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.

Comments

So . .

[SanLouBlues]

They're throwing away his donated code then right?

Re:So . .

[cbodine]

They should.

Welcome to the Open Source Movement , we will take anyone?

As long as you are a single white male over the age of 18 and under the age of 40
and have a love for the corporate giants that do stupid stuff like this.

Iam joking about the above , but it does bring up a point how open is open source.

I see where Apple is heading but it is just plain dumb.

Re:So . .

[pe1rxq]

I am joking about the above , but it does bring up a point how open is open source.

Not open at all, the idea behind the GNU license doesn't sound as bad now does it? At least its a lot better then this apple buzzword hype.

Jeroen

Re:So . .

[maroberts]

They're throwing away his donated code then right?

Actually you may have a point; if they use code that he's hitherto submitted and now recognise he's not bound by the license then by rights the implicit agreement with which he gave them the code may also be invalid [i.e. assignment of copyright!]

Re:So . .

[mmaddox]

What's a house-elf to do!?

Re:So . .

[56ker]

Where's it say in law you can't sign a contract if you're under 18 then?

Re:So . .

[Kintanon]

It's in the part that has to do with having no rights as a minor who is under the protection of ones parents. Normally his parents could sign the contract with him and they would be bound to and if he broke it they would be responsible... So I dunno why they haven't pursued that avenue.

Kintanon

Re:So . .

[skybird0]

Common Law. No legal infant can contract for any but essentials (such as food, lodging, etc.) In the United States, one is a legal infant until he/she reaches eighteen years of age or is emancipated by a competent court. There is a more complex legal question, dating back to British Common Law, of whether a person becomes a legal adult on the day before their birthday.

Re:So . .

[maroberts]

IANAL, from what I remember of my A level law, the law in the UK is flexible on this matter allowing minors to enter into contracts providing it can be shown that they are necessary to his type of lifestyle.

But it is a grey area as to whatr is regarded as necessary and what isn't. The safest course for Apple if they were based in the UK would be to block him out.

Re:So . .

[wo1verin3]

You sign all you want, but because you aren't an adult, you aren't liable.

If you are 15 and sign a contract promising not to give out confidential apple information, and you then go ahead and tell everyone everything confidential you learned, apple can not take you to court, because you can't legally be held accountable for this contract since you are under the age of majority.

Re:So . .

[letxa2000]

A minor can sign a contract and there is nothing illegal about a minor signing a contract or an adult entering into a contract with a minor.

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:

Re:So . .

[pe1rxq]

I think that in the case of a minor the parents are responsible, they have to make sure the kid follows the license.
It does show how 'open' apple wants to be... They aren't. They are just riding the hype and profitting as much as they can from it. The moment they could have given something in return they backed out.

Jeroen

Re:So . .

[Junior J. Junior III]

I now have a reason to want children...

Seriously, Apple: Way to shoot yourselves in the foot. You think this brilliant young hacker is going to forget about this? If it were I, I'd work twice as hard now... at stomping Apple into the ground for a competitor.

Re:So . .

[Pfhreakaz0id]

oh bad, bad stupid Dobbie!

Re:So . .

[AdTropis]

just a footnote here...

if a minor presents himself as being at or over the age of 18 at the time of the signing of the contract, he can be held accountable for the details described within the contract and may not be able to disaffirm the contract.

this holds true in a few states anyways. not sure about the entire US or other countries.

Re:So . .

[Jouster]

If you are under eighteen, you can't legally agree to the terms at all. In effect, even if you click "agree", or otherwise indicate your agreement, you didn't. As invalid as it would be if your ten-year-old tried to sign a mortgage contract.

Summary: If you are under eighteen and use the software, since you can't agree to the license, you are using the software without a license. As such, you are in violation of the license, but, since you are a minor, the charges are fairly pointless. Of course, if an adult was standing nearby and said to use the software, they're contributing to the delinquency....

Just a thought, IANAL,
Jouster

Re:So . .

[Lionel Hutts]

That's not right. A minor's non-essentials contracts are voidable, not void.

Of course, the effect on contract counterparties is even worse. But Apple would be free to take the risk and believe that the kid would not choose to void the contract on reaching majority.

Re:So . .

