Slashdot Mirror
Borland Backs Down
Danborg writes: "Borland has backed down from its horrible Kylix/JBuilder license after all the bad press they received on Slashdot and Freshmeat. You may now all resume using Kylix and/or JBuilder. Seriously though, it's good to see a company respond to the voices of the online community, and admit it made a mistake. Good job Borland."
Now that the licensing scandal is over, maybe Borland can find time to focus their efforts on getting rid of all the bugs in Kylix/CLX. I've used them for some time and have been pretty frustrated. Checkout freeclx.sourceforge.net. That's the repository where CLX (Kylix's programming language) is maintained. There haven't been updates in weeks. Nobody even bothers to submit bug reports there since they are ignored.
That's the problem. Everyone has licenses like that. It's "industry standard boilerplate". Oh well, as long as we continue to pay close attention we can force some companies to be reasonable. Others, however, are not so susceptible to pressure.
Best Slashdot Co
"Industry standard boilerplate"
Also reads as "Lawyers just cut and paste and didn't actually bother working out what it was for"
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
they just posted a big ol "Ooops" and sait they were sorry for it....
saying they backed down is announcing a victory when there was no enemy...
ah well, slashdot!=truth in reporting
#include sig.h
(Emphasis mine) So private customers do get the same EULA, with a different wording?
I don't understand why this was presented as backing down as opposed to a mistake as to which license gets associated with which product.
There's no reason not to believe them that this was an error and had not reflected a conscious effort to change licenses on individual instances.
As far as I remember it's not the first time Borland tries to impose outrageous licenses to its compiler customers. We shouldn't care because we have gcc, but still it makes one wonder why big companies can't learn from their miskates. I guess size has something to do with it.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
I think that their actions stank but I believe that they should be encouraged for having sought to rectify their mistake. I will return to the fold and continue to use their products.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
I'm really sure that was a mistake (cough, cough). As for the last part. Has anyone ever seen such language in "enterprise licenses"?
UNIX/Linux Consulting
Think about it: an independent developer would HAVE to employ a lawyer to deal with licensing schemes like Borland's Enterprise license.
This is not industry standard boilerplate, but lazyness: they're avoid working with customers to figure out better licensing terms.
You, jerw134 have won eternal fame among your fellow slashdotters for this accurate prediction !
karma capped
Until we see the new license this isn't a victory.
Is the mistake over the audit clause, waving jury trials or both?
The Borland approach to the onlie community has always more friendlier than of Microsoft, it has mostly a enterprise primarly concerned with the individual developer not the consumer mass market. So it isn't difficult to accept the explanation of Borland for the misunderstand.
But this is one of the notorious examples of read the LITTLE LETTERS, before purchase!!
------I can please only one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either.------
M.
Borland Backs Down. Maybe. Some loser clerk felt like saving some time and generated one EULA instead of two and nobody bothered to change anything until they got called on it? More likely. Thats what I love about Capitolism. It's all about seeing exactly how much you can get away with, and for how long.
Shift happens. Fire it up.
It doesn't mention which bits they are intending to change... I wonder if the 'not produce competing products' part is included?
Currently, you couldn't legally use C++ Builder or Delphi/Kylix to write a database engine or an IDE, as I understand it...
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
Microsoft decided that they were getting to much bad press from slashdot and now instead of stealing money, crushing companies, and controlling the government they are petting bunnies, saving orphans, and planting tree.
Also, the US gov't, in a move to improve their image on slashdot, decided to revoke all copyright law, examine patents more closely, and actually read the constitution.
http://angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif
Note that the word "its" versus "it's" is a special case.
It's = it is
Its = possessive version of "it"
It's amazing how easily Slashdot advocates 'Mob Rule', isn't it?
If a company or individual is doing something you don't like, FORCE them to!
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
If I were an enterprise volume customer, I would consider the terms of that licesnes to be onerous. Those terms are just wrong no matter who you are. A software license forcing you to submit to binding arbitration and random audits?! What a ridiculous thing. Next thing you know, cleaning product manufacturers will be coming with detailed sets of instructions and licenses requiring you to pay to have someone look over your shoulder to make sure you follow them whenever they like.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
I would like to remind them of this:-
Never attribute to Malice what can be attributed to Incompitence
Wouldn't it be nice if schools got all the money they wanted and the army had to hold jumble sales for guns
Everybody doing mistakes but this is good that borland always react in a good way to criticism.
Thanks for your reaction.
