Re: Re: RHIZOME_RARE: A few words concerningopen-source and art

Quoting Jim Andrews <[email protected]>:

> When there is both some point in making the code public (there isn't always)

You can never tell whether there is a point or not, so you should not risk
making the wrong decision. The only way to do this is to always release.

> and the artist-programmer does not thereby forfeit potential earnings,

This reverses the usual argument that the code doesn't need releasing because
the art is the important thing.

If artists should protect code they should trademark their imagery and patent
their methods. Art piracy is a threat to compensation for creative individuals
in the affective economy.

Possibly painters should burn their preparatory sketches.

> then
> they should consider making the code public.
>
> But consider the code discussed at
> http://turbulence.org/curators/Paris/durieuenglish.htm . The code was not
> made public, but the code idea *was*. And it was made public in a much more
> interesting way than by making the code itself public.

It helps that the work is trivial to describe and that the artist is a good
conversationalist.

> Whoever wishes to use
> it may, obviously, but they first have to understand it. They don't need the
> code itself if they understand the idea. And the code itself is not enough
> to understand the idea.

If the code isn't enough, how is an interview that has no involvement in the
creation of the work itself enough?

> The notion that "we need a Free Software-style moral imperative to show
> code" gives me the willies.

Right, I'm getting the placards printed. ;-)

- Rob.