5 ms·

As cool as Dynamicland is, I still don’t get why they won’t open source it or at least release it in some form. I’ve heard various people give roundabout excus

As cool as Dynamicland is, I still don’t get why they won’t open source it or at least release it in some form. I’ve heard various people give roundabout excuses, but none of them hold water. They often fall into one of the following categories: - “People won’t get the core ideas and will use it to make things that go against the core ideas” — People who care about Bret Victor’s work will take the time to learn the ideas. People who don’t might try and make something Bret doesn’t like, but currently the world is full of things Bret doesn’t like, so I don’t get how that would be different than the status quo. - “It’s actually ‘anti-internet’, reimagining computers as objects in physical space, without the intangible connections provided by the internet” — Cool! I’d like to use it to make an airgapped little lab thing for people in my city to play and experiment in, but I can’t do that unless it’s released to the community. - “Yeah but remember it’s ‘anti-internet’, releasing it open source on the internet would violate the core principles.” — This feels too cute by half. I don’t consider this a legitimate objection. - “Just come to Oakland, you’ll understand when you get here and use it.” — That’s way out of many people’s budgets. I also get the feeling that I wouldn’t come around just by seeing it, I think I’d want one in my city even more. - “You’re not entitled to other people’s work.” — True, but most stuff done in this sort of research space is done with the intent of spreading an idea or increasing the public good. It seems kind of odd that the Dynamicland folks keep talking about what a revolutionary concept it is while preventing 99.9% of people from actually experiencing it. Overall it just seems like such a weird attitude. I get that they’re worried about the world misunderstanding their ideas, but at this point there are tons of people who have been eating up Bret Victor’s work and have immense respect for his ideas, and would gladly watch, listen to or read whatever instructions would be necessary to help someone who’s already bought in “play by the rules” and get the best possible experience.

jdougan 2y ago
> - “People won’t get the core ideas and will use it to make things that go against the core ideas” — People who care about Bret Victor’s work will take the time to learn the ideas. People who don’t might try and make something Bret doesn’t like, but currently the world is full of things Bret doesn’t like, so I don’t get how that would be different than the status quo. I think the problem is like what happened to "agile" after the manifesto. People took a term with a meaning, and ignored that meaning in promoting their own stuff, thus confusing the terminology and messing up discussion of the concepts.
- Uehreka 2y ago
  So their antidote is just preventing the idea from gaining traction in the first place? Like, that will certainly prevent it from being misinterpreted the way Agile has been, but it will also ensure no one can use their idea at all.
  - cbreynoldson 2y ago
    They aren't trying to "gain traction" right now. They are nurturing a beautiful little flame of a vision and documenting it for the world to learn from, and possibly be inspired by, along the way -- someday it will be more publicly available, but for now it functions, to the general public, more as art than utility. The typical themes of things that get posted on HN are not compatible with this idea, which is why it comes across so jarringly to many. They aren't selling, prescribing, recruiting, etc. They are sharing a vision, and to deeply understand and appreciate the vision you have to get your hands dirty and do some digging into what they've prepared for us to see thus far.
sorrythanks 2y ago
I think you can look at some of the other replies in this thread to see how deeply this can be misunderstood. And I think the fear is more about losing the meaning of dynamicland. The source code isn't the idea, the idea is. That's what needs to be communicated. The web page is huge, though, with an unbelievable amount of information if you want to build your own. https://dynamicland.org/archive/2023/Front_shelf https://dynamicland.org/archive/2023/Front_shelf
- sorrythanks 2y ago
  there's also a much deeper explanation of the why here: https://dynamicland.org/2024/Is_Realtalk_open_source/ https://dynamicland.org/2024/Is_Realtalk_open_source/
  - Uehreka 2y ago
    I don’t like the answers they give on that page. Every single one feels like a dodge.
    - sorrythanks 2y ago
      It seems to me less that they are a "dodge" and more that the two of you have philosophical disagreements. If have taken the time to understand what he means when he says "Realtalk is not made of source code", and disagree with his conclusions, that's not quite the same as him being dishonest.
    - lproven 2y ago
      I read your comment, then I read the page. I disagree on every single line. This is not about software. Having the software on its own won't help you. If in 2006, the year before the iPhone came out, you had the software as FOSS, would that help? There was no hardware yet. There was nothing even with a capacitative touch screen with multitouch yet. The whole point of the design was to do away with styli, but all extant touchscreen devices needed styli back then. I was implementing corporate networks in 1991. I built them with NetBEUI for PC-to-PC comms, and IPX/SPX or DECnet for talking to servers. Occasionally all 3. If I gave 1991 me the source of timbl's WorldWideWeb, it would be no use. I didn't have NeXTstep. My corporate workstation ran X11 and talked to servers over it but it didn't run TCP/IP. I had no TCP/IP in the building. The point of the Web is the protocol, having clients and servers. Having docs is much more use than having code. Code is useless fragile stuff. Android reproduces a lot of the interaction model of the iPhone but it came from seeing iPhones and trying iPhones. It did not come from getting source. Nobody ever got the source. Forget the source. Source code doesn't matter. It's an irrelevant distraction. Source code is not the big deal here. Inventing a new way to interact with computers is the big deal here. Getting at the software does not matter.
interneterik 2y ago
As far as I can see, Dynamicland is not open-sourced because it's a building and community exploring new ways of thinking and learning collaboratively. These collaborations involve novel interactions with physical things. So far, this has nothing to do with something that could be open-sourced on GitHub. It just so happens that this new way of collaborating with physical things involves giving them access to computation. I know this comment will seem pedantic, but I hope it also communicates that the goals of this research project are different than you seem (at least to me) to consider. Bret Victor's goal isn't to design a system of projectors and cameras that run code on pieces of paper (just like Engelbart's goal wasn't to design the mouse). At a certain level, Bret Victor wants to explode our concept of computing.