[Jouster]

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:

Under those circumstances, to express it in C:
Dad->kids[0]->identity == Dad->identify
In other words, if you're ordering your kids to violate the law, and they do, YOU violated the law that they violated.

caveat lector, IANAL,
Jouster

Re:So . .

[Jouster]

Not trolling, just informing...

For those who are lacking context, Dobbie is a Terry Goodkind reference.

Jouster

Re:So . .

[56ker]

Thanks - thought it was a LoTr reference - and then I thought there weren't house-elves in that at all!

Re:So . .

[studerby]

No. While it varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, parents are generally only held (somewhat) liable for criminal mischief by their kids, on the theory that they have a responsibility of general supervision. In other words, if Johnny is out tagging the neighborhood at 3am, the parents have failed in supervision and can be held accountable, at least for damages.

However, parents can't be bound to a contract by their minor children and any business willing to make a contract with a minor is presumed to know the risks of doing so.

BTW, even though a minor generally can't be bound to a contract, a business can still contract to a minor and can reclaim property if the terms of a purchase contract aren't met. Also, the limitations on a business enforcing a contract on a minor don't have any effect on the criminal justice system; if a minor deliberately commits fraud by making a contract to receive goods with no intention of honoring it, it's still a crime that can be prosecuted by the state (if the DA is willing); the minor just can't be sued to honor the contract by the business.

Re:So . .

[keiferb]

No, I'm pretty sure that in this context it's a Harry Potter reference.

Re:So . .

[56ker]

I haven't read any of the Harry Potter books - so that's probably why I don't know.

Re:So . .

[Cruciform]

BUT! Then the parents need to understand exactly what the contract alludes to as well, because in some cases ignorance IS bliss... grounds for nullification of a contract.
It's not always effective, but with a good lawyer and a sympathetic arbitrator...

They're probably just trying to protect themselves from that situation.

On the other hand, the kid could simply apply for emancipation from his parents simply for the technical aspects :)

Re:So . .

[benh57]

I don't know terry goodkind, but "Dobby" is a house-elf from the Harry Potter series. Is there also a house-elf named Dobbie in Goodkind?

Re:So . .

[kevinank]

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.)

Re:So . .

[kevinank]

FWIW, the US legal term for a youth who is legally recognized as an adult is "Emancipation". There is a pretty good write-up on the legal meaning here.

Emancipation is a legal process in which a minor (a person under 18) petitions the court to have herself declared a legal adult. Emancipation laws vary from state to state, but generally emancipation ends the parents= legal duty to support the minor, and also ends the parents= right to make decisions about the minor=s residence, education, health care, and to control the minor=s conduct. However, it does not mean that the minor is the same as an adult for all purposes (for example, voting and alcohol-purchase age laws are not affected by emancipation). The extent to which an emancipated minor is treated as an adult varies from state to state, but emancipated minors generally can enter into binding contracts, sue and be sued, establish a residence, and consent to medical treatment on the same basis as adults.

Re:So . .

[mangu]

I am not a lawyer either, but I can feel something wrong with your argument. Do you mean all sales to minors are void? If my 17 year old son popped four quarters into a soda machine and got a can (and drunk it), can I get the money back on the presumption that the information printed in the machine assumes an implicit contract, which is void due to his being a minor? After all, by putting the coins in the slot, you agree to the terms that one dollar will get you a soda can.

Re:So . .

[Ed Avis]

I thought it was a reference to the Robin Williams character in 'Santa Claus: The Movie'. Which makes just about as much sense as any reference to Harry Potter or LoTR, given that we're supposed to be discussing Mac OS X.

Re:So . .

[Squorch]

Except when you void a contract as a minor, you have to put things back to how they were before you entered into the contract... this would entail your kid(s) returning the MS software to wherever they bought it and uninstalling it from wherever they installed it.

Contract law is funny that way.

Re:So . .

[Suppafly]

Thats not true at all.. if you void a contract as a minor, the people who chose to enter into a contract with a minor are stuck in the situation they put themselves in. Thats why it sucks to enter into contracts with minors.. they only have to stick to the contract as much as they want to, while you are stuck to exactly what you signed on for.

There are other legal situations when things have to be returned to the state they were in before the contract, but in many situations, the court leaves you in the position you put yourself into.

Re:So . .

[MouseR]

They can go against the legal guardians, through.

Re:So . .

