[[email protected], quoting me]
>> I have now (I think) ceased all use of the pool. [...]
> I think this action is inappropriate at the TOS aren't currently in
> force AFAIK.
I don't see anything besides your remarks to make me think so. The
announcement (I found it; I don't know how I managed to miss it) said
"The website now has a terms of service document for how to use the NTP
Pool" with no mention of anything being just a draft. The ToS page
itself doesn't say anything about it being a draft either.
> However you could provide constructive feedback to the draft version
> of the TOS.
If it appeared to be just a draft, sure.
> I'm not sure if the wording is legally correct but I can see where it
> intends to go.
So can I. Ask is in the Litigous States of America; I can totally
understand his wanting to do such a thing. I simply find it
unacceptable, both as a user and as a contributor - former user and
former contributor, unless and until the ToS is fixed.
> I would recommend to those threatening the community by extortion to
> remove servers
I think "extortion" is overly strong (and "threatening" inappropriate,
at least in my case; I didn't threaten - I acted). The community is
still entirely free to get chime from my machine, for example; I simply
am not, and will not be, doing it under the aegis of an organization
which requires its end users to agree to terms like those.
I bear Ask no malice over this. As I said, I can totally understand
where he's coming from, and if I were stuck in the USA I might well
jump the same way. I would _like_ it if someone outside the USA were
to create something like the pool, only without stupid conditions such
as agreeing to be bound by some other jurisdiction's law, but I will
certainly understand if that doesn't happen. (A bit saddened at how a
broken legal system has damaged a valuable service, but nothing worse.)
Ideally, the pool should exist in some distributed form, so there is no
central point to target legally. Perhaps that can't be done; I'm not
sure how do go about it if it can....
> IMHO it's a very unfair and inappropriate way of community
> interaction to go the blackmailing road instead of discussion for the
> better of the community service.
No more than for the pool to go the blackmailing[%] road of suddenly
announcing the imposition of a ToS without reason to think most, or
even many, of the pool members find it acceptable. (Or, at least, I
see no grounds for thinking there is such reason. Perhaps I missed
something.)
[%] No, the word is not entirely appropriate here, but I think it's no
less appropriate here than in the quote I'm replying to.
> There is time to remove your servers once some TOS have been
> instated.
Again, as far as I can tell they have been. What makes you think they
haven't? Perhaps I missed something.
[[email protected]]
> I didn't mean to threaten, [...]
Nor did I. I found the terms unacceptable, so I stopped offering time
via, and getting time from, the pool. Where's the threat?
> I understand the position of Ask, and I feel he, most of all, has an investe$
He does. I'm saddened by this, but not really surprised.
[[email protected]]
> - The main "target" of the terms of service is the context of a device/appli$
Then I think it needs a rather drastic rewrite; as it stands, it
appears it casts too broad a net.
> - Which jurisdiction would be more reasonable than California?
Perhaps, under your circumstances, there is no better choice. (But see
below.)
Speaking of the problem in the abstract, rather than as it applies to
your particular situation, I don't think one should be specified.
Legal systems have evolved choice-of-jurisdiction rules for a reason;
trying to short-circuit those rules is almost certain to make things
less fair to someone - usually, to the party who does not get to
specify the jurisdiction.
If you really do want to do this defensively, I would suggest that the
ToS specify that the defendant gets to choose jurisdiction. That would
give you essentially the same defensive effect while defanging the
offensive effect responsible for driving away people who, like me, are
outside the USA (or perhaps just outside California) and are unwilling
to tolerate California jurisdiction.
Perhaps there is no way to state that that works under California law.
In that case, you may have to stick with what you've got. It'd suck,
but we non-Californians would not be in a position to fix (what that
would mean is) a rather badly broken legal system.
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML [email protected]
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
_______________________________________________
pool mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.ntp.org/listinfo/pool