Some think that borland's tool are too expensive. I do think thye're expensive. (too removed !)
The only question is does it worth the bucks ?
If you have plan to fully exploit your IDE features and used it in a RAD way, then 100% Yes !
But if you are one of those whose still trust in nothing but VI or Emacs, and never think code helpers could do the same job in least time (NB: for VI adicted the jbVi is a wonder as it mimics most of VI directly into the JBuilder IDE!!! Emacs keymaps are setup by default, just a combo to change !
If MS could do the same and stop thei vapor machine and just
I'm gonna put that one in my miscellaneous cool quotes file.
Best Slashdot Co
Typically, it is up to the staff to catch those mistakes and argue with the staff lawyer to make sure it applies to situation. That rarely happens for a lot of reasons. Often I would get press releases for 5a.m. the next morning at 7a.m. the day of.
How in the world are developers, staff writers supposed to read it thoroughly? They can't. The mentality of the lawyers I've met is "be more restrictive" and ease up if people complain vs "be less restrictive." It's good the community spoke up and complained. That's part of the natural process. If all licenses were not restrictive, how would lawyers make a living or warrant their services :)
Just because they've noticed some "mistaken language" in their license agreement doesn't mean it's going to be much different when it's "fixed." People don't just pull legally binding statements out of thin air, they're very carefully plotted and worded before any user has to see them. If anything, this will probably just ensure that the new license is more convoluted and difficult for an average user to read, now that they know there are users reading them.
It is A Good Ting (tm) that Borland actualy changed the license.
It makes them seem to care for their customer base (like me, a customer that bought Kylix), when they (we) politely cry "You Morons! what kind of terms are those? And next, you'll ask for my first born, right?" in their face -actualy, the letter that I sent was more polite. And had no 'F' words on it-.
But it is also A Bad Thing (tm).
Yes, they published a license that was way over the top. Specialy, when everyone and their mother seems to be asking for a much limited set of private personal freedom and right (for our own protection, of course). And, of course, a good corporation must mimmic the government. So, let's throw some lawyers to the License Dept. and make them review the licensing terms, so we can count on unexpected revenues if nobody discovers what we have done.
Let's face it. Borland is just YAC (Yet Another Corporation). Their goal is to make money. No matter what.
Or so I see it.
How do you see it?
Borland is--and has been for quite a while--a very well-balanced company: R&D is a motley crew of rebels and visionaries, while Marketing and PR are chosen from the Dark Side. Of course, Anders turned out to be Darth, but that's another story.
-
As far as I am concerned, it doesn't matter. Last time I checked (I asked a guy that's done a contract law paper at the local university), any conditions like the ones in question in the Borland license (or any other) must be 'clearly stated' in the course of agreeing with the license. One of the laws here in New Zealand.
It would be simplicity to argue that clicking this little checkbox here and then that next button there while displaying the EULA in a text area does not "clearly state" the significant clauses, and could most likely sue them back for it.
I have no idea what the laws regarding this in other countries are.
Also, seeing that it 'boilerplate standard' in Enterprise licenses, it should be in the bulk license purchase agreement, not in the EULA in my opinion, because it applies to the purchase, and the company/enterprise as a whole, not the individual user(s).
I don't know whether it is a better thing borland changed it, or if had left it unadjusted. It seems as though borland has just one-upped us all again.
Actually, this issue received significant coverage in online media outlets, such as The Register. Note also the coverage of Borland's recant, where pressure from the online community was clearly one of the factors.
You may now all resume using Kylix and/or JBuilder.
;)
WOW... now i can start wearing my kylix/borland t-shirt again... I really liked it
Don't Panic
I wish all software companies were reasonable in responding to its customers and the community this way.
I dunno - basically, this looks like an "Oops, you caught me" more than anything else. Accepting their explanation at face value makes me wonder how many times any developer at a large site has submitted themselves to these terms.
I think it would be wise (and maybe someone has done this) to have EULAs from all sorts of companies examined closely by laywers (not IANALs, real Juris Doctor lawyers). I think we need to see the revised non-enterprise license from Borland. For those of us who bring in personal laptops to the office, how does an enterprise license apply to us? How about telecommuters? Is there some sort of paper wall between the portion of my home PC that dials into work and allows me to work from home, and the rest of my home PC with its ripped MP3s, software "borrowed" from friends and collections of pr0n? How about the USB harddrive that holds MP3s that I take to work to listen to tunes while I work? Does that become "infected" by the enterprise license?
