Ableton Forum

Resolving the matter privately seems a good idea, but it'd be an even better idea if the result of said resolution was made public, David - the notion of taking someone else's work and reselling it without their permission would, I expect be a matter of some concern in a community such as this one where the notion of openness and sharing are and remain important. It seems to me to be a larger question than this particular example.

Ableton_David wrote:Hi everyone - I'd like to echo mr. ergonomics' suggestion and ask Julien and Edward to resolve this issue privately. This forum is not the right place, and sentiments are getting very negative.

Hey, this is actually a discussion that really should get discussed in public, as it concerns a work that had been licenced to the public and eventually got pirated to resell it.

Also I have not seen anyone insulting or flaming or such. While I appreciate your moderation on the forum whenever you try to stop people filling it with senseless or tasteless bullshit, I think that this issue is worth getting discussed in public and shouldn't get stopped by a moderator.

Pepezabala: he only sugested julien and edward to stay out of it public for a while. Point being, lets not get personal!

Edit:iphone typo

pepezabala wrote:

Ableton_David wrote:Hi everyone - I'd like to echo mr. ergonomics' suggestion and ask Julien and Edward to resolve this issue privately. This forum is not the right place, and sentiments are getting very negative.

Hey, this is actually a discussion that really should get discussed in public, as it concerns a work that had been licenced to the public and eventually got pirated to resell it.

Also I have not seen anyone insulting or flaming or such. While I appreciate your moderation on the forum whenever you try to stop people filling it with senseless or tasteless bullshit, I think that this issue is worth getting discussed in public and shouldn't get stopped by a moderator.

Complete agreement here. Breach of the license and sales to real people are a public issue. Edward puts up such a good case here, (defended incredibly poorly by Julien) and I can't see sending Julien any money for what appears to be an unethical business practice. I say let Julien explain himself or otherwise show that he isn't breaching the license publicly, because this issue involves...the public.

Please refund my money, I already paid for some of the code when I wrote it this summer.

If you would have just asked I would have let you use it, I am not looking to make money off of max patches and I would have been honored to assist you by you using my module to further along your new career as a max developer. I won't comment in the forums any longer, I am exhausted by this, just issue the refund.

I recommend not lifting code from the community without prior permission in the future when creating a commercial patch.

Edward

I received an email from HIM.
I decided to refund him for ONLY 2 reasons:
1/ because he was one of my user because he bought the device and I don't like to have people unsatistified with my products, lessons, workshops etc.
It is important for me to make people happy.
2/ I want to end this story

Unfortunately, HE is unpeaceful.
Fortunately, I am.

So please, stop your words about that as soon as I would have refund your money.
I DIDN'T steal anything. so I CANNOT refund you for the reason you quoted.

I hope you'll remove the other post about that.


all the best & peace for all of you, even for YOU.

Gregory Taylor wrote:Resolving the matter privately seems a good idea, but it'd be an even better idea if the result of said resolution was made public, David - the notion of taking someone else's work and reselling it without their permission would, I expect be a matter of some concern in a community such as this one where the notion of openness and sharing are and remain important. It seems to me to be a larger question than this particular example.

+1000

julienb wrote: I DIDN'T steal anything. so I CANNOT refund you for the reason you quoted.

Unbelievable ... after I outlined all of the evidence on system generated id's that matched, another user (independent of the conversation) has verified identical code when he had my patch for months, you still try and deny it.

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... 6#p1247276

I am done arguing, I think it is obvious to everyone what occurred. Good luck Julien, I hope you approach commercial dev a little differently next time.

emajcher wrote:

julienb wrote: I DIDN'T steal anything. so I CANNOT refund you for the reason you quoted.

Unbelievable ... after I outlined all of the evidence on system generated id's that matched, another user (independent of the conversation) has verified identical code when he had my patch for months, you still try and deny it.

