To replicate or not to replicate

[Dan Kelly]

Shivas --

What a depressing post, yours.

You're wrong, now. You were right, then. Plagiarism is not OK. It's theft. It's wrong. Period.

The fact that, as you testify, many "professional" people practice plagiarism nowadays -- that it's not only accepted, but expected -- changes nothing. It merely further pollutes their already-polluted view of the world, of what's right and what's wrong in that world.

Imitation, more or less inspired, isn't plagiarism, in letters or golf.

Copying is -- lacking proper attribution.

It seems to me that what Kay and Whitten have done at that course in New Jersey is the golf equivalent of using direct quotations in support of one's arguments. They are up-front and candid in telling us where they got their ideas. Fair enough -- and honest.  It's not as though they're claiming anyone else's ideas as their own; THAT'S plagiarism.

I see nothing damnable about replication holes -- so long as credit is given where credit is due.

[Mike Nuzzo]

Dan,

I think shivas was saying there is no reason to redesign a new screw every time you want to build a satellite.

Maybe every once in a while, even though NASA doesn't like change.

But I only understand heritage when it comes to engineering and science not the law.

Raynor's work is quite good, it's just not pine valley.

cheers

[Dan Kelly]

Shivas --

Points taken. (Not a phrase original to me, by the way.)  

I agree that there's nothing so horrible about COPYING, down to the littlest hump, golf holes -- so long as credit's given where credit's due. That's what I said, earlier. (There's nothing very inspired, either, about such work, it seems to me.)

I agree that it's unavoidable that gc architects will IMITATE others' work, just as writers and artists and musicians and architects and lawyers and everyone else does. And there's nothing wrong with that; God didn't make all of us Picasso -- or even Alister Mackenzie.

But getting away from questions of right and wrong:

I think there's a big difference between legal boilerplate (where any deviation from the standard is DANGEROUS, because it implies that one has something different from the standard in mind) and golf courses/golf holes (where deviations from the standard are where the potential greatness lies).

In the words of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe -- who may or may not have been talking about anti-dilution clauses, but who was surely talking about golf courses: "God is in the details."