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Article #6062Re: Facist Licensing Agreement
From: Jim Budler
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1986 23:28
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1986 23:28
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>
> I found the following "Agreement", relating to the electronic distribution of
> the System, Finder, Font/DA Mover, and other related programs, in a file that
> was in in one of the GENIE downloading areas. It seems to prohibit:
>
You seem upset with the fact that Apple wishes to limit public distribution
of software which will be construed in the public eye as 'APPLE' software
to people whom Apple can reasonably guarantee will distribute a clean 'as
delivered by Apple' copy of the software.
Scenario:
Joe Blow SuperHacker modifies a system 3.2 and gives it to all
his friends. It's still labelled System 3.2 copyright Apple! Joe thought
his mod's were neat. His friends thought the mod's were neat. Somewhere in
the circle expanding around Joe, this modified System 3.2 has an adverse
interaction with SuperDuper Toy Company's financial database program
and they lose three days of on-time deliveries, which gets at least one
large multi-$ Christmas order cancelled.
SuperDuper Toy Company sues Apple (all these consequential
damages clauses have variable applicability, you know), and Apple asks
SuperDuper, "Where'd you get this System Disk?".
SuperDuper answers, "My friend."
Apple, pulling out license distribution agreement, and user manual
says, "Only software obtained from legally licensed distribution
points is legitimate software."
Case dismissed. Apple wins this one.
Scenario 2:
Apple distributes the software without a restrictive license
agreement.
Erata Computer Co. gets a copy of it, reverse engineers it,
uses a substantial portion of it in their Erata MacBuster Computer.
Apple sues. Erata lawyers say, "You distributed the software
with no restrictions on its use or further distribution. We obtained it
through this distribution by you, Apple. Therefore we have a right to
use it any way we wish."
Apple loses this one, including a lot of valuble
intellectual knowledge which they spent a lot of bucks developing.
P.S. You spelled Fascist wrong.
--
Jim Budler
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
(408) 749-5806
Usenet: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amdcad!jimb
Compuserve: 72415,1200
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Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site amdcad.UUCP Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!amdcad!jimb From: jimb@amdcad.UUCP (Jim Budler) Newsgroups: net.micro.mac Subject: Re: Facist Licensing Agreement Message-ID: <12021@amdcad.UUCP> Date: Mon, 16-Jun-86 19:28:24 EDT Article-I.D.: amdcad.12021 Posted: Mon Jun 16 19:28:24 1986 Date-Received: Tue, 17-Jun-86 12:19:52 EDT References: <1012@spice.cs.cmu.edu> Organization: AMDCAD, Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 56