[thelist] [OT] Gift Culture on the Net: A Rant
Erik Mattheis
gozz at gozz.com
Sun Aug 19 20:07:07 CDT 2001
At 12:39 PM -0400 8/19/01, Dwayne wrote:
[a great post]
<snip>
>when we're talking about decrypting CF code, or decrypting/decompiling any
>piece of code to which you have access, we're not talking about theft, but
>about pulling something apart to see how it works. the entire idea that this
>might be wrong is a very new one. until recently, it was impossible to
>prevent someone from taking a working thing apart to see what made it tick,
>so the ethical question of whether you should never really came up.
</snip>
Taking it a bit further, dycrypting code and modifying it for your
own use is entirely different than dycrypting code and redistributing
a modified version.
I looked for the CF Server license to find out if it actually
prohibits you from modifying it for your own use, (couldn't find it -
is it anywhere but in the installation process?) I imagine it does;
but I have a hard time imagining that the way it was modified that
was originally mentioned would be enforceable in court.
Seems everybody has made nice since I wrote this, but still the
question is in my mind: what harm does MM suffer from someone
customizing the admin pages for their own purposes?
I remember running a third party patch on PhotoShop 4 that fixed
frequent crashes I was having ... also have done things to get CD
burner software to work under newer OSes on both Mac and Win ... am I
breaking license agreements by doing these things?
I could definitely see these actions voiding warantees, but
considering it a breach of contract is ridiculous. Does anyone know
of any test cases that speak to this issue?
When I design a website for someone, they're free to modify it any
way they want, but I have exclusive rights to the code in the sense
that I'm the only person who can use the code for the site in whole
or part to use on a different website. And I think that's fair. I
don't see any difference between that and modifying the CF Admin for
my personal use. Maybe the license agreement says otherwise, but I
don't think it's right.
--
- Erik Mattheis
Who reflects too much will accomplish little.
(612) 827 3963
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