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php? ... 6#p1247276

I am done arguing, I think it is obvious to everyone what occurred. Good luck Julien, I hope you approach commercial dev a little differently next time.

thanks.

just a mind game:

I don't have checked it myself, but assumed julien took a code part. I do agree with all of you that this is not ok, but you have to see it in context... you have keep in mind that he is really a helpful person and develops this device for us too. he clearly don't do it to get rich or rip somebody. it's a different story and a real bad one if someone does it for "real" commercial reasons, but c'mon that's not the case here. keep in mind that he does support, he improves it, take user ideas serious etc. imho many max patches are at a level at which they work, but it's a difference if something works or something works really well. to create something which works really you have to spend a lot of time. I prefer good working solutions by far because they solve my problems without workarounds.I have't seen a LFO patch which works really well to this point. everytime I use a LFO patch I think damn this patch only solves half of my problems. that's why I'm thankful someone seems to take it one step further.

actually I feel good to donate a small amount for his work when I get a really good working patch. and I have the feeling that this is the case with this LFO everything device. I don't feel I pay for the code self, I pay for the support and development. the code is still open. and as a annotation...this is a common practice with open souce software.

assumed he took a code part... that all above does not negate the fault of using some other code, but I believe in solving problems and that we are humans who do mistakes sometimes. now we have a problem, and assumed he took a code part, we have someone who did a mistake. the question is not how to punish a mistake but how to correct it. maybe a solution would be to give emajcher the credits he deserves and a honest apology. that was just one quick thought. I don't know.

but this was just a mind game....

I am in no way wanting to demonize Julien. I recognize the good things he's done; he has helped me indirectly over at the Cycling '74 forum in the past. But I also am not merely "assuming" that what Edward claims is true because I'm looking at the code right now. The patches "m4l.targeter" from Bayle's device and "emm.m4l.selected_parameter_manager" from Majcher's device are virtually identical. The only differences are cosmetic; two abrstractions are changed to subpatches, the objects are moved closer together to save space (but retain overall positioning), and patch cables are aligned.

And I agree that giving Edward credit is the solution (always was the solution). I bought Julien's device and even now I am fine with having paid for it. What I'm not fine with is Julien's attitude after this has been brought to light. It's ok to make mistakes, but to deny something that will be blatantly obvious to anyone who looks at the code is simply disingenuous.

...another thought I have and since I'm not experienced enough with max I can't answer it. assumed he took the code, is the code part worthy of protection? I think julien made a point earlier that he think it's not because it's too basic, but I may have understood him wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patent

stringtapper wrote:The only differences are cosmetic; two abrstractions are changed to subpatches, the objects are moved closer together to save space (but retain overall positioning), and patch cables are aligned.

When you get to the lower, sub-patcher abstractions there are not even cosmetic differences.

mr.ergonomics wrote:...another thought I have and since I'm not experienced enough with max I can't answer it. assumed he took the code, is the code part worthy of protection? I think julien made a point earlier that he think it's not because it's too basic, but I may have understood him wrong.

The module I wrote did not exist ... anywhere that I ever saw until I wrote it; every other m4l patch that controlled parameter required the user to re-select the parameters when the live set re-loaded, especially loading a track, device and parameter and re-initializing your patch with those values upon restart of a live set.

You cannot go grab the code from an open source text editor and re-sell it because you think text editors are common in today's computing environment. Ableton didn't invent slicing an audio file, nor do they have a patent on it, but do you think if you got a hold of the code you are granted permission to re-package it into your own new DAW because you consider audio slicing to be common place? Let's say you write a song, can I take it and put my name on it because I don't think it is worthy of protection?

If he thought it was elementary code, why bother removing only my initials from the object names ... it is evidence enough that he knew he was in the wrong.

Cargo-cult patching is and remains a fact of life. I shudder to think how much of my crap patching might be out there somewhere [happily, I fully expect it's not much].

Beyond questions of honor or integrity or honesty or credibility that may be in play, the more chilling possible effect has to do with how users here may feel about creating and sharing patches that - despite common and regularly used things like Creative Commons and the canons of plain old regular politeness - someone with fewer scruples can simply package and resell to the credulous and uninformed with no apparent ill effect. In a community like this, the ripples of that behavior spread a lot farther and a lot faster than a single bad act. *That's* what I'd be more generally concerned with.

Gregory Taylor wrote:Beyond questions of honor or integrity or honesty or credibility that may be in play, the more chilling possible effect has to do with how users here may feel about creating and sharing patches that - despite common and regularly used things like Creative Commons and the canons of plain old regular politeness - someone with fewer scruples can simply package and resell to the credulous and uninformed with no apparent ill effect. In a community like this, the ripples of that behavior spread a lot farther and a lot faster than a single bad act. *That's* what I'd be more generally concerned with.

+1

So maybe ableton/cycling should consider some appropriate action, in particular since a certified trainer is involved.

LFO 1.52 in progress