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A few days ago I had an email from 'Adapterz LLC' pointing me to this site and mentioning that my paper on IP and 3D printing had been cited as an inspiration:
The Free Universal Constructor Kit
In a nutshell, this group are creating 3D design files to allow you to print parts that connect one constructor set to another.
I commented on the site to say that (a) it was nice to see my work being cited, (b) they should probably be careful not to assume that the relevant bit of law was simple or universally applicable, and (c) that I agreed with some other comments to the effect that their name was not very clever.
I got a reply by email from a Golan Levin saying, in part,
Regarding the name of the project: it is part of our media strategy, which is to say, it has been instrumental in raising awareness about the project (and the issues it raises about 3d printing, IP, etc.). Metaphorically the name relates well to the notion of mating parts, especially across species. We wholly concur that it is juvenile, but respectfully disagree that this is a bad thing, or that another name would serve the project better. Anyway -- we hope we can agree to disagree about this. You will notice that we never refer to the project by its acronym.
To which I responded:
In terms of the name of the project, I would ask you this: do you really want to put off that large part of the maker community who happen to be female? A lot of male geeks tend to laugh off use of sexually-loaded language and assume that anyone who is offended by it is merely being prudish. Unfortunately many women experience such language mainly in the form of insults or offensive comments and are much less likely to take it as a joke. I see from your website that your team is almost entirely young and male and I would ask you to reflect on whether your 'media strategy' needs considering from outside your very narrow demographic.
That was nearly a week ago. Not surprisingly I never got a reply.
The Free Universal Constructor Kit
In a nutshell, this group are creating 3D design files to allow you to print parts that connect one constructor set to another.
I commented on the site to say that (a) it was nice to see my work being cited, (b) they should probably be careful not to assume that the relevant bit of law was simple or universally applicable, and (c) that I agreed with some other comments to the effect that their name was not very clever.
I got a reply by email from a Golan Levin saying, in part,
Regarding the name of the project: it is part of our media strategy, which is to say, it has been instrumental in raising awareness about the project (and the issues it raises about 3d printing, IP, etc.). Metaphorically the name relates well to the notion of mating parts, especially across species. We wholly concur that it is juvenile, but respectfully disagree that this is a bad thing, or that another name would serve the project better. Anyway -- we hope we can agree to disagree about this. You will notice that we never refer to the project by its acronym.
To which I responded:
In terms of the name of the project, I would ask you this: do you really want to put off that large part of the maker community who happen to be female? A lot of male geeks tend to laugh off use of sexually-loaded language and assume that anyone who is offended by it is merely being prudish. Unfortunately many women experience such language mainly in the form of insults or offensive comments and are much less likely to take it as a joke. I see from your website that your team is almost entirely young and male and I would ask you to reflect on whether your 'media strategy' needs considering from outside your very narrow demographic.
That was nearly a week ago. Not surprisingly I never got a reply.
