[thelist] [OT] cfdecrypt, was: (Gift Culture)

[Judah McAuley]

At 07:39 AM 8/19/2001 -0400, Raymond wrote:
>Well, that's nice for you. What bugs me the most about this is you seem to
>think that is not only right, it's a good thing. You say that you bought the
>product, and therefore you have a right to improve on it? Bull pucky. You
>did NOT buy an open source product. You knew what you were getting before
>you bought it, and, most importantly, if you did not like the fact that the
>CF Admin was closed source, why didn't you return the product?
>
>Let me say this - I think open source is better than closed source. But,
>above all else, I believe in the right of the creator. Daniel, if I make a
>software package that is closed source, are you saying you have the right to
>decrypt just because you want to? Why do your rights to "improve" it
>override my rights as the creator? Yes, it would be better if I open sourced
>the product, but if I don't want to, that's my right.

<rant>
I've never understood how EULA's were allowed to get to the point that they 
are at.  They started out just telling folks that its a commercial product 
that has can't be copied and resold.  Fair enough, that's like any other 
commercial product.  But these days, there is all sorts of garbage that has 
gotten thrown in there, like disallowing reverse engineering.  Come 
on.  You aren't renting the use of a product, you are *buying* the 
product.  That means that you *own* it.  By and large, when you own 
something, you get to do what you want with it.  Software companies don't 
seem to understand that they aren't special.

If I buy a hammer, the hammer company doesn't get to tell me I can only use 
it to pound on nails.  I get to pound on anything I damn well please.

Perhaps a bit more appropriately, when I buy a book, I get to use the book 
how I like (for my own personal use).  I can read it to my nephew.  I can 
translate in into Farsi.  I can use it as a paper weight.

So yes.  If you buy the product, you have every right in the world to 
improve upon it as you see fit (as long as you aren't reselling it to 
others).  Many of the rights of the creator are tossed out the window once 
you sell your product or art.  If I buy a watercolor painting from you that 
you called Sunflowers and I want to display it in my home and call it 
"Weasels Playing Poker" to my friends, then I get to do that.  You can't 
call in the Art Police and say that I'm getting it all wrong.

In spite of the fact that I create software, I'm going to reiterate my 
point:  Software isn't special.  If you sell a product, its a product, and 
the customer has a physical item that he/she can do anything they want with 
as long as it's personal use and not commercial resale.  I think that's one 
of the reasons that many major companies are moving toward a "software is a 
service" ASP model.  But as long as its a product, then its a product.
</rant>

I suppose that this requires a tip.

<tip type="alternative mail server" author="Judah McAuley">
         If you are going to be setting up a *nix box as a mail server, 
take a look at QMail.  It's small, very fast, not horribly complicated, and 
inherently more secure than Sendmail.  It's available 
at:  http://www.qmail.org/  You might also take a look at the same authors 
DNS solution: http://www.djbdns.org/  It is much smaller and more secure 
than BIND.
</tip>

Judah