My cousin Corbett stopped me in the hall the other day with a gleam in his eye. "Characters as objects," he said. "Think about it." I didn't want to think about it. "We've had this argument before," I protested. "I still think Pournelle does it deliberately. Science fiction is a genre of ideas, and you have to downplay characterization in favor of --"
"Not that kind of characters," he snapped. "Object-oriented font technology. OOF!"
If he wasn't doing an impression of Spy magazine's movie reviewer Walter Monheit {TM} (whose name apparently includes that trademark symbol), and I didn't think he was, then like so many others, Corbett had fallen victim to the current OOPidemic.
Am I the only person who kept trying to figure out what TROOPS stood for in those "support our troops" signs during the late war? Or the only person who associates object-oriented programming (OOPS, WHOOPS, where's the SCOOP?) with cleaning up after a puppy? I await with mixed feelings the announcement of the next conference on parallel object-oriented programming.
Well, this is pretty close. There just curled out of the fax machine the program for Transputing 91, a conference with at least one arguably parallel object-oriented programming session, to wit "Extending C++ with Communicating Sequential Processes." I guess it makes sense that a RISCy processor would lead to some OOPS. I see there's also a session on the Mad Postman network chip. Don't make it ring twice.
Gee, I'm sorry. Publishing time being what it is, you've already missed the conference, and here I'm still mulling over whether or not to attend. OK, I'll go and report on anything interesting next month, all right? I wonder if Gilbert Hyatt will be there to announce that he patented parallel architectures in 1973.
I was kidding about Hyatt, but who knows? He seems to have a patent on everything else. Not that patent ownership guarantees anything in these interesting times when the courts are mulling over what to make of computer technology. Ask Paul Heckel, or read the latest edition of his book, The Art of Friendly Software Design, with special attention to the new section recounting Heckel's troubles getting IBM to pay attention to his patent. Friendly?
Legal snags also await anyone rash enough to launch into what is being called new media. I recently attended a conference on the subject, and saw many rash people. The January issue of The Computer Lawyer ($325 for 12 issues; 800-223-0231) sounds the swamp they are sailing into. A typical new media product is a compilation. You might start with the text of an existing book, augmented by pictures (from the book and elsewhere) and some film clips and incidental music, then put it on a CD and craft an access engine that lets the user browse freely.
That part's easy; now try to get the rights. The author's contract probably wasn't written with new media in mind, and it could take a judge to distinguish the author's reserved movie rights from the electronic rights sold to the publisher. Finding out who has the rights when reprinting photographs is always tricky, and is complicated in new media by the difficulty of defining multiple use for user-controlled media. Rights in music and film can be very complex: When you acquire the right to use a film clip, the right to use the background music in the clip, or the likenesses of the stars in it, does not necessarily come along. And there are other legal issues: For nonstars, you may need to get releases to avoid charges of invasion of privacy, and you may face the problem of ensuring that people are not shown in an unflattering context when you don't entirely control the context. What goes for people goes for works: Don't assume that you can use a Country & Western soundclip in a way that ridicules the genre, or that you can colorize or edit someone else's work freely just because you have the right to use it. The decision to develop a new media product is one one should mull over.
And there's still no answer to where you affix the credits or the copyright symbol in a new media product, although Corbett thinks the latter problem will be solved once we have OOF.
"Once characters are objects," he explained, "fonts will become code libraries and trademark and copyright symbols will be able to enforce themselves. Any electronic copying of a file containing the C symbol will trigger the code bundled in the character, which could flash a warning message to the user or dial the phone and report the copying for royalty billing. Or it could just go ahead and complete the electronic funds transfer."
Corbett thinks the implementation is trivial. I think he's a nincompOOP.
Copyright © 1991, Dr. Dobb's Journal