Again, sorry for bringing this completely unrelated matter to your personal blog.

I think there’s some misunderstanding here, on the part of Mr. Beste. He seems to think that open source means giving away for free, which it doesn’t; for example, Red Hat is an open source software, but it is still sold off the shelf (granted, what you’re buying is the license, not the code, but that’s essentially why the open source model works on software and other functional designs, but not anything with artistic merits). Just because you are giving it away for free doesn’t mean you can’t sell it.

How can this apply to anime? Well, it’s very possible for animation companies to sell their shows to TV stations, reap a fairly sizeable advertising profit, and then release their cells open source. This is an analogy, but, for 2 reasons I will outline now, doesn’t work with anything except things whose worth are based on functions rather than anything that is to be artistically enjoyed.

1) For functional systems such as software and say, a car engine, releasing the design open source can allow others to make use of components of it, maybe for a completely new application unforeseen by the original design or in an improvement. This doesn’t really work in art such as an image or a film because they generally can’t be enjoyed unless viewed as a whole.

2) What I have done with this post. In other circles, it’s known as “plagarism”. Oh yes I’ve linked back to Mr. Beste, but that doesn’t mean I’m not stealing traffic (a reward that is valued, with real worth in ads) from his effort.

Oh yes, I’m perfectly aware that I seized on one of his comment and made a big deal out of it, even if I am agreeing with Mr. Beste on that the open source model doesn’t work for art (which includes animation). BANDWAGON!

P.S. I laughed at his comment about DeviantART, because it re-inforces my point that he has completely mis-interpreted the meaning of open source. The artists (or at least the popular ones) on DeviantART are as anal about the copyrights of their own work as RIAA. People distributing things for free isn’t “open source”. People giving others access to the originals of their work – in the case of artists, the *.PSD file would be appropriate. This NEVER happens on DA. Not to mention that having the *.PSD won’t actually do anyone much good, because the value lies not in the functional features of the *.PSD, but in the artistic and aesthetic value of the artwork itself. Unless they’re going take the hi-res and make prints out of it. Or changing the colour and claim it as their own. Notice how both of those are functional merits of having the *.PSD, not artistic ones.

I’ve seen the colour change thing happen before, and you should’ve seen those artists seeth.

P.P.S. Or maybe I’m just adding another post where people pass each other on parallel tracks, an exchange of ideas but no meeting of minds. I can see why lawyers write as they do now – I’ve seen it called defensive writing, but at least it could never be mis-understood.