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Article #6112Re: Fascist Licensing Agreement
From: Thomas Newton
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1986 07:26
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 1986 07:26
29 lines
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2225 bytes
Actually, I just thought of something that may even have a negative effect on
those who are willing to put up with the restrictions I singled out. One
clause reads "YOU MAY NOT MODIFY ... THE SOFTWARE, IN WHOLE OR IN PART ..."
Now what constitutes modifying the software? What about:
(1) Installing or removing fonts
I don't think of this as modifying the software, but some lawyer
might, since it certainly changes its behavior (the bits you see
on the screen will reflect whether a requested font and size are
present in the System file or not, etc.)
(2) Installing or removing desk accessories such as MockWrite which
can be characterized as "taking snapshots and leaving footprints"
(3) Installing or removing desk accessories such as SkipFinder, Control
Panel, or the Dvorak keyboard layout DA which are meant to have some
direct effect on the way in which the system operates.
(4) Installing INITS, FKEYS, drivers for SCSI devices (like hard disks),
etc. which may have effects as in (2) or as in (3).
Assuming that any one of these things count as "modifying the software" (and
I haven't yet heard of a Mac owner who doesn't customize their System file),
this makes the electronically-distributed System useless even on a single Mac.
Does anyone still believe this is a perfectly reasonable license? Any bets as
to what happens when a court finds out just what the chances are that anybody
can obey all the points of the license without using the System disk only as a
paperweight? Ephraim's point is well-taken.
-- Thomas Newton
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Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!caip!seismo!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!spice.cs.cmu.edu!tdn From: tdn@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Thomas Newton) Newsgroups: net.micro.mac Subject: Re: Fascist Licensing Agreement Message-ID: <1016@spice.cs.cmu.edu> Date: Thu, 19-Jun-86 03:26:51 EDT Article-I.D.: spice.1016 Posted: Thu Jun 19 03:26:51 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 21-Jun-86 09:07:10 EDT Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Lines: 29