There are enough EULA's to choke a horse out there, and a lot of people (me included) have a tendency to buzz right by them on the way to an install. Add to that the variety of source licences and other varied licenses that we submit to and use, it makes for a nice legal morass that a lot of folks do not really comprehend until they get called on it, when it is too late. Just take a moment and try to count the number of legal agreements that you have made to get your PC to the point it is right now. How many? 100? 1000?
Is there anyone out there who has created a website specifically to deal with these sorts of things? A technologically inclined lawyer with a whole lotta time on their hands? Someone to offer all us legal dilettantes and wannabees some guidelines and advice regarding the various legal "boilerplate" to which we submit ourselves every day?
Right, my point exactly. The article sounds self-congratulatory as if "look what we were able to do." It says "after all the bad press they received on Slashdot and Freshmeat" as if they were the only ones. I wouldn't have a problem with it if it said LIKE slashdot and freshmeat.
I don't remember the exact details but I remember that back around the time of Borland C++ 4.5 they tried a to sell that with a license that basically said that Borland owned access to all products released using Borland C++ or something like that.
Borland backed down from that license as well. But I think it's alarming that they keep trying stuff like this a second time.
/Mauritz
GlobeCom AB
Some people would claim that the producer has more power than the consumer in this situation, but if consumers find that conditions a particular producer's SFC too onerous then they are free to switch to a competitor's product which has more favourable terms (i.e. dump Kylix/JBuilder for something else which is exactly what I'm sure many people were planning to do).
Whether people actually pay any attention to SFC's is another matter entirely. Steven E. Rhoades writes in The Economist's View of the World that in the mid 1980's one bank inserted a sentence in the midst of its disclosure statement offering ten dollars to anyone who sent in a postcard with the words "Regulation E" on it. Out of 115,000 recipients of the statement not one responded.
That's quite a memory you have there snake_dad.
8 29 491
And if you're too bored to search for jerw134, this is the relevant thread:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=26121&cid=2
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
It is correct to use an apostrophe to pluralize a symbol or acronym. Thus, "Bob the Angry Flower" is being somewhat hypocritical by presenting "VCR's" as incorrect. It is actually the correct plural form of "VCR."
They should have known how bad this was before publishing the EULA, especially since they are trying to court the open source fanatics of the world (I count myself in among that group)
They are no Microsoft, they cannot afford to be. They need all of us to combat MS business tactics.
They are in some dire need of bitch slapping, not praise.
~Sean
Seems to be they do listen to the(ir) (on-line) community though. Companies like Microsoft would never change their license even if half the earth is not agreeing with their license.
This mean they did discuss the matter and they did get an opinion what changed their minds.
Next to that they are just another company trying to do business and trying to protect theirselves in any way. They also do have competition just like every company on this planet.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
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The last bug report is dated December 31, 2001. That's only a few weeks ago!
Any sophisticated business person would know that boilerplate makes its way into corporate contracts (esp. end user license forms) because some moron executive (possibly the company's general counsel) decreed that there are certain terms that always have to appear in every contract. Those of us in private practice know that 8 out of 10 in-house lawyers are lazy, sloppy and often hog-tied by overbearing business people suffering from omniscience fantasies.
Your jab at "lawyers" reveals that you don't know much about how business really works.
"after all the bad press they received on Slashdot and Freshmeat."
/. , don't think I won't tell you to suck me. As everything posted on this site is not gospel. But it seems to me most people take it that way.
"Seriously though, it's good to see a company respond to the voices of the online community, and admit it made a mistake."
Ya know delete this if you want but this was taken a little far as slashdot is not the end all be all of the opensource community. If I develop a software package that gets reviewed by some inverted user that is posted by a pretentious site, ie
I want to know what happens to the lawyers who come up with this sort of crap to begin with. This is not the first time a company has done something absolutely moronic on what is seems likely to be the misguided advice of overzealous lawyers.
Does anyone know what these companies do to lawyers who come up with ideas like this? Especially lawyers dealing with digital IP, a relatively new area. Do they get fired, censured, or do companies tend to assume that since the interests of the company were really in mind, and rabid consumers did something surprising, the lawyers are not at fault?
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Oh my god, I just found out this is true. I guess the injuries from that road accident must have been even worse than we thought. And shame on you moderators for modding this down- no doubt as you will this...
While it is encouraging to see retrenchment of invasive license terms, I don't think I'd classify this as a "win".
