In the where the hell have you been department... :)
It's WAY too long a story. Lots of personal business to attend to and a career change have seriously messed up my CoCo enjoyment time these last many months. I DID scan through my private email (captcpu@clubltdstudios.com) account and see many CoCo related emails. I will endeavor to answer every one of the ASAP, with my sincere apologies to the senders. The weeding of the copious amounts of junk mail and advertisements is about finished.
Things have only slowed marginally for me, though, so I won't be on terribly much for the immediate future. However, I'm making a strong effort to spend more time with my beloved CoCo and will post those outings and opines when possible.
I'm posting a not-so-quicky on copyrights and CoCos that I wrote back in January (See below). This has ALWAYS been an issue with CoCoists, with a lot of misinformation floating around, so I decided I'd finally wieght in on the issue. This is not to stir things up, nor is it intended as any sort of final word. It's is strictly IMHO.
On the CoCo side, mostly I've gotten to pop in a program pack now and then. I also wrote a quick BASIC program to help my eldest daughter (8) with her math skills. It was actually a lot of fun. Not terribly challenging and nothing particularly new learned, but it's nice to find ways to actually use the CoCo in a practical sense. If you've done similar stuff, be sure to post about it! I think we NEED more "simple" stuff in the CoCo world from all levels of experience and expertise.
As for the site(s) and such, expect big changes as I come back online more and more this year. The first order business will be severely streamlining everything to make it more usable and compact. That includes only one site (this one) for everything. My inclination at this point is to remove the message board and all external, non-blogger material. Anything that can be posted to the blog format will be reposted. Following that, more contributors to the blog would be awesome. I'll post specifics as they happen.
My sincere thanks to Brian and the rest of the gang here for posting. And my sincere apologies to anyone I haven't responded to via email. The collector updates on eBay, the new CoCo experiences and the "where the hell are you?" messages are greatly appreciated.
Angel's Luck,
Capt.
3 comments:
Holy freaking ghost sightings Batman!!! Glad to see you're semi-back, Cris.
Good schpeal on the copyright issue, tho I disagree with some of it (guess my belief in the Open Source initiative shows thru :) ).
Anyway, hope things get better for you and hope to see more ramblings soon!!!
Thanks for the re's :) I'm trying to get back. Keep your fingers crossed for me. heh!
I figured several people would disagree strongly with my opine on copyrights. Already got a few emails about it, as well, and only one in agreement.
(The following is public response to everyone that's written me so far, not just to Brian. heh!)
What I really wanted to do was point out the legal aspects (in as non-legal a way as possible). But upon rereading, I obviously mixed a lot of opinion in there as well, so everyone who reads it needs to take it IMHO only. Very important.
I'd also encourage anyone, contributors and readers alike, to feel free to jump in if they are so inclined. Like I said, I just felt it was time for me to weigh in, not stir up the debate again, but everyone should feel free to state their opinion and rip me a new one if so desired. ;)
I'm a big fan of open source as well. I use mainly open source software on all my machines. And contribute in what ever small way, including financially, whenever possible. It does illustrate, to an extent, what I'm trying to point out. Open source projects are people consciously and deliberately releasing certain rights to their work without compensation. I just see a difference between that and someone who doesn't willfully release their work.
In the end, my main thought here is to hopefully move the discussion away from "what we'd like" and "what we can't do" and toward the more productive lines of thought such as "what can we do?"
We CAN get more CoCoists preserving their collections. We CAN track down authors to share their CoCo works. We CAN support current developers in a myriad of ways. We CAN start and maintain "open source" CoCo projects. There's plenty of "can do" stuff to keep the small number of CoCoists busy for a long, long time. And all of it would be beneficial and productive for the CoCo community as a whole.
I'll be around to ramble more often, and thanks to everyone who's still with the CoCo community. Keep it going! :D
-Capt
Hey Cris,
I wasn't criticizing your view. Guess I should have elaborated more. I too, have problems with software authors who do not wish to release their software when there is no longer a viable retail market for them. If someone wishes to be compensated for their software, that is certainly their right, I'd never try to take that away nor force the Open Source inititive on anyone.
I also have a problem with the copyright term of life + 70. I can see 7 years with the option to renew the copyright, similar in structure to patents. Just with the rate at which things change in the computer industry, really 7 years is a very optimistic view of the life of a particular piece of software, especially games. And in the case of classic computers ie: CoCo, Atari 400,800,1200, etc, Apple and Commodore, there is just no real point continuing a copyright into the new millineum.
Just my own stupid opinion.
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