Suggestion: permanent visible Celestia label

[jim]

Hi all,

after this bad expierence with ESA I had this idea. How about to show in a corner a permanent Celestia label that can't dissabled even with 'CTRL-V' or in full sreen. I think something like "Celestia free space simulation" would be nise. By this way it would be ensured that Celestia is always given a minimum credit.

Bye Jens

[Falck]

I disagree. While it is important that Celestia get proper credit, it would be a detriment to most users to obscure a portion of the screen with the text.

And more importantly, Celestia is open source. If the offending party wanted to remove that tag, they could simply recompile.

[Harry]

after this bad expierence with ESA I had this idea. How about to show in a corner a permanent Celestia label that can't dissabled even with 'CTRL-V' or in full sreen. I think something like "Celestia free space simulation" would be nise. By this way it would be ensured that Celestia is always given a minimum credit.

So "ruin" full-screen-mode for everybody, just to make sure nobody uses celestia-screenshots without credit? AFAIK there are no restrictions on screenshots made with celestia, so while it's not the most friendly way to handle this, they don't have to give credit if they don't want to.

And even if there was a label - there is nothing stopping them from removing the label-code from the source and compile it again without label. Or crop the screenshot, removing the label. Or ...

I for one am simply glad to see celestia being used by ESA, with or without credit.

Harald

[t00fri]

...
I for one am simply glad to see celestia being used by ESA, with or without credit.

Harald

Harald,

precisely this argument makes me very sad! With this logics, you are about to sell your soul!

Some of you might have wondered why I have reacted so strongly in the context of the ESA "Celestia credit" issue...

-- No, it's not for my sake. I have no personal ambitions, here. But I can see the moral seduction at work, which makes me angry...The mere idea that such a big organization "graciously" considers using Celestia...HOW COOL...and people being still happy despite their "bad manners" etc.

-- Professionally, though, I have to deal a lot with such "big science" organizations and hence I can for sure see behind the "curtain" a little better than some of you...

-- Let the procedure just pass again "slowly" in front of your eyes:

Some of these WEB guys must have played with Celestia extensively to produce the displayed orbits. For hours, at least. And "at the end of the day" they have nothing better to do than tagging their final Celestia plots on the ESA WEB site with

"Credit: ESA 2003"

And for one moment only, imagine how many hours, days weeks, months Chris has spent to get this all together...

No, this is NOT a small "oversight"...If they were just careless, why did they not forget to add those ESA credit labels, too??? They were carefully placed under each individual Celestia plot...

Bye Fridger

[Harry]

The mere idea that such a big organization "graciously" considers using Celestia...HOW COOL...and people being still happy despite their "bad manners" etc.

I don't conisder ESA special, just because they are big or important, that's not my point (I probably would be even more impressed if it was used by a much smaller organization, but for educational purposes). It's just that I don't consider their manners that bad. Sure they should have credited celestia right from the start, it's just good style. But it is up to them, if they don't want to, they don't have to (correct me if I am wrong). Maybe I am simply not that sure where to draw the line between tools like gimp and something like celestia - of course there is a difference, but at what ratio between their work and the programs work should a credit appear? I just don't know

Harald

[Falck]

Heres another way to look at it. Celestia is a tool. When you see graphics posted on websites, do you expect to see credits for Photoshop, or Excel when charts are posted?

[Guest]

The mere idea that such a big organization "graciously" considers using Celestia...HOW COOL...and people being still happy despite their "bad manners" etc.

I don't conisder ESA special, just because they are big or important, that's not my point (I probably would be even more impressed if it was used by a much smaller organization, but for educational purposes). It's just that I don't consider their manners that bad. Sure they should have credited celestia right from the start, it's just good style. But it is up to them, if they don't want to, they don't have to (correct me if I am wrong). Maybe I am simply not that sure where to draw the line between tools like gimp and something like celestia - of course there is a difference, but at what ratio between their work and the programs work should a credit appear? I just don't know

Harald

Yes, you have put "your finger" on a a good point.