The license's original terminology tells us Borland's desires. It didn't work out because those terms seem extreme when compared to what we're used to.
Watch for small changes in this and other licenses over time that seek to end up with exactly the same terms (or worse).
Nibbled to death by ducks.
It means when you agree to "industry standard boilerplate", you gave the BSA full promission to invade a do an audit without a court order! As soon as I can get rid of the last of the MS software, I can put a sign on the front door stating "No software permited inside with licenses providing the BSA permission to audit". Most everyone has heard of the BSA.
The fact you can avoid giving permission to an audit without a warrant needs promoted.
The truth shall set you free!
why dont we all start taking the EULAs from software we've purchased and modify it to remove what we dont like and then send it to the company asking if they will agree to your negotiated terms and to sign and return it, otherwise to send a refund. If if a small percentage of the users of a product start trying to negotiate a new contract individually or ask for a refund, which I believe you are entitled to if you don't agree to the terms, maybe the software companies will start making the licenses less restrictive (since everyone knows that they never get enforced or read for the most part anyway)
This is why I only purchase software that cannot be linked back to me. I never register anything and have yet to experience any problems getting patches or anything else. However, moving to open source solutions tends to make a world of difference.
My company is doing a complete rewrite of asp pages to jsp's and porting our software offerings to java (this may cause more problems).
They put that language in there INTENTIONALLY. they knew what they put in there, they knew what they were trying to pull.
If you go to a store and catch them trying to cheat you doe you ever shop their again? NO.
Sorry, but borland will never get any of my dollars again nor will I reccomend to anyone to use their products. In fact I will reccomend that borland products are to be avoided.
The only way to change this is a public apology and admission of guilt by the company, it's CEO,CTO and CLO.
It was an intentional act... their response is the same as saying " Oh that was an accident, I didnt realize it was there" about painting FU*K YOU across the side of your car.
Borland, you want any respect back from the geek community? give us a real apology.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
That's the weirdest moderating I've seen thus far. The original poster is modded "informative" for something that is off-topic and clearly wrong (read the link provided, read the posters text and judge for yourself), yet the parrent to this text (who is ALSO offtopic), who actually posts correct information (ie the use of possessive copied from the link) is only posted offtopic. Why isn't he modded insightful/informative?
Some people moderate out of their ass.
You're overlooking the greatest example of the above -- Borland changing it's name back to Borland from "Inprise".
--
Click here or here.
This is so much crap its unbelievable,
Borland NEVER had any of those right they so claimed in their liscence, Removing something COMPLETLEY unenforcable Dosent mean backing down !
They said they made a mistake, OK, but EVEN in a "Enterprise Enviroment" this wouldnt fly either.
If I put a sign in my driveway that says, "All trespassers will become property of Wertman Enterprises, by coming on this land you acknowledge forfiture of your soul, independence and freedom. You will becom personal property with no recourse and by agreeing to come on this property you forefit your right to a Jury trial"
Horseshit....
Does that mean if a person stray I can keep em ?
NO , It is UNENFORCABLE, because it blatantly violates consitutional right, basic constitutional freedoms cannot be simply waved willy nilly, If you want to refuse your right to a jury trial you need to SIGH in accordance. not just say "Nah I dont think so" it would be a mess of crooked judges and prosectors in a he said she said .
Borland cant back off excersising rights they NEVER had, a click through cant waive 2 or 3 consitutional right, either for a person or a corporation.
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
...I'm glad that I could take it's name off of The List.
The main controversial items in the license were:
1) The right to visit your systems to check that licenses are being obeyed
2) That OpenKylix could only be used for GPL development
Which of the two have they "backed down" from?
Can I now use OpenKylix to develop a non-GPL application?
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
and also:
So there seems to be no change in the license whatsoever
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
It's great to see a reasoned debate, an informed community, and collective action result in positive change. This is what it's all about!
Is the corporation mimicking the government or vice versa? Or perhaps that's just something about human nature... leading to convergent evolution. Or perhaps at this point, I should say coevolution, symbiosis...
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They made the mistake of challenging the GNU "free software" monopoly. And they lost.
You can't beat "free", except maybe with "libre", but what Inprize was offering was a far, far cry from a BSD-style license.
Good job? Good job??? Is it good that companies feel they can try slipping invasions of privacy by us? If they get caught and there is a big backlash, all they have to do is claim ignorance or that it's a mistake or that they just showed bad judgement... and the good little consumer says, "Oh, that's OK, I forgive you. Let's be friends."
