Reverse Engineering Ethics

[moaatt]

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I've come across some weaving patterns or kits that only offer paid instructions, but the designs seem simple enough to figure out from the pictures. Would it be considered ethical to reverse engineer the pattern, write up my own instructions, and then freely publish them (while including a link to the original source)?

 

[chainmaillers.com]

What you've really asked is a two part question.

If person a gets to 4 by adding 1+1+1+1 and person b gets to 4 by adding 2+2, did person b reverse engineer person a? What if person c gets to 4 by subtracting 6-2?

Ethics are subjective. The whole tutorial thing is where the ethics start to change depending on who you're speaking to. If someone believes in "ownership" of weaves, they might not be very happy with you publishing free instructions to one of "their" weaves.

Teach someone how to get to an end result, then they don't need tutorials anymore. There's only one way to connect 2 rings. Everything after that is translations and rotations

 

[moaatt]

Ethics are subjective. The whole tutorial thing is where the ethics start to change depending on who you're speaking to. If someone believes in "ownership" of weaves, they might not be very happy with you publishing free instructions to one of "their" weaves.

This makes sense, do you have any ideas or advice regarding the general consensus of the community?

Teach someone how to get to an end result, then they don't need tutorials anymore. There's only one way to connect 2 rings. Everything after that is translations and rotations

I don't know if this is something that can be taught. I think this is something that needs to be learned by exposure to many different weaves and attempts to reverse engineer them.

 

[chainmaillers.com]

This makes sense, do you have any ideas or advice regarding the general consensus of the community?

I would say that the general consensus of the community is that it is heavily frowned upon.

I don't know if this is something that can be taught.

I'll agree to disagree with this.

I think this is something that needs to be learned by exposure to many different weaves and attempts to reverse engineer them.

Isn't this exposure teaching yourself? CCT is heavily based upon what I've learned rendering hundreds of weaves, along with a bunch of 9th grade geometry.

 

[moaatt]

I would say that the general consensus of the community is that it is heavily frowned upon.

Thank you for offering your point of view.

I'll agree to disagree with this.

Upon further reflection I don't think this is impossible, I just feel like I am far from a place where I would be able to create a curriculum that would give a person the skills needed to reverse engineer a weave.

Isn't this exposure teaching yourself? CCT is heavily based upon what I've learned rendering hundreds of weaves, along with a bunch of 9th grade geometry.

This is true, however there is a difference between gaining the skills needed to do a task over time based on working in a field, and creating material dedicated to helping someone learn how to comprehend a weave based solely on images of it.