>> Point taken, however, would you say the same if your client, who has some programming experience, takes your code, mucks it up and deviates from the original vision?
If my contract with them allows them to do that, then I don't really care. I do make sure that client contracts prevent them from touching code until it has been officially handed off, however.
I only said she had a small part in allowing it to happen. Corporate behaviour changes with executive turnover. The next CEO of a company may not honor promises made by previous CEOs.
I consider it naive to put any amount of trust in a corporation to rise above the wording in the contracts when it comes to "doing the right thing".
>> Point taken, however, would you say the same if your client, who has some programming experience, takes your code, mucks it up and deviates from the original vision?
> If my contract with them allows them to do that, then I don't really care. I do make sure that client contracts prevent them from touching code until it has been officially handed off, however.
Code is rarely intended to convey an artistic vision or social message. These kinds of analogies are not very effective. A better comparison would be something like if The Jungle had been madeover to suggest that immigrants had it easy and there were no problems in the meatpacking industry. It's a whitewashed, unnuanced version of a fantasy, and largely antithetical to the original creators intent.
Since this is a hacker forum, I wanted to use an analogy that many could relate to here, although it seems not to have worked.
The problem with your reasoning, however, is that Sinclair had the choice of several publishers, and could have chosen to publish the book at a later date had no publisher respected the source material. The creator of Merida had no publishers; she had to submit to Disney and keep her fingers crossed, and they betrayed her anyway.
Combine that with the deadlines that she probably had to face for the character itself, and you end up with a decision by Disney that really deserves reprimanding.
Re the chosen analogy: Fair enough, it does however present the problem of many engineer/programmer types taking such analogies a bit too literally.
Re Sinclair: I agree, probably not the best example, but when trying to think of a book with an intended social commentary it was the first that popped into my head. There are almost certainly better examples.
How about V for Vendetta then, the original book had a much clearer idea of anarchy, totalitarianism and the consequences of each than that watered down movie.
>> How about V for Vendetta then, the original book had a much clearer idea of anarchy, totalitarianism and the consequences of each than that watered down movie.
This is why Salman Rushdie sold the movie rights to Midnight's Children for only $1. On the Daily Show, he said he wanted to maintain creative input into how the movie was made. I'm sure he gets compensated by being a producer, but it shows how much he was willing to give up in terms of money in exchange for this ability.
If my contract with them allows them to do that, then I don't really care. I do make sure that client contracts prevent them from touching code until it has been officially handed off, however.
I only said she had a small part in allowing it to happen. Corporate behaviour changes with executive turnover. The next CEO of a company may not honor promises made by previous CEOs.
I consider it naive to put any amount of trust in a corporation to rise above the wording in the contracts when it comes to "doing the right thing".