[Suppafly]

Just a thought, IANAL

no, you're wrong assuming you live in the USA.. things might be different where you live though.

Of course, if an adult was standing nearby and said to use the software, they're contributing to the delinquency....

and that just doesn't make sense..

Re:So . .

[DenaliPrime]

So why don't they add a clause to the contract that removes the 'defense of infancy'?

Re:So . .

[MouseR]

They can go against the legal guardians, through.

I should expand on this before some dimwit flame me.

IF any litigation should ever occur, and a contrator HAD to pursue some kind of action against a contractee, and that the said contractee was found to be under age, then the legal guardians of the contractee are responsible, to some degree, of the actions that are at the cause of the litigation.

But this is a two-sided blade, this time, in favor of the contractee. The legal guardians can hold a contractor responsible for failing to protect the contractee against material, endeavor or responsibilities not suitable (or advisable) to a person who's legally under-age for the contracted job.

This means, for example, that a porn site could be held responsible for distributing material to a person who's under-age without properly taking the steps to guard against this.

This isn't much of a worry for this particular case with Apple, but the problem is similar. By acknowledging a person legal rights to a certain task, you expose him(/her), and the legal guardians of that person, to possible litigation issues by accepting their submissions.

So, as much as this sucks, this is as much to protect Apple as it is to protect this kid. No matter how brilliant he is.

Re:So . .

[lamont116]

The minor would still have an obligation to make restitution. See Restatement of Contracts s. 14, comment c. It's the old sword-shield doctrine.

Re:So . .

[halfpastgone]

sorry, somewhat OT: As per the child actors(in the US at least): this is why we have so many movies with 28-year olds parading around as 15 year olds: child labor laws restrict the number of hours that minors can work, which pisses off the studios, so they hire people who are over 18 to play teenagers. minors are also required to have some sort of supervsion (and often tutors, which cuts into filming time. i think schooling age varies form state to state, but in most places you must be in school or tutoring of some sort up to age 16). there are very few emancipated child actors because in becoming independent they and their parents lose some rights. this is also why so many parts for extremely young characters (any body remember Full House?) have to be cast with twins.

Re:So . .

[mpe]

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.)

In the UK a contract with a minor (with certain exceptions) can be terminated by the minor for any reason. But it is fully binding on any non minor party.

Re:So . .

[mpe]

The problem is, if they ever had to enforce the terms a minor almost always has the right to "disaffirm" the contract.

"Almost always" means "unless there is a statute saying otherwise".

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.

A corporate is always an "adult" in this context. Also if the minor does not disaffirm the contract they have full use of the civil courts to have in enforced or collect damages if it is breached.

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...

They can't disaffirm the contract of buying something since that's likely to be in the exceptions catagory. However unless Microsoft does a lot of lobbying software licences are unlikely to be...

Re:So . .

[mpe]

If thee was such a problem with contract how do they make movies with minor's in them. "With a contract"!!! Doh!!! They still have to pay the minor and the minor has to perform or... no money.....

Effectivly it's a case of such a contract cannot be used to force the actor to act (if they are a minor) if they change their mind (including half way through shooting) then it's a case of tough luck. However the contract is binding on any non minor party (a corporate or an adult). So if they do act and don't get paid a court will uphold their claim.

Re:So . .

[mpe]

I am not a lawyer either, but I can feel something wrong with your argument. Do you mean all sales to minors are void? If my 17 year old son popped four quarters into a soda machine and got a can (and drunk it), can I get the money back on the presumption that the information printed in the machine assumes an implicit contract, which is void due to his being a minor? After all, by putting the coins in the slot, you agree to the terms that one dollar will get you a soda can.

You can't get the money back because you were never a party to any contract in the first place...
Also contracts of sale, especially if they involve "essentials" (food, drink, accomodation, education, etc) tend to be binding regardles of if a party is a minor or not.
Also I doubt using this quirk of civil law for criminal acts such as theft and fraud would work as a defence.

Re:So . .

[mpe]

and I mean that seriously. Why should Apple throw away any code this kid wrote?

Well one reason is that he is perfectly able to deny them any right to use it. If Apple had an agreement to give then a licence to use it, even to assign copyright to them then he can void that agreement.

Re:So . .

[Pfhreakaz0id]

Just to set the record straight, it was a Harry Potter reference (My son and I read them)

Re:So . .

