Quote:I wish Sergio could be here to celebrate with you! He was really deserving this award. I'm saying this not because he is my husband, but for the fact that he dedicated a good protion of his spare time to LDraw, sometimes even his own sleep. He had two great passions: LEGO, which he collected from childhood (we still have all his old sets and have added, over time, those of our children) and programming. With the SR3D Sergio found a way to combine his interests and created an original, innovative virtual environment, which allowed everyone to build the models of their dreams. As I already wrote he dedicated his very heart and soul to his software: late into the evening, on holidays, and at home… Even when he was not working on it, he thought about how to add new functionality, how to overcome problems, or how to satisfy requests coming from his “fans”. Finding a bug caused much agony!!
Lots have written to me after he his passing telling me their admiration for his work and their esteem for him. Sergio really loved his “creature” and he was working on it until the his very last seconds of his life. He was a generous and capable man and would have given so much in the days to come.

Kind regards,

Cristina

Orion Pobursky Wrote:We already did. Her current reply is that if Sergio want the code open he would have opened it. Maybe time will change her mind but I respect her decision for now.

Johannes Schauer Wrote:Hello all,

Orion Pobursky Wrote:We already did. Her current reply is that if Sergio want the code open he would have opened it. Maybe time will change her mind but I respect her decision for now.

when you asked Cristina about relaxing the license terms of SR 3D Builder and releasing the source code, did you make her aware of the consequences that not doing that will have for Sergio's project?

Johannes Schauer Wrote:I'm sure Sergio had his reasons to keep the source code closed while he was alive which might've ranged from being interested in the monetary reward to just keeping control over the software itself without having to deal with people ripping off his work.

But something that only Cristina can know is if those reasons are still valid ones after Sergio left this world. Since I see several reports that one cannot buy a license for SR 3D Builder anymore, it seems that there are no monetary reasons involved or otherwise Cristina could at least keep getting donations for Sergio's great work.

Did you make her aware that if code is left unmaintainable then people will stop using the software either because there is no way to (legally) fix bugs, to add features, to add newly introduced LEGO parts or because the world moves on and the software will not run anymore on current operating systems?

Johannes Schauer Wrote:I do not know how to contact Cristina, so I would like to make sure that you made it clear that with the software being proprietary and unmaintained, it will slowly be forgotten by everybody. Instead, Cristina could make it so that others can continue the great legacy that her husband left behind, building on his great shoulders. Instead, now people have to redo his work if they would like to use a LEGO builder software with the features that SR 3D Builder offered.

Is she aware that releasing the source code of SR 3D Builder does not remove her husband from the picture? Instead, even with a very liberal open source license like BSD or MIT, his name would have to be mentioned in all derivative works that are made from SR 3D Builder. And copyright law makes it such that this condition has to be kept for 70 years after a person's death.

Johannes Schauer Wrote:Only Cristina can know whether the reasons her husband kept the code proprietary are still valid now. And only Cristina can now decide whether her husband's work is supposed to be kept as unchangable memorial or whether future generations shall be allowed to build on top of his work, carrying his name on for however long there is somebody who takes care of the code and making her husband an even greater hero after he passed away than he already was while he was still alive.

Johannes Schauer Wrote:Do you have a way to contact her at a later point?

Johannes Schauer Wrote:Are there any plans from you to bring this topic to her again after some time passed?

Johannes Schauer Wrote:I am sorry that this topic is overshadowing a person's passing. I do not want to limit Sergio to the work he did on SR 3D Builder. A person's life is uncomparibly more important than any piece of software. Software can be recreated if needed. Because copyright law is tricky to understand and only few have a basic grasp of it, I just wanted to make sure that Cristina was given enough information about this topic to make an informed decision about it with the best interest for her husband in mind.

Willy Tschager Wrote:Wanna step in? Drop me a line and I forward you her address - dunno if her English is fit enough though.