencies can't tell the difference between "IT" and "developer". It is so dispiriting using my hardware/software engineering skills moving ****ing furniture! "Hey, you said you wanted to work in healthcare, this job is cleaning hospital toilets, what are you complaining about, it's in *healthcare*!"

If being alive didn't cost money, I'd just stick up two fingers are the job market and walk away.

barnacle wrote:

I grew up when there were half a dozen hobby electronics magazines; I was introduced to electronics courtesy of an engineer godfather and a cats-whisker radio.

I got my first soldering iron when I was about 8 years old. I assembled the Ladybird Book radio project, and was assembling audio leads and a two-station intercom. My father was a medical electronics engineer, and an uncle gave me a handful of ETI and Everyday Electronics magazines, and stopping buying Dandy & Beano and got EE instead.

barnacle wrote:

As a kid, I could wander down to the local radio repair shop (remember those?) and buy components directly

Two buses to the other side of town to Bardwell's to spend my pocket money on components. They only closed in 2017 after the owner died and the market changed to pre-built equipment.

-----------

BigDumbDinosaur wrote:

In your earlier post, you mention how some comp-sci majors’ knowledge is all software, and mostly high-level stuff. That’s all well and good, but someone has to design the language compiler, someone has to design the assembler, someone has to design the circuit on which all that will run, etc. (...) They all think I’m a dinosaur because I monkey with machine code, chip registers and such. They don’t seem to recognize that someone has to know that stuff, else their laptops would be useless and the Internet even more useless (which it already is in some ways).

I remember when I was doing work experience in the mid-1980s and the people I was working with kept telling me not to "waste my time" persuing my interests of Z80 and 6502 machine code programming, and low-level hardware drivers, "that will be done by the compiler". But somebody has to write the bit the compiler uses to talk to the hardware. "No, that will be done by the compiler". But somebody still has to do that bit underneath the bit that the compiler does. "No, that'll be done by the compiler". No, *somebody* still has to put some code at location zero and set up the CPU to enter the code the compiler builds....

I couldn't understand how much effort people were putting into trying to get me to throw away what I was most interested, skilled, and had aptitude for.

[GARTHWILSON]

I started a new topic at viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7813 to address the above matter of finding work in 65xx, programming, or any similar field.