[hawk]

It varies widely from state to state.

However, this conversation has degenerated so far already, with so much misinformation, that I"m not going to get into details.

hawk, esq.

Re:So . .

[kesuki]

Better still, it is illegal to track or collect the personal information of anyone under 13 years of age online. Yeah, I haven't 'registered' software as a person over 13 years of age in about 5 years. And as a 'person under 13' I refuse to give any personally identifying information to anyone who seeks to force me to register. Very handy, since this prevents companys from getting any useful information on me, online.

Re:So . .

[Devil_Zukin]

In all honesty, I don't think it should matter how old you are or there should be any other factors that deal with age/sex/race that dictate whether or not you can contribute to such a project. If you've been giving to the project already and what you've done has helped in anyway in the movement of it forward, even though you may no be old enough to participate by their rules, should it matter how old you are or what your sex or race is? I don't think so.

Right...sort of...

[Cirrocco]

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...

Re:Right...sort of...

[petree]

Not only is apple within their rights here, but they must actually exercise this to protect future rights. As with many contract law situations, just like infringment suits, often times you must act on the issue soon after being notified of the breach of contract. If apple were to "overlook" the fact that he was under 18 and then something did happen down the road (like they found out he had really been stealing someone elses code and contributing it) they would have no defense if suit were brought against apple for using that stolen code. They knowingly licensed software (although it was a free license) from someone who could not be held responsible for said contracted software. Had they not known he was 18 -- then they would be in a legal gray area. But since they do know, if this situation happens there would be no question and apple would get wrecked in this suit.

Re:Right...sort of...

[Bouncings]

They are of course within their legal rights. But a good idea!? When you read to the bottom of his page, their reason is that he could break the "non-disclosure agreement" -- presumably for their bug database, but that's just rediculous. Any self-respecting company makes a bug database public, and even if it isn't: what's the worst that could happen? A leak of a bug? Come on.

Re:Right...sort of...

[Mike McTernan]

Of course, they could accept his contributions via a proxy, I believe

Ironically, Apple are probably worried that someone else is accepting their code by proxy through this chap - leaving them exposed

Re:Right...sort of...

[Colol]

Yes, they are within their legal rights, and yes, it is a good idea.

The NDA isn't really so much for the bug database as it is for the developer seeds and other pre-release software which pops up on the Apple Developer Connection from time to time. The Developer Connection is for developers in general, and doesn't lock you in to one specific area. When I sign up, I get access to whatever my membership level allows me. I'm not limited to the open Darwin stuff. I may well have a developer seed show up so I can make sure my apps will run on, say, OS X.5. It's not ready for public consumption, and they don't want all the new features leaked. Hence, NDA.

Re:Right...sort of...

[0x0d0a]

Red Hat, please send Finlay Dobbie a free set of CDs.

If Apple doesn't want him around, a lot of us *would* like to have someone who's talented and cares around.

Re:Right...sort of...

[psamuels]

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.

Why exactly is it (arguably) a good idea? It sounds like Apple just doesn't want him spilling information he gets via NDA. Which just begs the question: why does he need to sign an NDA at all?

He shouldn't need any non-public information. After all, any use he puts the information to will be open-source, i.e. publicly available. How can you produce open-source code using information you aren't allowed to leak, without leaking it?

(Actually the NDA thing is probably meaningless anyway. I did some contract work for Linuxcare back in the day, and they had me sign an NDA, but I never saw, nor expected to ever see, any Linuxcare proprietary information. To this day I'm not sure why they thought they needed me to sign it.)

Re:Right...sort of...

[Ragetech]

Actually the law is designed to protect the minor from being held liable for signing a contract that takes advantage of them.

Imagine if Apple's disclaimer said, "And I will pay Apple $100 a month to do this." Adults are supposed to know better, but minors are not supposed to be legally bound to contracts for THEIR protection (not the company or contractor's). This is a sad story, but it's better that it's enforced than 'overlooked'.

Re:Right...sort of...

[sbarber]

Yes, you're right that once Apple learned of the guy's status as a minor they were wise to act. But using him as a liability shield is not the reason. Open source contributors, as a practical matter, aren't usually rich enough to be helpful to a company the size of Apple.