Well, it seems there's a whole lot of bad judgement going around that companies feel can be excused away.
Do you trust Borland? Do you believe them? How is your trust for Borland different from other companies that have tried to float outrageous measures that were later excused away or apologized for?
From The Jargon File via the UMEC's Jargon Server:
Why the celebration? Has anyone seen the "new" license?
The link may not provide the actual rule he refers to (it's = it is vs. its = owned by it), but it is a real rule of the English language.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
How does activation relate to licensing?
I have JBuilder 5, and every time I have to install it on a new computer, I have to activate the installation with JBuilder's website, or I continue to get an annoying message telling me I must do so. It's not too hard to imagine this feature deactivating my installation in some future version of JBuilder (ala XP, Citrix, and probably others).
If Borland were to go out of business, what would happen to my product and the activation requirement? Would I never be able to install it on a new machine?
They yanked that pretty quickly, as I recall.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
Borland, as a proprietary software developer, assumes you accept an EULA as a contract. A contract doesn't have room for "What I really meant to say was ...."
woohoo yeah you suck microsoft (ok now back down to me!)
He didnt capitolize his name, nor did he give a last. Seems kinda odd for a formal open letter for someone to have that kind of typo.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
It includes this passage (quoted under the Doctrine of Fair Use :)
"Whew! What a year!
"What does it all mean? I think it means that despite the economic downturn that swept through the country in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, despite the "burst" of the Internet bubble, a company can succeed by delivering great technology and paying attention to what developers need and want."
All together now: WE WANT THE GOOD OLD NO-NONSENSE LICENSE AGREEMENT, APPLIED AT EVERY LEVEL FROM HOBBYIST CODER TO ENTERPRISE DEVELOPER!! (Damn, that was loud!)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
use a good text editor and ANT instead
... an amendment that makes your license more harsh? I mean, copy/paste kinda implies that there was some other license(s) that already had these clauses.
Dammit! If your boss tries to sneak away some of your paycheck, and you catch him, do you say "good job, boss" when he finally pays you the rest?
I could do a dozen of these (lame) examples, but you get the point. You do not say "Good boy" to the dog who bit you just because he decided to release his jaws. It is still "Ba-ad doggie".
They tried to sneak in something very, very bad in their license, and while it is good that they remove it, they are not doing it out of benevolence - they would keep it if they could. The old Borland was way cool, I do not know about this post-Inprise though. Seems they have turned bad on the community in lots of other areas, such as reasonable pricing and such as well.
That is not even a standard enterprise agreement. While some of that language was part of it, there are still license provisos that would be most unacceptible to an enterprise.
What if you have one copy of Borland BSA builder in your company, they still claim these rights??
Also, they have not released new license terms. What are my rights concerning the program now?? The old license was not intended for you, but there is no new license, hence, the terms of the old license remain in effect.
Remember, people use these tools to write code for money. Licensing is very important when it becomes a big part of your business.
P.S. Who qualifies as an enterprise again??
~Hammy
I dont get it. I've submited this news yesterday, with the same links, but it's still "pending (1)"
Slashdot is saying good job? WHAT FOR?
.. Hey, wait, he didnt! Gimme that!"
A simpsons quote summarizes this situation perfectly:
"And I'll take up smoking and give that up!"
"Good for you son - its the hardest thing you'll ever have to do. Here, have a dollar."
"But dad, Bart didnt do anything!"
"Didnt, he, Lisa? Didnt he?
Riiight - I was out of the room, the dog ate it, I was putting *back* the cookies, etc.
Folks don't believe the statement 'cause its not believable. License's legal wording doesn't just get thrown together by some minor "administrative assistant" and then sent out. It's reviewed, several times, at different levels. This is the legally binding contract the company has to honor - trust me it gets read, discussed, debated. Borland knew what it was doing.
Furthermore the line that these were items meant for their enterprise licenses is also a load of hooey. Some of those provisos are ones NOBODY sensible would sign off on, PARTICULARLY large corporations with their own lawyers reading this stuff and looking to protect the companies privacy. The only way those points would ever show up in a big contract would be as negotiating points that can be used to make Borland look reasonable on other more legitimate terms ("We dropped the X and the Y for you folks, at least let us keep the Z!")
Frankly the "Open Letter" is an exercise in damage control and deceit.
It was an accident all right - that it caused so much furor and now they're trying to make excuses and distance themselves. I'm sure the next few licenses they'll be treading softly but I've no doubt we've seen the goals of at least some folks within Borland. If they remember the spanking will have to be seen but I for one wouldn't commit to Borland products without a great deal of unease.
