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Borland Backs Down

Posted by timothy on from the oh-ok-you're-only-entering-my-business dept.

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."

5 of 224 comments (clear)

  1. Why assume maliciousness? by NevDull · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  2. Including the non-compete clause? by Howie · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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"
  3. This isn't a backdown, this is a CYA by Omnifarious · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  4. Malicious intent or laziness by f00zbll · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Having worked a few lawyers in the past for things like press releases, terms of service and other related legal bs, I'm guessing laziness. There are plenty of good lawyers, but often things like writing boilerplate stuff is cut/paste jobs. In a lawyer's mind (the ones I've met), it was the very last thing on their list of priorities.

    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 :)

  5. Re:Check the web site license by arkanes · · Score: 3, Insightful
    The only kind I could see having any legal standing at all would be the click-through kind, where you have to read and agree to enter the site. Otherwise it's a fairly obvious entrapment kinda thing - "By reading this post, you agree to remit $1 in payment to me, the poster, by 01/27/02..." etc.