Consider, for example, if Apple unknowingly used contributed code that turned out to violate someone else's copyright. That someone else would sue Apple *and* the contributor. Apple has no "defense" by claiming it's the contributor's fault -- intent and knowledge aren't elements of copyright infringment. So, a liable Apple would then go after the contributor to make Apple whole. Yes, the minor could void the indemnity -- but individual open source contributors usually aren't useful as indemnifiers anyway. Anyone could just declare bankruptcy, and look ma, can't get blood from a stone.

The real defense that Apple needs that it wasn't getting was the ability of the minor contributor to void the copyright assignment, and then come after Apple himself for infringement.

Gotta love contract law

[Ravensfire]

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?

Re:Gotta love contract law

[texchanchan]

Model it on the law for child actors, who are heavily protected.

Re:Gotta love contract law

[Ranger Rick]

But he had already had a contract with another part of Apple for earlier development, with his parents co-signing, and Apple was fine with it. They seem to be deliberately screwing him rather than making arrangements like before (and screwing themselves... Finlay's a force to be reckoned with, he's put a lot of effort into OSX).

Re:Gotta love contract law

[Rogerborg]

• Being a minor, NO contract he agrees to is valid - he could do anything he wanted to with whatever information he gets from Apple.

Dear Junior, because we can't force you to play nice, we assume you'll play nasty.

Oh yeah, great message. Add in the MPAA/RIAA's "You're all thieves and liars that need to be controlled" and we've arrived at a really enlightened society where everyone you don't have a strangehold on is assumed guilty.

You know, I seem to remember a couple of strange old fashioned concepts called "trust" and "good faith", but then I'm getting on and my mind may be playing tricks on me.

Re:Gotta love contract law

[alernon]

Heh. Trust and good faith? I take it you just have your network wide open to everyone on the internet then? I would imagine you leave your door unlocked when you're not home? I too remember Trust and good faith. Unfortunately, I got to big for a crib

Re:Gotta love contract law

[Junior J. Junior III]

Then why have contracts for ANYONE?

Face it, contracts exist to protect BOTH signatories. If a contract protects one but not the other, it's not a very good contract for the "not the other" party to enter into.

Re:Gotta love contract law

[AxelBoldt]

Being a minor, NO contract he agrees to is valid - he could do anything he wanted to with whatever information he gets from Apple.

In other words, shrink wrap licenses don't apply to minors? They can do whatever they want with software they buy (short of breaking copyright law)? Cool. Finally a reason to get kids.

Re:Gotta love contract law

[geekoid]

"NO contract he agrees to is valid - "
which is how I got such an extensice book and music collection before I was 18.
12 records for a penny! sign me up....again ;)

Re:Gotta love contract law

[vanguard]

Being a minor, NO contract he agrees to is valid

Actually, that's not true. A contract made that is nessessary for him to live his life is valid. For example, if he lived on his own and needed to sign an employment contract that contract would be binding. If he lives at home and signs up for a Columbia House cd contract he can bail.

Of course in this case, the contract would not be binding.

Re:Gotta love contract law

[The AtomicPunk]

Why should I trust anyone in a society that so quickly turns to ambulance chasing lawyers and frivolous lawsuits as the solution to the most minor problem?

Exactly, I shouldn't take any chances - neither should Apple.

Re:Gotta love contract law

[PMM]

Apple isn't screwing anyone, nobody is better off in this situation

If anything Apple has lost a valuable contributor & I'm sure they're aware that by doing this it will hurt them

Re:Gotta love contract law

[mangu]

...child actors, who are heavily protected

Yeah, just look at Drew Barrymore or Macaulay Culkin to see how much that "protection" is worth.

Re:Gotta love contract law

[ghack]

Then, technically, any code contributed by those under-18 to the linux kernel can be used freely in proprietary products!

Re:Gotta love contract law

[psamuels]

Then, technically, any code contributed by those under-18 to the linux kernel can be used freely in proprietary products!

Actually, if you want to play it that way, any code contributed by those under-18 to the linux kernel cannot be redistributed at all. Remember, absent a specific license - copyright law states that you can use your copy for anything you want, but cannot redistribute it unless you are the copyright holder. So if you assume a minor can't give you permission to redistribute his work - then you can't redistribute it - free or otherwise.

Re:Gotta love contract law

[Mtgman]

If a contract protects one but not the other, it's not a very good contract for the "not the other" party to enter into.

