I have tried to keep my fingers shut on this subject but must
interject with a story about a jeweler that had made a line of
jewelry that was being sold through Nordstroms. It was cast from
natural objects and my feelings plus many others thought it was
VERY unattractive (kinda looked like cast weeds). This jeweler made
it perfectly clear that she would NOT share any with
anyone “because it took many years to find this look”. We left
the show room with a chuckle because no one liked her "look"
anyway… except Nordstoms… (she’s probably very rich
now, too!) lol
I’ve gone through the orchid archives and read all the posts I
could find on blue gold and attitudes and I can’t find it any fault
with Kretchmer’s position. In hindsight it appears it would have
been wiser if he’d never responded at all to the blue gold post.
What I find disturbing is the attitude that a lot of people seem to
have that any anyone possesses belongs to everybody.
Steven Kretchmer did point us to some articles or books on the
subject of blue gold and he challenged people to do some
experimentation and work through the problems. I think that’s
what any university professor would do. I didn’t read in any post
that anyone had tried to do anything at all to create blue gold.
The first step in learning something isn’t to ask someone else for
the answer. Try to work things out and when you come to problems,
describe the situation and ask for assistance. I didn’t see where
anyone made one move to create one gram of this stuff. What I did
see was a half-dozen posts jumping all over a guy because he
didn’t want to give away something he’s spent thousands of dollars
and hundreds of hours working on. I don’t see how anyone can make
these demands. His position is a standard one in any industry, and
companies in any industry thrive on competition. However, giving
your company’s assets away to the competition is simply foolish.
Nobody does it. Try calling Coca-Cola for their recipe. If
Kretchmer patents his formula and process we can read all about it.
Eventually this will be in the public domain, like
most of the other passed back and forth on this list,
and we can all use his recipe to make all the jewelry we want.
Right now we’re free to roll up our sleeves and create our own
formulas.
It is one thing to “keep a secret” about using an acorn or a
shell etc. as your mold for a casting. It is another to invent a
patentable process for ,say, casting it so no investment sticks to
the finsished casting…or no burrs occur. One is silly. The other
moves into the domain of business practice. If Mr. Kretschmer
invented a process or a formula for a blue gold alloy and he
patented or copyrighted it, it is his. He has a right to profit by
the fruits of his labor, as do we all. HOWEVER…nobody is
stopping him from teaching anybody how to alloy metals. If his
students learn the principles of alloying and go on to make their
own blue,green,pink or orange gold, that is their privilege. He
should not be obliged to divulge a secret formula that he has
developed unless he has the soul of a philanthropist…but he
didn’t have to get so reeaallly upset about it!If people
understood the nature of the problem, they"d probably concur.
…D.
I think it’s wonderful that you would go back and read all that to
figure out what is essentially a moral position. I, too, agree
that Mr. Krechmer has an intellectual property right to a blue gold
process if he spent much of his time on it and feels a need to be
compensated for it.
As I recall, one of his posts felt unfortunate in tone to me. I
think he was unnecessarily offended by innocent requests for
I think it is the rule here to ask for information
and generally consider it free. I don’t thnk those who asked were
intending to be offensive. And I would differ with you about
trying oneself first without asking for help. I often do this,
but I think of it as misplaced pride rather than health. I think
it makes more sense to ask others first. Most people are not full
time inventors and are only too happy to share their experience. I
would expect my brother-in-law to share his knowledge about
rebuilding a Chevy, but not my mechanic.
By the way, although I won’t get to it soon, I would be interested
in the info that is available on blue gold. I missed it first time
through.
Although I feel that this issue has been hashed to death, I wanted
to be sure that nothing that I said was misinterpeted in regards to
this issue with Mr. Kretchmer. I don’t think that anyone would or
should expect someone who has put forth the effort that he
obviously has to give his work product up for free. He is entitled
to whatever traffic will bear, and rightly so. I don’t even find
fault with his response to the question, just the tone of his
response. Maybe I took this wrong, but I felt that his response
was a little strong to someone who just asked a question of him in
the spirit of this thing that we do here. Believe me, if I were in
his position, I would not divulge this info either. I just felt
that he could have either been a bit more civil about it, or as you
said, not responded at all. I mean no disrespect to him or anyone
else, but the lions and tigers and bears were just a bit much for
me! Maybe he just didn’t come across in print as he wanted- I’ll
leave it at that. I for one think that this whole thing has gotten
out of hand and this whole thread should be put to rest.