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Royalties work better when the product is fixed upon creation: an episode of TV basically never changes once produced. Software changes all the time (for bette
by mLuby 5y ago
Royalties work better when the product is fixed upon creation: an episode of TV basically never changes once produced.
Software changes all the time (for better and worse). If git blame said I wrote 100% of the code 5 years ago, but only 10% today, do my royalties change over time to reflect that? What if my remaining 10% code is extremely business-critical, or what if it's dead code that just hasn't been cleaned up yet? Would new programmers intentionally refactor departed employees' code to take over that share of the royalties?
The closer approximation to royalties are the low touch/highly automated side businesses we hear about now and then, like some programmer setting up a small self-contained SaaS business. But economic and legal forces tend to push successful SaaS businesses to grow or be replaced (in-house), so sadly they're the exception rather than the rule.
- ipaddr 5y agoRoyalties would make everything more political. People would try to write things certain ways, evil managers would demand a cut, senior leadership would try to push their agenda. Besides most software is written in a way to be useless outside of the original business. Having the copyright does very little unless I start the project with this in mind and keep a more generic base.