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Apple Cuts Off Under-18 Darwin Developer
Crispyking writes "Finlay Dobbie has been a leading contributor to the Darwin project, most notably
helping track down the infamous PPP-hang bug. He's been nominated to become a Darwin contributor (which comes with limited check-in privileges) but when going through the process, Apple found out he's under 18 years old, and not only refused to let him be a contributor to this 'open source' project, but canceled his
Apple Developer Connection membership (which gives him download access to the source code) on the grounds that because he's under 18, he can't be legally bound to the small-print agreement." Update: 03/26 00:26 GMT by P : Finlay wrote in email that he wasn't getting the Darwin source through his ADC account, but through a third party development project, which he resigned from as a result of all the red tape and the ADC account being disabled.
Apple is technically within their rights here, and it's even (arguably) a good idea. It's a shame that he can't contribute, but Apple needs to protect themselves from liability. Of course, they could accept his contributions via a proxy, I believe, and thus allow him his contributions. Still, it's a shame that we have to do this nowadays...
Useless opinions, worthless observations, and more!
This sucks for the kid - but I can understand where Apple is coming from. Being a minor, NO contract he agrees to is valid - he could do anything he wanted to with whatever information he gets from Apple.
I understand the minor concept, and where it came from, but maybe this hard and fast rule needs to be reevaluated. But what would the criteria be?
"But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion"
I get why they are doing this. I mean lets be honest here. Apple is a smart company. They want to have the best people working on their projects.
At the same time, they also have legal issues which they have to deal with. Which is what this under 18 issue is all about. Now this is in no way age discrimination. Many different things could be argued about the whole issue of being under age etc. Basically when it comes to certain contracts and stuff, if you are under 18 they don't apply to you (why do you think there are so many web sites that say - if you are under 18, you need parents permission?).
IMHO Apple needs to get some sense. They obviously have a talented programmer on their hands, why not have his parents get in on the deal (ie - they sign the agreement) while he is under 18, and when he is legal, THEN let him do this on his own.
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
(I wrote this at http://radio.weblogs.com/0100490/)
Finlay Dobbie published an article about how Apple effectively does not allow minors-- folks under 18-- to participate in the Apple Developer Program or contribute changes to the Darwin project.
Unfortunately, Apple's policy is a reflection of the legal status of minors within the US. The policy is largely out of Apple's control!
The problem stems from the whole COPA/COPPA [Children's Online Protection Act which morphed into Children's Online Privacy Protection Act or something like that] related set of laws.
I actually have a bunch of pertinent technical experience related to COPA/COPPA in that CodeFab built much of the back end engine used by the www.noggin.com site including the editorial tools used to manage content produced by minors.
Basically, if you are under 18, you are deemed a minor and you do not have the legal authority to sign contracts, cannot publish or contribute content that falls under another party's copyright/ownership, and are otherwise severely restricted in a legal fashion.
In other words, Apple cannot directly allow you to participate either as a Darwin contributor or as an ADC member because there is no legal way for you to effectively 'sign' the contracts required to be a member.
While Apple could extend the program such that your parents or legal guardians could give permission for your participation-- effectively signing for you-- that would not actually be enough for you to participate in the programs. In particular, for content produced by a minor to be published in a forum visible to others, several criteria must be met:
Parental consent must be obtained at least once.
Every piece of content must be reviewed prior to being made available within a forum outside of the company that effectively 'owns' the content (in this case, Apple).
If the parent's ever rescind the permission to use content, it must be possible to effectively "unpublish" the content. Imagine the implications within a CVS repository of, say, having to remove the changes in version 1.5 of a file that is now at revision 1.24...?
When a piece of content produced by a minor is actually published, it must be published in a fashion that effectively hides the identity of the source. This part is fairly fuzzy in that it is hard to hide identity when a username is the user's actual name... but the law was not exactly created by folks totally familiar with technology.
The bottom line is that Apple's -- and other companies -- hands are tied in this. They would have to put forth a tremendous amount of effort to make it possible for minors to participate. Even then, a minor could not participate in the full fashion and there is still implied liability.
If you are in this position, your best bet is to have a parent/guardian sign up for the ADC account. As far as Darwin contributions are concerned, it will likely have to be done through some other resource who is of majority age.
No. The EULA is the only thing that grants him any rights to use the software; if it's invalidated by his age, he has no rights regarding it except, perhaps, to sell it under the first-sale doctrine.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
There should be exceptions to this rule. Their 18-year old rule makes business sense, BUT, think for a moment, that even Marcelo who is the MAIN maintainer for the 2.4.x stable Linux kernel is BARELY 18 years old and he started working as a coder to Connectiva Linux since he was 13 years old.
And yes, I know someone who wrote his own operating system at his 16 years old, and he had his own company at 18.
Apple should just make an exception this time for people like Finlay Dobbie, if he is indeed a good coder.
The problem is, if they ever had to enforce the terms a minor almost always has the right to "disaffirm" the contract. A contract entered into with a minor can give you a framework of the agreement, and the adult party is bound to it--but the minor may simply disaffirm the contract on the basis that he is a minor.
