B> Also, thanks for being paranoid about this.
Hey, I'd rather take 24 hours to hash this out than have it bite us in
the ass in a major way in the future. Why give Them a hook into us?
Consider this (particularly stretched, mostly humorous, not
particularly cogent) example for the super-paranoid: say that Sun
joins in some Bertelsmann/Napster-style unholy alliance with some
record company or movie cartel, maybe as settlement in a juicy lawsuit
about JXTA or something.
Part of the deal is that they sue the collective Freenet developers
over niggling issues with the JRE license. They want $20 jillion
dollars for lost revenue, pain and suffering, and medical bills for
Scott McNealy's fingernails that he chewed down worrying about all
those redistributed JRE 1.3 files.
We can either fight a $20 jillion lawsuit in court, or accept a
settlement in which we turn over all rights to Freenet to (say) the
MPAA. Remember, settlements in a lawsuit don't have to have anything
to do with the actual grievance in the suit. Other terms of the
settlement are that Oskar and Scott have to foreswear beer for a year,
Steve Hazel has to wear a T-shirt that says "NO PIR8TZ" with a circle
and slash through it, MJR must do 1000 hours of community service with
PIRG, and Peter Todd gets sent to reform school in the Yukon.
In addition, Adam Langley is put in wrist and ankle shackles and
paraded through the streets of London, pelted with rocks and garbage
all the way by snaggle-toothed peasants. Don Marti (unwillingly linked
in as a co-conspirator) is forced to use GIFs. D. McNab is compelled
to move to Colorado, where he's made to do punitive labor putting
"Keep this Bag Away From Small Children" onto plastic Piggly-Wiggly
bags.
Travis Bemann has to join Up With People and wear American flag
underwear everywhere he goes. Ian gets dropped off the invite list for
the Malibu party circuit, and Bill Gates and Chuck D both stop
returning his calls. Sebastian is exiled to the northernmost reaches
of Sweden indefinitely.
Tavin Cole must install Linux One. You, Brandon, must publish an
official picture of yourself, and put up flyers all over your
neighborhood saying, "THIS MAN IS A FILE SHARER. KEEP HIM AWAY FROM
YOUR CHILDREN," and consequently your SourceForge rating plummets. GJ
is forbidden from Rudyard Kipling quotes for a year. Rob Cakebread
must sign a statement saying that wxPython is patently silly, and is
put into a work furlough program at the Del Amo mall food court.
All of this pain and horror is totally avoidable by careful parsing of
licenses for included software.
~Mr. Bad
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mr. Bad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | Pigdog Journal | http://pigdog.org/
freenet:MSK@SSK@u1AntQcZ81Y4c2tJKd1M87cZvPoQAge/pigdog+journal//
"Statements like this give the impression that this article was
written by a madman in a drug induced rage" -- Ben Franklin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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