Trading Standards Idiocy
The Times is carrying this story of Trading Standards confiscating some CDs being sold with Firefox on.
The most startling issue this brings up is the way they presume guilt and they don't even bother to check the software license.
There have always been many different licenses for software. Some software even comes without license (public domain) and you may do what you like with it, other software requires you to sacrifice your first born to Satan if you wish to use it. Why is it so difficult to understand this?
This quotation is interesting:
Of course you can't give general advice, you never have been able to, the only advice you can give is to read the license and contact the owner if you do not understand it.
What I think she really means is 'it makes us think and consider each case seperately'. Surely that's what should be done anyway?
The most startling issue this brings up is the way they presume guilt and they don't even bother to check the software license.
There have always been many different licenses for software. Some software even comes without license (public domain) and you may do what you like with it, other software requires you to sacrifice your first born to Satan if you wish to use it. Why is it so difficult to understand this?
This quotation is interesting:
If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation, as it is difficult for us to give general advice to businesses over what is/is not permitted.
Of course you can't give general advice, you never have been able to, the only advice you can give is to read the license and contact the owner if you do not understand it.
What I think she really means is 'it makes us think and consider each case seperately'. Surely that's what should be done anyway?
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home