Unpicking the "Resource Center" stack

[tperry2x]

Apart from being massively out of date (amazingly, the download links still work!)...

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It's very heavily LC branded, and features a lot of references to 'Revolution'.
I even found some stuff that mentions 'Metacard'.

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(But then, that's nothing new). There are funny comments throughout LC and OXT by extension:

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- I see Paul has a couple of reminders of things to work on too:

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Anyway, my next task will be to de-brand this, modernise it and make sure there are no Livecode, Runrev, Revolution or Metacard references left in from days of old.

If anyone wants to help in fixing some of the sample projects (Anything involving a browser is really broken on Linux, at least on all my distros here - MX/Ubuntu/Puppy/Devuan/Debian12 to name but a few).

[OpenXTalkPaul]

- I see Paul has a couple of reminders of things to work on too:
do_linux.png

I never did it either

I did do a lot of debranding to that stack already but minimal work, cleaning it up and making it look pretty again.
One thing I did do is I made it into a 'stack forwarder' that load it as topLevel (instead of an revIDE stack), so that it could be edited at will (as I had time to work on it).

[tperry2x]

Cool. I was just wondering, could you attach a copy of it here – didn't want to re-invent the wheel so to speak. No point going over tasks that you've already completed (I'll just be making work for myself otherwise )

I also wondered, did renaming this stack (getting rid of the rev prefix in the filename) also require the rebuilding of the menus / menubar stack, so that it could find the new stack name when clicked?

[richmond62]

There are references to MetaCard in several places in the IDE: as, as far as I know, the MetaCard IDE was open sourced a long, long time ago, I would not lose any sleep over that.

[richmond62]

(amazingly, the download links still work!)

BUT,it is entirely possible they will not last much longer, so, maybe they should be downloaded and then uploaded to, for instance, the internet archive, and then the links in the stack can be rejigged.

Remember that there is nothing quite like a lover scorned: and the people in Edinburgh (particularly one) may be beginning to feel like that, having scorned the chances of what is now OXT, OXT is now starting to flap its own wings.

[FourthWorld]

There are references to MetaCard in several places in the IDE: as, as far as I know, the MetaCard IDE was open sourced a long, long time ago, I would not lose any sleep over that.

Copyright and trademark are different things.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

Cool. I was just wondering, could you attach a copy of it here – didn't want to re-invent the wheel so to speak. No point going over tasks that you've already completed (I'll just be making work for myself otherwise )

I also wondered, did renaming this stack (getting rid of the rev prefix in the filename) also require the rebuilding of the menus / menubar stack, so that it could find the new stack name when clicked?

Those files ('forwarder' & stripped down "resource center" as non IDE stack) should be in the repo (they're definitely inside libraries folder in RC4 macOS dmg), but I'll try to also post those files here when I get home tonight. Mostly just changed "Runtime Revolution" to 'the IDE' or similar, a few deletions of outdated or broken example.
I removed it's navigation side-bar panel and replaced it with a simple index menu that populates itself on mouseDown from the names of the cards in the stack (which reflect the topic on that card). The reason I did that was to make it easier to remove or add new cards to make it more relevant info. Some additional examples from older versions of this stack I may have put into the included revLibOpenXTalkObjects (in addition to the old 'Standard' Objects library). Like I said I did minimal actual work to this stack and it definitely needs more TLC to bring it into this decade... Although I was thinking that the 'Guides' tab in the Dictionary stack is somewhat of a replacement for Resource Center, so its content could theoretically be converted to markdown and then added to the dictionary, with example objects moved to an Object library.

[OpenXTalkPaul]

There are references to MetaCard in several places in the IDE: as, as far as I know, the MetaCard IDE was open sourced a long, long time ago, I would not lose any sleep over that.

Copyright and trademark are different things.

Not sure what you mean there? I mean yeah they are.

it was my understanding that the Metacard IDE (just the IDE and not its runtime Engines) were basically in the public domain now. That company has been non-existent for two decades. I have looked through those files (from Yahoo Group archived 2019), and it's mostly just historically interesting, not really useful today. Anyway it seems that most of the current FOSS versions are obviously directly descended from the MC IDE, however heavily modified since then they may be.