jdougan 2y ago

> - “People won’t get the core ideas and will use it to make things that go against the core ideas” — People who care about Bret Victor’s work will take the time to learn the ideas. People who don’t might try and make something Bret doesn’t like, but currently the world is full of things Bret doesn’t like, so I don’t get how that would be different than the status quo. I think the problem is like what happened to "agile" after the manifesto. People took a term with a meaning, and ignored that meaning in promoting their own stuff, thus confusing the terminology and messing up discussion of the concepts.

Uehreka 2y ago
So their antidote is just preventing the idea from gaining traction in the first place? Like, that will certainly prevent it from being misinterpreted the way Agile has been, but it will also ensure no one can use their idea at all.
- cbreynoldson 2y ago
  They aren't trying to "gain traction" right now. They are nurturing a beautiful little flame of a vision and documenting it for the world to learn from, and possibly be inspired by, along the way -- someday it will be more publicly available, but for now it functions, to the general public, more as art than utility. The typical themes of things that get posted on HN are not compatible with this idea, which is why it comes across so jarringly to many. They aren't selling, prescribing, recruiting, etc. They are sharing a vision, and to deeply understand and appreciate the vision you have to get your hands dirty and do some digging into what they've prepared for us to see thus far.

sorrythanks 2y ago

I think you can look at some of the other replies in this thread to see how deeply this can be misunderstood. And I think the fear is more about losing the meaning of dynamicland. The source code isn't the idea, the idea is. That's what needs to be communicated. The web page is huge, though, with an unbelievable amount of information if you want to build your own. https://dynamicland.org/archive/2023/Front_shelf https://dynamicland.org/archive/2023/Front_shelf

sorrythanks 2y ago
there's also a much deeper explanation of the why here: https://dynamicland.org/2024/Is_Realtalk_open_source/ https://dynamicland.org/2024/Is_Realtalk_open_source/
- Uehreka 2y ago
  I don’t like the answers they give on that page. Every single one feels like a dodge.
  - sorrythanks 2y ago
    It seems to me less that they are a "dodge" and more that the two of you have philosophical disagreements. If have taken the time to understand what he means when he says "Realtalk is not made of source code", and disagree with his conclusions, that's not quite the same as him being dishonest.
  - lproven 2y ago
    I read your comment, then I read the page. I disagree on every single line. This is not about software. Having the software on its own won't help you. If in 2006, the year before the iPhone came out, you had the software as FOSS, would that help? There was no hardware yet. There was nothing even with a capacitative touch screen with multitouch yet. The whole point of the design was to do away with styli, but all extant touchscreen devices needed styli back then. I was implementing corporate networks in 1991. I built them with NetBEUI for PC-to-PC comms, and IPX/SPX or DECnet for talking to servers. Occasionally all 3. If I gave 1991 me the source of timbl's WorldWideWeb, it would be no use. I didn't have NeXTstep. My corporate workstation ran X11 and talked to servers over it but it didn't run TCP/IP. I had no TCP/IP in the building. The point of the Web is the protocol, having clients and servers. Having docs is much more use than having code. Code is useless fragile stuff. Android reproduces a lot of the interaction model of the iPhone but it came from seeing iPhones and trying iPhones. It did not come from getting source. Nobody ever got the source. Forget the source. Source code doesn't matter. It's an irrelevant distraction. Source code is not the big deal here. Inventing a new way to interact with computers is the big deal here. Getting at the software does not matter.

interneterik 2y ago

As far as I can see, Dynamicland is not open-sourced because it's a building and community exploring new ways of thinking and learning collaboratively. These collaborations involve novel interactions with physical things. So far, this has nothing to do with something that could be open-sourced on GitHub. It just so happens that this new way of collaborating with physical things involves giving them access to computation. I know this comment will seem pedantic, but I hope it also communicates that the goals of this research project are different than you seem (at least to me) to consider. Bret Victor's goal isn't to design a system of projectors and cameras that run code on pieces of paper (just like Engelbart's goal wasn't to design the mouse). At a certain level, Bret Victor wants to explode our concept of computing.