[Gzz] Something you should know address@hidden: :zz: Patent license for gzz]

[Tuomas Lukka]

----- Forwarded message from Ted Nelson <address@hidden> -----

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Date: Sun, 09 Feb 2003 22:06:53 -0800
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From: Ted Nelson <address@hidden>
Subject: :zz: Patent license for gzz
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Dear Benja and Tuomas:

First of all, let me thank you for the gracious and civilized tone of your
note.  I know there are many in the Slashdot community who want to start
fights over patents, and I'm glad that none of us wants that.

Thank you also for the extensive and appreciative summary of how Gzz is
implementing my ideas, in ways I haven't seen yet--

>Yet, the current Gzz development version is, to my best
>knowledge, the first system to integrate zzstructure and Xanalogical
>structure for fluid media; ...

And much more.  I will quote you on that :)  Especially in my HT03 opening
keynote.

I am sorry not to have given you more acknowledgment on my Web pages, but
please note that I have not had time to make serious changes there for more
than a year.  My time is extremely short.  I look forward to including Gzz
screenshots in the Scientific American piece (to be resubmitted later this
year; they still want it).

Let me clarify the situation with regard to the ZigZag patent.  It is a
U.S. patent only, with no possibility of extension to other jurisdictions,
so it applies only to the distribution of software in the USA.  That leaves
six billion (non-US) potential users to which you have unrestricted access.
 (I note that the open source world has made its peace with MP3 and .gif,
and some of its members use zip files-- all of which are I believe
patented-- so the situation is not without precedent.)

There should be no problem about arranging to grant you a one-year formal
license (not just this letter) for unrestricted distribution of Gzz in the
USA.  I am not in a position to go further without consulting
shareholders-to-be and other participants.  We are planning a ZigZag
licensing operation for the USA, and are already in dialogue with one
potential licensee.  It has been pointed out that if Gzz is licensed free,
there will be less incentive to license our version.  So this is the
calculus we have to look at here.

Should you wish to license Gzz for the USA after the first year, I would
expect the terms to be reasonable -- a dollar or so a copy would be my
guess.  I thought that would break the GPL model, but Benja says (another
email, Jan 16):

>However, a possible route might
>be to add a restriction to the license, saying the code must not be
>used or distributed in the United States; the GPL/LGPL provides for
>this.

I didn't know that last part.  It could be just right.  (Can you steer us
to that part of it?)

I hope you can see the situation from my point of view.  Note that with the
Xanadu Project I have given forty years of my life to worthy causes.  Now I
have to consider my own finances and those of my family.  While no malice
has been involved, I feel that I have lost greatly over the Gzz project.
The waste of two years of one's life may not seem like much at your age,
but at night I count the minutes that remain.  My heedless contributions to
the Gzz team have made you my principal competitor, threatening everything
I've worked for.  (Just because it's free doesn't mean it's not a
competitor-- just ask Bill G. about Linux!)

It would be in some ways unfortunate if you stopped development on
zzstructure, but a great relief to me.  However, I suspect you may find
that difficult.

Obviously there was a considerable misunderstanding between Tuomas and
myself.  I thought I was going to be in charge in some sense, and I
desperately needed a reliable system for my note-taking (which I have
finally just gotten by other means).  I never considered myself to be "in
an open source project", but in a reciprocal arrangement with Tuomas.  For
my time and attention I expected a robust minimal system which I could use
immediately, and sincere support for its minute-by-minute use; but feel
that I got nothing in return.

Benja suggests otherwise, that your current activity is some kind of payback:

>I hope that having an actual,
>running implementation of these features will be enough 'in return' for
>you to make granting the license worthwhile.

I greatly appreciate the degree to which your work reflects my ideas.
Unfortunately, as I have stepped to another implementation, I can only
admire Gzz from a distance, like so many other projects based on my ideas.

I have the greatest respect for your work and liking for all of you
personally, and I hope a mutually satisfactory resolution can be worked
out.  I look forward to seeing you in Nottingham in August.

With continuing good wishes for your aspirations, Ted


_________________________________________________
Theodor Holm Nelson      •      Designer      •      Consultant   
Founder, Project Xanadu (the original hypertext project), 1960+
Visiting Professor, University of Southampton, England
 •  e-mail: address@hidden,cc:address@hidden
 •  http://www.sfc.keio.ac.jp/~ted/    •  http://xanadu.com
 • world-wide phone  +1/415/ 331-4422   •  fax +1/415/332-0136
  Project Xanadu, 3020 Bridgeway #295, Sausalito CA 94965
_________________________________________________


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