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

Daniel J. Cody djc at starkmedia.com
Sun Aug 19 16:01:59 CDT 2001


Raymond Camden wrote:

> You may not like a license agreement, but no one is forcing you to buy the
> product.

true enough..

[snip]
> So, basically, what you are saying is: I broke the license because I had a
> really good reason?
> 
> 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

not in defense, but actually I didn't realize that the tools that 
shipped with CF were encrypted. i always thought it was cool the 
administration tools were written using the language of the application 
server itself, and only when i tried to change the product to my needs 
did i find out about the encryption.

license aside, is the product cold fusion code, or is the cold fusion 
application server? again, license aside. in my minds eye, which you may 
or may not agree with, i believe i'm decrypting the method for how you 
did something, not the product itself. imagine if the Samaba folks got 
sued up the ying-yang by MS years back because they were 
reverse-engineering the method(SMB), not the product(NT). for the 
record, i'm all for reverse-engineering.

i respect your opinion ray, and understand where you're coming from.

> 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?

ignorance on my part to be honest(i didnt realize the admin stuff was 
closed). i've always loved many things about cold fusion, and think its 
a good product in many regards. keeping everything about cold fusion 
closed is a mistake IMO(naturally, disagreement is expected), that is 
only forcing developers - myself included - to consider open products 
for future development(J2EE, PHP to name the obvious few)

> 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? 

i share your position on the right of the creator. i also believe in the 
rights of the individual. the second question is obviously hard to 
answer. I believe that after all other options have been exhausted to 
'rightly' learn from something, i'm for reverse engineering. I am trying 
to learn from a piece of code and use it for myself. I am not saying its 
OK to decompile, recompile with changes, and sell it as competition.

again, i respect your position and opinion ray, thanks for the 
conversation :)

.djc.






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