I see a huge conceptional difference between software that calculates my income tax, for example, and Celestia. Celestia, indeed is unique, original and up to scientific standards. It simply represents the (tedious) result of substantial scientific research and as such should be treated accordingly! It is correspondingly attractive to scientists, as you clearly see from its use by NASA and ESA.

Bye Fridger

[Guest]

Heres another way to look at it. Celestia is a tool. When you see graphics posted on websites, do you expect to see credits for Photoshop, or Excel when charts are posted?

I completely disagree.

You are quoting exclusively commercial programs that have been paid for already when they are used. Non-commercial work -including scientific work- is subject to an entirely different codex. The fact that one does not have to pay for the software or scientific papers is honored within the respective communities by strict rules of fairness including proper citation.

Our society has functioned this way for centuries. Apparently young people tend to forget this or have never realized ...

Bye Fridger

[Guest]

Heres another way to look at it. Celestia is a tool. When you see graphics posted on websites, do you expect to see credits for Photoshop, or Excel when charts are posted?

I completely disagree.

I have developed many scientific software "tools" during my professional life. Of course, they have always been properly cited whenever they were used by other scientists.

You are quoting exclusively commercial programs that have been paid for already when they are used. Non-commercial work -including scientific work- is subject to an entirely different codex. The fact that one does not have to pay for the software or scientific papers is honored within the respective communities by strict rules of fairness including proper citation.

Our society has functioned this way for centuries. Apparently young people tend to forget this or have never realized ...

Bye Fridger

[Guest]

Heres another way to look at it. Celestia is a tool. When you see graphics posted on websites, do you expect to see credits for Photoshop, or Excel when charts are posted?

I completely disagree.

I have developed many scientific software "tools" during my professional life. Of course, they have always been properly cited whenever they were used by other scientists. See for example

http://www.desy.de/~t00fri/qcdins/qcdins.html

You are quoting exclusively commercial programs that have been paid for already when they are used. Non-commercial work -including scientific work- is subject to an entirely different codex. The fact that one does not have to pay for the software or scientific papers is honored within the respective communities by strict rules of fairness including proper citation.

Our society has functioned this way for centuries. Apparently young people tend to forget this or have never realized ...

Bye Fridger

[t00fri]

What a pain, I was again logged out by the system at some stage (despite password saving mode) and hence could not get rid of intermediate "editions" anymore...Just read the last one.

Bye Fridger

[Rassilon]

A note on the system: Chris ive been seeing a number of sql errors when logging into the forums...phpBB is rather buggy to say the least....Consider Invision: http://www.invisionboard.com/?conversion with conversion tools from your current sql database...If you dont want to mess with it Im sure someone would be more than happy to help you out in this area...I for one have pretty strong sql skills as well as php...as does marc and fridger I believe...

On Celestia's credit: I think its never good to display anyones work without giving proper credit...GPL doesnt seem to limit one from discluding credit for the sole reason its developed with freedom of download and freedom from patents in mind...With such high money making companies such as Microsoft and Intel and countless software industries out there with no imagination and all market...its hard for the 'little guys' to get noticed...There is a major drawback to giving Celestia this well deserved fame across the airwaves...The great invasion of all the markets wanting to gobble up the sourcecode and use it to tool other projects and make a fortune off it...Its a paradox of the GPL I suppose...freedom to manipulate but where are the mannerisms we come to expect such as honour given to the ones who started it all...

The problem lies in mankinds priorities and not in the glory of Celestia...

Just my 0.02 cents

[Harry]

Chris ive been seeing a number of sql errors when logging into the forums...phpBB is rather buggy to say the least....

I think it's not a bug per se, but mysql has simply reached it's (current) limit. If chris' machine has enough power, it probably suffices to increase the number of allowed concurrent connections to the DB. But I am just guessing

Harald

[chris]

Chris ive been seeing a number of sql errors when logging into the forums...phpBB is rather buggy to say the least....

I think it's not a bug per se, but mysql has simply reached it's (current) limit. If chris' machine has enough power, it probably suffices to increase the number of allowed concurrent connections to the DB. But I am just guessing

Yes, I think it's a matter of configuring mysql to allow more simultaneous connections. I don't think my server should have any problem handling more connection--bandwidth is the limiting factor, not server horsepower.

--Chris