[richmond62]

A Quick-n-Dirty web search for 'Metacard' leads one to quite a few things called Metacard, so I cannot see how anyone can say the name is either a trademark or copyright . . .

[FourthWorld]

A Quick-n-Dirty web search for 'Metacard' leads one to quite a few things called Metacard, so I cannot see how anyone can say the name is either a trademark or copyright . . .

You'll also find the word "Google" in a great many places, but that only means they have good marketing, not that it's not a trademark.

[FourthWorld]

it was my understanding that the Metacard IDE (just the IDE and not its runtime Engines) were basically in the public domain now. That company has been non-existent for two decades. I have looked through those files (from Yahoo Group archived 2019), and it's mostly just historically interesting, not really useful today. Anyway it seems that most of the current FOSS versions are obviously directly descended from the MC IDE, however heavily modified since then they may be.

There's what normally happens, and what happened with "MetaCard".

IANAL of course, but here's my lay understanding of the factors at play here, none of which can be construed as legal advice:

Normally an acquirer will obtain any trademarks along with the other assets of an acquisition, such as RunRev Ltd's acquisition of the MetaCard engine in 2003.

Trademarks and patents carry an additional encumbrance not assumed by copyright holders: in addition to periodic renewal, any infringement the mark holder becomes aware of must be met with at least as cease and desist order.

Patents and trademarks have a lot of case law around them involving discriminatory protection, that is, favoring some use but not others. This can contribute to de facto cartels, which can have a monopoly effect on curtailing expansion and innovation in a market. So the remedy has been the establishment of the FRAND principle, that assertions of such IP be Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Discriminatory.

As FRAND became more well known (largely during the mobile patent wars of a decade ago), open source IP owners began distinguishing trademarks from copyrighted code, asking fokers to remove their registered marks from forks. Canonical met with a brief and unwarranted resentment in some circles when they added explicit notice of this to their GPL code base.

As we know, LC does the same with the "LiveCode" mark.

But what of "MetaCard"?

While MetaCard Corp remained a "practicing entity" beyond the sale of their engine to LC Ltd, the disposition of the trademark was unknown to me. That is, was it still owned by MC or its use to denote an engine transferred up LC?

At the time of the engine acquisition the MC IDE was indeed released as open source (MIT license). But given the environment of the time, no one asked about trademark. And MetaCard Corp never asserted their mark against maintainers of subsequent forks.

This would ordinarily create some ambiguity about the status, were it not for the web:

I just did a search at US PTO and its UK corollary, and US lists MC Corp's registration as expired and unrenewed, and I can find no registration of the mark related to LC Ltd in the UK DB at all.

TL;DR:

While it's normally prudent to exercise caution when using any mark that has been used in trade, in this case non-enforcement raises a question of whether anyone cares, and the expired status would seem to confirm that no one does.

[tperry2x]

While it's normally prudent to exercise caution when using any mark that has been used in trade, in this case non-enforcement raises a question of whether anyone cares, and the expired status would seem to confirm that no one does.

That TLDR bit needs to go at the top of the post ideally.

[richmond62]

TDLR . . . WTFIT?

I cannot keep up with the nonce acronyms and all those hapax legomenon that are being bandied around the place.

[tperry2x]

Haha. Yeah. Too Long, Didn't read.
But there's so many of those creeping in to everyday parlance.
Like ROFL (Roll on Floor Laughing), was a complete mystery to me 20 years ago, and people would have looked at you like you were crazy, but I've heard kids actually say Lolz in general conversation.

There's so much of that, I too find it hard to keep up. Like Fam and Salty.
Having said that, I did have to lookup inwith the other day.

I just tend to go with it now, and Google it later

This makes me think about the phrases used in the dictionary.
In all seriousness, I'd like to insert synonyms into the dictionary. Just so I could refer to colour as colour and not color, so we could use both with no issues.

[richmond62]

Frankly, as a Scot who went to school in England, holds a B.A. from an English university, an M.A. from an American universit, and an M.Sc. from, if one is completely honest, a Scots knocking shop: while 'colour' maybe, that is only because 'Dr' Johnson (an unco coorse Inglisman wi tourettes) thocht 'colour' was derived from the French 'coleur', which it wasnae, as it came intil Inglis fae the Latin 'color'.

