Alt-BEAM Archive

Message #07213



To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: Bob Shannon bshannon@tiac.net
Date: Sun, 31 Oct 1999 09:42:26 -0500
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Micro Motors, Skitters, and BeetleBots


Jim Cook wrote:

> >Like we spoke about many months ago.
> >Yes, I a pretty annoyed with e-mails about non-technical topics.
>
> Mark
>
> I have sat back and listened to you rant about how patent law, and
> copyright law, and trademark law aren’t technical. To be blunt your wrong,
> they are. Beam is a field of robotics where right now it is the beginners,
> the enthusiast that make a large part of the advancement. It is this lists
> job to supply any and all information that they may need. Now honestly if
> you think that patents and trademarks and copyrights are not important
> facets of BEAM, and that they out weight your precious technical robotics…I
> can give you a list of robotics list servers where that is all they talk
> about.
>
> Sincerely,
> Jim Cook
> beamboter@hotmail.com
> http://www.geocities.com/Boter-99
>
> P.S. All e-mail servers come with delete buttons…you don’t want to read what
> I write, use it.

Being as it's Mark's list, I suppose he is free to set whatever rules
(inconsistant or otherwise) for the list. But the derth of advanced technical
content caused the list to fracture, generating the (largely incactive)
Spinalcolumn list.

So do we now need yet another list for people to discuss the very relevant
concerns over intellectual property issues with BEAM? Afterall, the vast
majority of posts on this subject (on this list) have shown a huge
misunderstanding over what is protected, and how.

Yet this is a taboo subject on the main list!?

I guess that BEAM is being restricted to a personal use hobby, and a wall of
misinformation (and now silence) is being placed between the list readers and
any thoughts of commerical use by anyone outside the inner circle. Its not to
be spoken of here eh?

This strikes me as the most anti-evolutionary approach the list could take.
This does nothing but enforce the perception of an exclusive 'BEAM elite', and
add to the misinformation this list has already spread on the subject.

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