Hmm, I wonder what the implications of this are for a minor buying--ahem, licensing a Microsoft product. Since they are minors they can disaffirm the "contract" entirely... Perhaps I'll have to have kids buy my software in the future for me. :grin:
I am a lawyer, but what I'm about to say is not legal advice. I would need to look at specific statutes and case law to come up with a specific answer -- this is just off the top of my head.
In most states, a contract entered into by a minor is voidable by the minor, rather than void. That means that the minor can (before reaching the age of majority, I believe) decide to declare the contract void, and then it is as if the contract had never been entered into. This doesn't apply to certain contracts, such as purchases of "necessaries".
So, without having looked at how this may have been applied with respect to licenses, my guess would be that a minor could declare a EULA that has been agreed to as "void". But what does that get you? Using the software without a license would likely constitute copyright infringement, and being a minor doesn't help you there. No EULA means no license, so use of the software may be off limits.
Remember, the EULA is not required to make it illegal to make copies of software for friends -- copyright does that all by itself. The only reasonable purposes for EULAs that I've ever heard of are warranty disclaimers, limitation of liability, and no-reverse-engineering clauses. Copyright law gives the publisher everything else they need.
Of course, if anyone has any idea what the actual case law is with regard to minors and EULAs, they should pipe up, as I may very well be wrong. (Have I covered myself enough?)
-Steve
Democracy is a poor substitute for liberty.
It is being spoken by a tyrant who is rising to power and wants to ensure that there isn't anyone around who can constrain him to follow the law. Hence, we wants to kill the lawyers to take power away from the people.
Nice try, Lethyos.
Ever read the BSD license? What's the purpose of the BSD license if not to allow commercial companies like Apple to reuse the code in their own products? Does the BSD license require them to add anything (like all the device drivers and other imporovements that Apple has added but which you seem to have forgotten to mention?)
Everyone has the right to license their own code the way they see fit. If you choose to use the GPL or any other license that prevents Apple from reusing the code, fine. But don't pretend that the fine coders who have given away this code FOR JUST THIS PURPOSE didn't have the right to do so, and that Apple is somehow at fault for not paying for something that is _free_.
No, I'm pretty sure that in this context it's a Harry Potter reference.
Amen. We need to stop pretending that EULAs have any more legal force than the statement "by reading this message you agree to pay me $1000".
Congress expressly gave you the right to make a copy in RAM. But what about that copy on your hard disk
Actually 17 USC 117 allows copying if "such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner", which should cover "copying" to your HD, RAM, cache, etc.
Here's something else I just thought of: publishers claim I need a license to run their product, which I allegedly agree to when I run the installer. But by that reasoning, I had no right to run the installer in the first place, since I hadn't agreed to a license prior to running it. Ergo, if shrinkwrap licenses are valid, it is impossible to legally install software.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
On second though, I believe you are right, although not because of anything related to the first sale doctrine. Section 117 of the copyright statute does permit use of a copy of software by the owner of that copy, without requiring a license grant.
I warned you that what I wrote was off the top of my head. :-)
The main point I was making, though, is true -- not much is gained by voiding the EULA.
-Steve
Democracy is a poor substitute for liberty.
In the United States at least this is something that comes up all the time. Child actors for example often have to enter into contracts with the studios producing their movies. I don't know how you would go about doing it in the UK, but here there is a legal process for becoming recognized as a legal adult. (Though it doesn't confer the right to vote, drive or drink, just the ability to enter into a binding contract AFAIK.)
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
B******t. Apple has released lots of their own code. Just off the top of my head there's CoreFoundation, OpenPlay, Darwin Streaming Server, NetInfo, and their Objective-C runtime. They also actively contribute to projects like apache and gcc. Yes, they're a corporation, and yes, they're trying to make money. That does not mean their interests are automatically opposed to yours.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Actually, the GPL and BSD are perfectly safe. Assuming a minor cannot enter into a contract, they have no right to distribute the code by default. Therefore, if they do distribute the code, if its within the licenses requirements you can just turn a blind eye, whereas if it's not, you just get them on standard copyright law.
I encountered this as well when working on Final Doom, a community doom add-on purchased and distributed by id Software. I was a leading contributor to the project, but was 15 at the time of the sale.
The solution was for my parents to sign the agreement with me as well. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know why this was acceptable to id, but perhaps something like this would work for Apple as well, in this case?
This is actually one of the greatest disservices done to shakespeare in the schools, and it's why everyone hates it. Shakespeare was not an author, he was a playright, and plays are meant to be acted, not read. Reading shakespeare and then writing a 10 page dissertation on it for your intro to lit class isn't going to teach you anything about shakespeare, and deriding someone who's only read it and never seen it, and in fact assumes that reading is the appropriate way of experiencing it, is perfectly vald.
Personally, I see this as the fault of the kid. Had he just approached them and said "look, I'm under the age of 18, what can we do" I suspect the folks at Apple would have worked things out with him.
As it was, he signed a contract. He falsely identified himself as someone who could LEGALLY sign a contract. This is no different than using a bogus drivers license to get beer.
It does NOT mean that he can not submit code - it merely means that the process at the moment does not include a method. But these things can be worked out. Instead, people want to just light up the ol' flamethrower and start toasting without regards to facts (and the fact is, ANY contract can be modified, altered, or updated as long as BOTH parties agree).
But it is just a helluva' lot easier to flame 'em, right?
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
NetInfo and CoreFoundation are part of Darwin and available here.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.