AND, if you are wondering about that, when I was last in Philadelphia (a city I really I really like, for my younger son's graduation fron UPenn), I bought a wonderful facsimile of Noah Qebster's original work, which sits beside my original edition of Johnson's Dictionary, in, logically enough, our downstairs toilet (18th century leather needs a bit of damp).

So, as a Scot, and a damn well read one at that ( none of your narrow minded presbyterians, forbye(, I have no oarticularity re 'colour', 'color', or, mayhap, 'kuller', as language (that's 'lied' for those o ye qha cannae keep up wi ma Sudron) is all about COMMUNICATION, and NOT about nit-picking about how, just, one should spell a vocable.

AND, Shafspeer, spelt his name in many, many ways: didnae stap that chiel from being an effing genius!

[tperry2x]

True dat (as the kids say!)
Language has changed throughout history, and continues to change.
Phrases and words have dropped out of common use, while new ones emerge constantly.

Delia is in the dictionary now, as in "That dish looks a bit Delia" - as in the style of Delia Smith.
While some would see this as a crime against language, I just find it interesting more than anything.

The reason I brought up the alternative methods of spelling colour when coding, wasn't to be disrespectful of anyone's chosen method of spelling it. More to the point, it was about an ease-of-use case for students coding. They may be sat wondering why they can't refer to colour and have to instead use "set the foregroundcolor of..." which will have many people thinking 'huh?' straight away.

As we know that LC like to Americanise things at every turn (as I mentioned once before on here, why do they cost everything in US $ when they are based in Edinburgh?) - why wouldn't they also Americanise the word Colour for Color? Probably purely to appeal to a larger market.

I just don't see why we can't have both Colour and Color (Colour could just work as a pass-through alias function to Color)

[OpenXTalkPaul]

Haha. Yeah. Too Long, Didn't read.
But there's so many of those creeping in to everyday parlance.
Like ROFL (Roll on Floor Laughing), was a complete mystery to me 20 years ago, and people would have looked at you like you were crazy, but I've heard kids actually say Lolz in general conversation.

There's so much of that, I too find it hard to keep up. Like Fam and Salty.
Having said that, I did have to lookup inwith the other day.

I just tend to go with it now, and Google it later

This makes me think about the phrases used in the dictionary.
In all seriousness, I'd like to insert synonyms into the dictionary. Just so I could refer to colour as colour and not color, so we could use both with no issues.

My three sons have mostly kept me up to date with the latest 'jankey'' mutations to the English language.
Though I must admit I did have to look up 'I'm Not A Lawyer', probably not seen since I was last on Usenet like two decades ago. LMMFAO (the extra M is from living in New Jersey).

[OpenXTalkPaul]

TL;DR:

While it's normally prudent to exercise caution when using any mark that has been used in trade, in this case non-enforcement raises a question of whether anyone cares, and the expired status would seem to confirm that no one does.

I did enjoy getting some of the deets Richard, thanks. I was not even aware of 'the community' (Beyond 'Save HyperCard" campaign) at that time so it helps filling in some gaps in my xTalk history awareness.

I'd like to, at some point, get back to one of my initial ideas for OXT, which was to have a parallel project to make some sort of concise documentation; The complete history of xTalk/xCards and why that's still an insanely great concept. Include details on any and all implementations, obscure ones or derivatives too. Include some pre xTalk history, HyperText/HyperMedia... Xerox, NeWS, NoteCard. Maybe even details like what was the cartoon pict on Bill Atkinson's tab of LSD, lol (I wonder if Bill would answer that question if I could get it to him?). Do it in the form of an OpenSource eBook with plenty of screenshots/and pictures. There's few resources on this topic these days. You mostly find a handful of articles, mostly with shallow takes on what was good and bad and with Titles like "Why HyperCard had to Die".

I've become concerned about rapid pace of digital obsolescence, actually losing the history, as the people who were there unfortunately die off. Things like WayBackMachine feel ever more important to me now. And of course Wikipedia (a port of a HyperCard stack) is a great resource too (when it's accurate, which its accuracy tends to be quite high actually, despite common rhetoric about the reverse): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_obsolescence