[time-nuts] Brooks Shera

[David Kirkby]

On 25 March 2013 13:36, Jim Lux <jimlux at earthlink.net> wrote:
> On 3/24/13 8:22 PM, Chris Albertson wrote:

>> This is a perfect example of why people need to publish the source.
>> Make it GPL or whatever.
>
>
> That's a decision that the author gets to make.  I've been on both the
> supplier and consumer side of that aspect. Sometimes I've published source,
> sometimes I haven't. There's a lot of factors involved, and the consumers
> need to respect the author: only the author knows all of them.

I've often wondered in there is a half-way house, for small projects
like this, where one makes money from them, but where one would be
happy to release the source code on ones death, or where one is
sufficiently incapacitated to do anything with it.

I could send the source to whoever wants it, but it would be useless
without a decryption key. One gives the key to a wife, sibling or
someone else so it could only be made available when that party agrees
to make it available.

To get around the possibility of an ex-wife deciding to get nasty, it
could be done that there are two keys and both are necessary.

A system like that would protect the author, but ensure that in the
event of their death, the code is public. That license could be GPL,
freeware of whatever else the author choses. I suspect Brooks Shera
would have agreed to do something like that.

Dave