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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.
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"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.
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?
M.
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.
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
> before someone else does and calls me a "lamer" or something...
Actually, I was going to call it a Freudian slip.
-
I'm gonna put that one in my miscellaneous cool quotes file.
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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 :)
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.
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Uh, yes I have, unfortunately... Several of the licenses we're under put those kind of burdens on us - and most of the mainframe licenses we hold.
I think the likelihood of a super-restrictive enterprise license is directly proportional to the amount of competition the vendor has and the cost of the software in question.
Our Microsoft Enterprise agreement is similar in some ways, but the trade-off is a low per-seat cost and no need to deal with "activation" or any of that other phone-home crud. We get license keys that can be tracked back to us if they get out, but those keys allow us to install the products in a completely unrestricted form. We have other products that are handled that way, too.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
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
No. It's the employment of lawyers with nothing better to do than to screw with a good thing.
Who remembers the Borland license of TP5 days when the software was to be treated like a book?
I think they called it their "No Nonsense License Agreement" or something like that. We didn't complain about that one as it was pretty fair. I heard it was crafted by the software engineers themselves. Why can't a license like that become the industry boilerplate?
Unfortunately, the company grew and they hired laywers who had to make it virtually unreadable to anyone without a legal background. It went downhill from there. Lawyers server a purpose in a software company, like protecting it from litigation and protection of intellectual property. But, when it comes to licensing, they need to listen to the engineers and development community and license accordingly.
A few years ago, there was a similar frackus about, I think it was the Borland C++ license. They had a "non-compete" clause there. That was promptly removed after the application of public pressure. You'd think they learn from that. Perhaps, if they're smart, they'll pass the license by their real users for review and comment before putting it in the box.
There's still a strong push on the Borland NG to have the license reverted to one like the NNLA. Let's see what happens. Borland has a tendency to react favorably to its developer community.
RD
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?
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.
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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
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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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!
It is correct to use an apostrophe to pluralize a symbol or acronym
No it isn't. In fact the correct punctuation should be "V.C.R.s".
For the record apostrophes are used to denote possesives as in "the cat's feet" or "the cats' feet" if there is more than one cat except for the pronoun "it" so you would have "its feet". This is because the other place to use an apostrophe is to denote letters you can't be bothered to type such as the "no" in the preceding "cannot" and "it's" really means "it is". Now you could say that the apostrophe in "VCR's" stands for "ecorder", but to be consistent you'd have to have "V'C'R's".
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
Actually, The register run an article on January 12th.
It had _very_ strong wording:
"Any sane person seeing these licensing terms can only do as Duchene suggests: destroy all copies of Borland software and turn to one of the other proprietary, or better free, products available."
That, I guess, is bad PR as well.
When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
You're overlooking the greatest example of the above -- Borland changing it's name back to Borland from "Inprise".
--
Click here or here.
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?
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?
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 ...."
LOL!
Perhaps I should have put a (SP) next to it. I couldn't remember the correct spelling at the time and had not yet partaken of my morning coffee. Besides,I can conjure up a word to describe the situation and call it artistic license, no?
Frackus: (n)
Def: A play on words used to describe an unpleasant situation between powerless individuals and power hunger corporations. Often replaces the more gentle term, fracas.
Example: When I and my fellow developers read the licensing agreement a frackus ensued leaving us all rather bloody and sore.
The correct spelling should have been 'fracas'and the phrase should read:
"A few years ago, there was a similar fracas..."
BTW, on Howard Stern's Radio Show this morning, they were poking fun at Gov. Ventura's use of the phrase "we've boughten them time". On a whim, I looked up the word 'boughten'. While it sounds awkward, the word exists and was used in the correct context. Go figure. Score one for Jesse.
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?
"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man" - Jebediah Springfield
I believe it's called Activism, actually. You'd rather have us just bend over...
Never mind.
/Brian
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
Making money by changing license agreements is a stupid way to do business, and likely to fail in the long run. When people buy things, they expect a certain set of rights and responsibilities. The NNLA completely meshed with exactly what you'd expect to be able to do with a piece of software.
It essentially said you could stick it on as many machines as you'd like as long as only one copy would be used at a time. Making a license agreement that's at odds with what your customers would expect doesn't make you any more money up front, and loses customer goodwill in the long run. It's a stupid way to try to make money.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Considering the relative success of other software that was released under this and similar license agreements (AFAIK some of the DOS versions of AutoCAD bore a similar plain-English license, that is after they got rid of the damn dongles), I'd say that this bizarre licensing fiasco was more of a CYA maneuver than an attempt to squeeze for profits.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
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.
To quote Webster's grammar quide:
An apostrophe is also used to form some plurals, especially the plural of letters and digits. Raoul got four A's last term and his sister got four 6's in the Olympic ice-skating competition. It is no longer considered necessary (but used to be!) or even correct to create the plural of years or decades or abbreviations with an apostrophe. He wrote several novels during the 1930s. There are fifteen PhDs on our faculty. My sister and I have identical IQs . (If you wrote Ph.D. with periods, you would add an apostrophe before the pluralizing "s": Ph.D.'s)
More information on the apostrophe can be found here.
I agree. Borland isn't backing down per se. I think it was a poor choice of words. It's almost as if there was a standoff or something. When this article surfaced, Borland did have a chance to respond. It was all public outcry.
However, they (Borland) are claiming to be reworking the licenses. That, unfortunately, takes time (especially when lawyers are paid by the hour). So, we'll just have to be patient and see what comes of this. If it's not satisfactory, it will hit the proverbial fan again. Surely, it will be resolved by the Borland Developer's Conference in May. If not, Dale Fuller will find himself facing a rather hostile crowd as he did at the opening ceremony at last years conference.
FWIW, on their newsgroups, John Kastor stated that he has been pushing to have the licenses available online. John seems pretty good to his word. This event will probably accellerate the decision making process. The ball is in their court, let's see how they run with it.