How to export finished patches,...

Roman, that is a good point, it would be easy for others to take what you make freely available and protect it. But that's the same as with many kinds of media and tools. So if you make something freely available you are in one sense accepting this fact. Probably we don't want someone to take what we've done, re-package it, and make money off it... but if it's out there with no protection or some kind of copyright, and no way to track what happens to it, this is how it is.

If someone were to collect all the great bits on the Forum and put it all together into a killer app and sell it, probably it would bother some people. That's understandable, especially as this person may be acting less like a programmer and more like a packager/marketer. But that's a skill in itself, and plenty of jobs out there require exactly this.

We get inspiration from a lot of sources, and even if we significantly modify what we find, we may come up with something that we might never would have on our own, without using that one important bit--that someone else created--which made us think, Ah-ha! Now I can make THIS.... Who "owns" the intellectual property of the resulting app? It might be hard to say in some situations, but generally you'd have a strong case that it's yours, and that the inspiration was gathered from freely-available sources, therefore you're not infringing upon anyone else's work. Gray areas for sure, especially with software that relies on so much prior work and so many prior ideas, so that's why these discussions are important.

I don't think sharing will end if this protection were a reality. We've collectively posted thousands of patches on here, and I think we generally do it just because we find it fun and interesting, or maybe we want to show an idea or a trick we figured out. Most patches are nowhere near sellable, and that's totally fine... some take 10 minutes to make, others take a few hours, some take longer. But if you spend six months on something that you think is great (and the programming is only one part---there's the UI, the help files, the picky layout details, the media, the presets...) you should be able to protect this hard work and sell it, if people are willing to buy. Hopefully you'll provide a free demo, or make it shareware/donation-only. But if you want to require payment for it, you should be able to.

Consider those really helpful, paid externals out there that people create and sell, even for a small price. Many people are willing to pay for them, because they're useful, and we understand that charging for them will help fund the programmers (at least a token amount). This kind of hard work should be rewarded if that's what you, as the creator of the valued tool, want. The considerable time you've spent learning is worth something, just as it is with professional programmers.

Another common example: a slick Flash banner ad for a website. That company paid someone to make it, so most likely it's not available to download and edit. Maybe we don't agree with this, but the protection available makes it worth it for the company to invest money into its creation. This creates jobs for creative people, which is a good thing. And yet there are countless websites where users freely share flash projects and code snippets, and I don't think they're disappearing anytime soon.

I bid on a freelance job where the client wanted a remote-monitoring system for user webcams and their desktop. They wanted it in Flash, but I thought, hey, jit.qt.grab, jit.desktop, jit.net.send, a few controls, and voila. I put together a demo patch (attached) that did most of what they asked for and sent it off, just to see what they thought. They liked it and were impressed at what this unfamiliar "Max" could do. But they didn't choose it for the project... partially because they didn't know Max, and wanted to be able to manipulate the app themselves... but also because of the lack of protection available. It was intended to be part of a larger application in which they were planning to invest considerable money. So not being able to protect it was the deal-breaker, and I can't blame them for their decision.

This is unfortunate, in my opinion, as it could have helped get the word out about how useful and powerful Max is. More people and companies need to know about the amazing tool we have here, and that there is an alternative to the other platforms. They need to know that they can invest money in programmers like us to make applications in Max for a variety of their needs, and that they can own and protect that intellectual property. With more of these apps out there, more and more people will start asking "What is this Max/MSP? It looks awesome!"

The last thing I want to do is bother anyone at Cycling or the other forum members. Maybe I have already, and if so, I apologize. For me, being able to protect our apps is not just about making money for ourselves, it's also about having a platform whose products can be safe from hacking. The vast majority of what we do we're probably willing to make freely available, and that's fantastic. We do it because we like it and we want to see what other users think, and to learn from different approaches... in my opinion, the best part of these forums. But if we want to take applications to the next level, and to get more of them into the professional world, there needs to be a way to protect them somehow. Whether this protection scheme is included in Max or accomplished by a different means, if it works and it's simple, we'd have it as an important option.