New Essay - "FOSS Licences Wars"

[geoffrey mendelson]

On Sep 2, 2009, at 12:30 PM, Meir Kriheli wrote:

>
> A company which shuts down websites (to let their PR keep rolling on
> launch),

How about a citation? This is to vague to be anything but FUD without  
one.

> forces other to remove videos (wired),

That's simply wrong. Apple never forced Wired, they asked. They asked  
them to remove the video because it was a step by step tutorial on how  
to violate the Apple EULA. It was not a tutorial on how to install  
Darwin, a  FOSS operating system on your PC, but a full out install  
the parts that are proprietary too video.

What that has to do with FOSS, I have no idea.


> uses the DMCA to hold
> down a wiki site (just to keep a format hidden) and much more are no
> supporters of FOSS.

I looked that up. The website in question had pages which suggested  
that a user circumvent a DRM method. Telling people how to circumvent  
DRM is a DMCA viloation, telling them should do it, but not how, may  
have been. The law was unclear. Instead of embroiling the EFF and  
Apple in a long and lengthy lawsuit, Apple decided to fold on the side  
of public "freedom". It could have gone the other way, and due to the  
cost may have bankrupted the EFF.

IMHO Apple did the right thing in both cases, they moved to protect  
their intelectual property as was permitted by law (and may be  
required by securities law, being a publicy traded company) and when  
it came down to fighting the EFF in court, they left the EFF standing.  
It is important to note that there was no legal precident set by  
dropping the cases, it still is a gray area in the law, and someone  
else could (and possibly may have to) do it all over again.

The only victory for FOSS, if there was one at all, is Apple let the  
EFF live.

> The "obligation to stockholders" is a lame excuse (just like, "it's a
> company, they need to make money") for keeping a fake "FOSS"/"Cool"  
> mask.


Why? They really do have both an ethical and a legal obligation to  
shareholders. It's the US, Meir, laws and ethics are different there  
than Israel.

BTW, don't you do exactly that? Push FOSS/Cool and then charge  
customers for your services? Oh I forgot, you need to make money.

Geoff.

-- 
geoffrey mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Jerusalem Israel geoffreymendelson at gmail.com