Subject:
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Re: Three Cheers
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.general
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Date:
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Sun, 7 Nov 1999 08:24:30 GMT
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Viewed:
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790 times
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In lugnet.general, Todd Lehman writes:
> This is a rally for everyone to give a round of applause to the LEGO Group
> for its unprecedented overture this past week. Several very important and
> wonderful things have just happened!
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> + Direct participation in LUGNET newsgroups by a LEGO manager
> + Recognition of the existence of an adult LEGO Users Group (NELUG)
> + Recognition of a third-party software system (NQC)
> + Recognition of the adult robotics-hacker/hobbyist subcommunity
This is indeed a milestone, and I am thrilled to see these things occur.
However, after considering the subject of this new openness I am neither
quite as surprised nor quite as optimistic as would seem to be warranted.
Why?
What these events really focus on is software. As opposed to the traditional
plastic brick product, openness in the area of software has several things
going for it:
- Software has a history and tradition of open community participation (the
free software/open source approach(es))
- Commonly used and well understood licenses are available for sharing
software in a free and non-obligatory manner
- Software is often seen as a necessary (costly) evil when selling hardware -
TLG is only going to sell more Mindstorms hardware if people are making
powerful software freely available for it
These attributes seem to be foreign concepts to the part of the company that
deals with ABS products. Obviously some of these things just don't map
to material products, and certainly differences are exacerbated at least in
part due to the differences in law (or legal perception) related to product
design, etc., which reinforces the high-wall-deep-moat attitude that the rest
of the company seems to have. Unfortunately I don't see that this outlook
will be affected much, at least not any time soon, by what's going on in the
Mindstorms part of TLG.
I'm not trying to be pessimistic here - I really do hope that this is a
harbinger of things to come in TLG's approach to the fan community in areas
outside the software-related, but I see it as being a slow process at best.
It's rather late and I'm sure my thoughts could have been presented better
but hopefully the main point is intact.
Steve
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Three Cheers
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| Oh, I get the gist of your concern, because I have it too. After reading Todd's message, I was no less cynical about TLG than before, as this is just a narrow software focus, having nothing to do with The Brick. When they start dialogue about (...) (25 years ago, 7-Nov-99, to lugnet.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Three Cheers
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| [Crossposted to lugnet.general, lugnet.dear-lego, lugnet.robotics, and lugnet.announce; followups to lugnet.dear-lego] All, This is a rally for everyone to give a round of applause to the LEGO Group for its unprecedented overture this past week. (...) (25 years ago, 7-Nov-99, to lugnet.general, lugnet.dear-lego, lugnet.robotics, lugnet.announce)
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