Title: Editorial

Being the editor of a magazine is quite often a very enjoyable activity; I have many friends who have been editors for many years and they all say the same in terms of enjoyability and what also really annoys them.

In no real order, the annoyances are:

The last one has never really been a worry for the ACCU as we never claim the copyright on the work submitted - we just have the right to publish it, non-exclusively, twice with an electronic copy in the private members area in PDF format. It does cause problems for my friends though - and oddly enough given what I've just said, for us.

While an editor does take every precaution possible to ensure that the material is original (or that excessive quoting or verbatim copying has not occurred), it is not always possible - there are thousands upon thousands of books out there and it isn't possible to read every single one, so if something slips past (which in all probability it will some day) then who, ultimately, should be blamed? The author for knowingly copying material they had no right to copy or the editor for not picking up on the infringing material?

The answer is both and both will end up with a sting. In an ideal world though, the honourable thing would be that the author pays the publishers sting - after all, it was the author that put the material there in the first place. The problem is that this is the real world and the sting placed on the publisher is likely to be much higher as publishers are seen to have much deeper pockets than the author and more than that, the publisher is very likely to have some form of indemnity insurance. Best the publisher can hope for is that the author covers the excess.

Now, if we apply this to what the majority of us do for a living and you can begin to see a problem. It was once said that if you give an infinite number of monkeys a typewriter and supply them with an infinite amount of paper, they'll come up with the complete works of Shakespeare (or was it Dickens?). In the software industry, you have the same problem (not that I'm saying you're all monkeys!)

Suppose you wish to implement an algorithm to calculate the shortest distance between two points, but have to go via a third point, you would start out and draw a triangle and use the distance from A to C to B as the basis of an answer. That would be in a perfect world. The problem is that there are humps, turns, roundabouts and the odd T junction to negotiate. You come up with a mix between topography via a helicopter analysis of the road and looking at structural maps and from there, come up with a generalised formula which more-or-less gives the correct answer. Job done.

Well, that's the theory. The code review process has not shown anything wrong and a search for anything similar has drawn a blank. The code is released, is a financial success and then, from out the blue, you're hit (well, the company) with a patent infringement action.

The problem is that this formula is well known to other people in some other field completely unrelated to computing and a patent, is a patent - if you're using the same methods or a derivative method, you're hit.

Sounds somewhat silly that and in an ideal world, just wouldn't happen. Take the following as an example. This is a true patent filing [1].

I have to say. They have at last invented a way to destroy all cultural development forever more. That's an achievement of a sort.

Okay, that is filed in the USA which has a patent system which is almost completely incomprehensible by us mere humans - but there is nothing to stop it being filed in the EU. The important aspect though is that by filing such a patent, and assuming it is successful, nothing is any more sacred. This is just the tip of the iceberg though. Microsoft attempted to assert a patent on double clicking and there is even one now attempting to derail XML.

Of course, it isn't happening in Europe as while we do have a patent system, it doesn't cover software. It does though cover maths and even genetics. This is why the patent action can be brought against my mythical software company. Surely though that can't happen in reality. It can and has - plenty of times with the psychoacoustic model used in MP3s being a prime example (though this is a disputed patent).

Where was I? Oh yes. Talking about the fun and games editors have...

Poor quality material is not that much of an issue for C Vu and Overload. After all, we are a professional magazine written for and by professionals. The worst I've had to see (other than one somewhat weak article) is the odd void main() or some dodgy method used in the middle of a function which doesn't really perform a task, but looks to be more of a cludge than anything. A quick word with the author and the matter is sorted. Other editors I know can relate other stories. The worst example was when a magazine was going to the wall and effectively all of the copy was being written by the companies behind the software.

There isn't anything wrong in doing that, as long as the editor either removes either unjustified or unverifiable claims, anything which changes the article from being a true representation of the subject and into an unpaid for advert or material which unfairly produced an imbalance with competitors software. The problem was though two fold.

The magazine was eventually given away (literally - the company, in order to drop the title, paid for the title to go!). Not a good way to end a title.

In the past (and including other publications I've worked on), I have had material submitted in Wordstar, WordPerfect 4.2 and 5, Word 4 (Mac), Serif Publisher, EasiWriter, 1stWord+, Impression Publisher, Acorn DTP, PDF, MS Publisher and quite a few others. The problem is though that sometimes the material promised is so amazingly good, that you can't just reject it because of the format. PDF is not that bad, at least you can copy a PDF word for word (or print and use OCR to get the majority of the text). It is the other formats which causes the problems. Other than Serif and WordPerfect, the other formats are gobbledy-gook with plain text in the middle - it takes time to extract the text, but if there are any images in the file, they cannot usually be extracted. It's a pain!

There is a void space in every month where undefined behaviour exists, multiplies, breeds and does strange things to the barriers holding it. Sometimes, the forces become too large and manage to invade real space. It infects computers (which is why as a deadline for code approaches, more and more goes wrong as more items are added to the list), it infects the day (ever noticed that you go to bed later and get up earlier, but nothing more is done?), weeks just vanish as if they had never existed - they must have as the pain you felt in the tooth has now gone - and worse than that, it removes or corrupts files on the hard drive of either the contributor or the editor.

As a deadline approaches, the suck of real time becomes harder until, BANG! The deadline has been and gone and you're left chasing your tail, trying to find what you need, putting it into a publishable order and sending it over to the production editor for the finalisation magic to be performed.

Ah well, such is the life of the editor. It's a hard job, but incredibly fun!

We at the ACCU encourage a full and frank discourse between the membership and enjoy nothing more than promoting applications which are written by ACCU members that will benefit everyone. They don't have to be open source applications, they don't have to be free and they don't have to cater to many different platforms - all they have to do is benefit other members.

Plenty of things can delay a magazine. Waiting for a killer article, waiting for copy, waiting for the computer to be repaired -you name it, it can be delayed.

This issue is running slightly behind as it was delayed by the imminent birth of my daughter, Ashleigh Elizabeth. Well, that's happened now and she's as cute as a button.

Mother, baby and brother Richard are fine. Daddy is tired, but very happy.