Finally, and on the VERY off possibility this was an honest mistake then what kind of organization lets something this important "slip through"? Are they venal or profoundly badly run - gee which would I prefer my tool developer be?
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
This isn't a troll. JBuilder just sucks. And Borland has went seriously downhill in their business practices.
Borland releases 1 to 2 new versions a year, and has a horrific upgrade price for existing customers. Worse yet, their new and improved versions really have no added value except for a couple of features that could easily be written as an OpenTool.
They have recently released 6.0 which has no serious value-add over 5.0. Yet they consider it to be a MAJOR version release. Whatever.
Borland abandoned the free JBuilder Foundation edition a couple of years ago because everyone stopped buying the Standard and Professional edition. Why did everyone stop buying it? Because nobody NEEDS any of JBuilder's bloated/useless features in the Professional or Standard editions.
I have completely abandoned Borland and gone to NetBeans. NetBeans is by far a superior IDE. It is truly an INTEGRATED DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT unlike JBuilder. It has greater numbers of features. And its open-source to boot.
Dump JBuilder. Use NetBeans. Down with Borland.
Try reading Borland's previous "no-nonsense" licenses.
I think they should be given a chance to go back to that type of license without everyone blowing up again.
I do everything the voices in my head tell me to...
They'll fix them, then SELL you the bugfix version and call it an upgrade. They're greedy rotten bastards, always have been, always will be. The original license should give you a warning as to what they're really all about.
How long until a company comes along with another extremely restrictive license and no one complains? Everyone on slashdot always complains about repeat posts... eventually with more and more restrictive license attempts, Slashdot and other communities will stop informing us about them for fear of being redundant.
This happens all the time with other technologies, such as DoubleClick's ad tracking (though recently discontinued). The first company gets chastised, but then other companies come along and are no longer controversial enough for mass media to report.
Shouldn't something be done to stop licenses like this completely, without always resorting to consumer pressure?
my blog
Dale Fuller said,
"The new end user license agreement mistakenly contains language that is specific to enterprise volume customers"
He said that the language, not the conditions were innappropriate for non enterprise licenses. He was probably just saying that they have to word things more obscurely for thin-skinned personal users.
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
Me and my crappy astronomy. Maybe I should have attended at least one lecture. :)
s/uranus/mercury/
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Judging by the newsgroup alt.its.possessive.has.no.apostrophe, you might be right, but trying to convince people that "its (possessive)" has no apostrophe by posting a link to a poster that clearly states that "it's (possessive)" _has_ an apostrophe isn't really the brightest thing to do, is it?
Now - personally I have no idea which rule is the correct one (I don't even know when to place a comma in english), but I still think it's less than ideal. You don't go around telling people, that Hitler was a nice guy who didn't want people to die, while linking to a gruesome description and depiction of Die Endlösung.
"I knew that some ignorant/unlearned person would criticise me on the grounds that what I said didn't match the poster."
Then why didn't you link to an appropriate text instead?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
> IE does not crash every ten minutes.
Nor does Netscape. Usually. But this time it did.
> Install an OS that does not use 1996 web browser technology.
I'm running Windows NT (with emacs, cygwin, PuTTY and an X server). That's no excuse to run IE (though I do resort to it sometimes).
I have got Mozilla 0.9.7 here too.
It's getting better, but I'm still not using it as my mail client, so it tends to be easier to use Communicator as my web browser too.
rant
Seriously though, it's good to see a company respond to the voices of the online community, and admit it made a mistake. Good job Borland.
Borland fixes its clearly-abusive Kylix/JBuilder license: good for them to listen to us, they're the good guys.
Microsoft fixes its clearly-abusive Passport license: they did it just to put out the fire, not because they care, they're still the bad guys.
Isn't it ironic how /. can be full of double standard?
Finally, and on the VERY off possibility this was an honest mistake then what kind of organization lets something this important "slip through"?
Maybe they get their legal advice from Andersen?
"Sure, it's fine to invaid peoples home - just make sure you shred your documents before you're caught."
Just imagine what all of these other big companies are getting away with that we don't hear about!
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
concerning these terms, and where it talks about 'chat room' communications, would someone care to comment on the legal distinction between 'lewd' and 'lascivious'..?
interested parties want to know!
ed
-- Despair is an operating system that ANY human being can run, sort of a psychological JAVA --