Monday, 12th February 2024
Toying with paper crafty publishers cutting into hobby market (1986) (via) When I was a teenager I was given a book called Make Your Own Working Paper Clock, which encouraged you to cut the book itself up into 160 pieces and glue them together into a working timepiece.
I was reminiscing about that book today when I realized it was first published in September 1983, so it recently celebrated its 40th birthday.
It turns out the story is even more interesting: the author of the book, James Smith Rudolph, based it on a similar book he had found in a Parisian bookshop in 1947, devoid of any information of the author or publisher.
In 1983 that original was long out of copyright, and “make your own” crafting books had a surge of popularity in the United States so he took the idea to a publisher and translated it to English.
This 1986 story from the Chicago Tribune filled in the story for me.
“We believe that open source should be sustainable and open source maintainers should get paid!”
Maintainer: introduces commercial features “Not like that”
Maintainer: works for a large tech co “Not like that”
Maintainer: takes investment “Not like that”