Sounds very much like every EULA I've ever read.

Steven

Re:Gotta love contract law

[Vulture_]

By that logic, they'd also be aware of what that contract to join ADC is doing to them.

Have you ever read it? It's ridiculous!

I think Apple's legal department is just making an effort to act objectionably and irrationally. Not the first time -- remember them suing M$ over "look and feel"?

Re:Gotta love contract law

[Rogerborg]

• Face it, contracts exist to protect BOTH signatories.

What planet are you living on? A boilerplate contract (which is what we're talking about) exists solely to protect the party that paid the lawyer that drew it up.

You're missing the main point anyway. The most chilling words an engineer can hear is "Run it past legal," because that's now corporate shorthand for "I want to kill this project, but not leave my greasy fingerprints on it." We're at the stage where lawyers now dictate to development, and the only way to get a project completed is to get it to the stage where the first that legal hears about it that sales contracts have been signed.

R&D is inherently risky and prone to failure and errors (and therefore liability). That's fundamentally incompatible with legal department that will veto anything with an ounce of risk in it, which pretty much means everything involving human beings.

Add in actual legislative regulations (DMCA, Son of SSSCA, export regulations), and it's a bloody miracle that anything gets developed any more. This isn't a good time to be doing development work for any corporation.

Re:Gotta love contract law

[mpe]

They seem to be deliberately screwing him rather than making arrangements like before (and screwing themselves... Finlay's a force to be reckoned with, he's put a lot of effort into OSX).

Which Apple now can't use without his permission anyway. British copyright law is subtly different from that in the US when it comes to "derived works", too.

Re:Gotta love contract law

[mpe]

A minor can enter into a valid contract -- in exchange for necessities of life or otherwise -- but the courts will not *enforce* non-essential contracts pertaining to minors; or, as you accurately put it, such contracts aren't (legally) binding.
They're still valid contracts, however, so long as there is nothing incoherent or legally improper in the form and provisions of the contract. They are *valid but non-binding* contracts.

Not quite they are fully binding on any non minor party. Another way of putting it would be that in a dispute relating to such a contract the minor party can never been a defendant, they can however be a plaintiff.

Re:Gotta love contract law

[Junior J. Junior III]

Well, that's a very good point... I guess I'd clarify what I was trying to say by saying that there's a difference between the idea of contracts and what purpose they serve in civilized society, and the actual implementation of a particular contract in practice.

What about EULAs?

[Foulman]

Not bound to fine print eh.. does that mean he could do whatever he wanted with purchased software, ignoring EULAs since he's not bound?! perfect! reverse engineering and hacking for everybody!

Re:What about EULAs?

[Cirrocco]

HOLY MOLY! I'd never thought about that! By golly, I think you're right! Any lawyers out there want to comment? I'd like to hear this one!

Re:What about EULAs?

[Stonehand]

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.

Re:What about EULAs?

[uncledrax]

LOL.. so does this mean that Tech Support would be legally liable when the folks call in and Support asks to talk to the kids in the house?

Re:What about EULAs?

[youngsd]

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

Re:What about EULAs?

[rcs1000]

...since the EULA is not valid, he would not have the right to install the software in any form (since such rights are only granted by the EULA). So technically no one under the age of eighteen can install Microsoft software (or GPL software for that matter, it has more than a few EULA like clauses).

Sorry? Minors are allowed to purchase things, like food, yes? Does this mean that if a food had a license agreement that said that it could only be eaten if the recipient was over-18 (and I'm not talking about alcohol) then it could be bought but not consumed.

Surely, some-one not bound by the terms of the EULA who had purchased the software would only be bound by the same laws covering (say) music CDs. Meaning they could install the software, and do anything with it so long as it was not expressly prohibited by copyright law. (Like copy it.)

Or aren't 17-year old's allowed to buy (and more importantly play Mariah Carey almbums any more.

Re:What about EULAs?

[ChaosDiscordSimple]

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.

The claim that you have no rights to use software if you don't agree to the EULA is still being debated and has not been well tested in court. I certainly don't need any sort of EULA for other copyright protected works I purchase (music on tape, record, or CD; books; magazines; movies on videotape or DVD; console video games; arcade games; sheet music; etc). Copyright only restricts the right to make and distribute copies. Personal use (including copies for personal use) has never required any sort license agreement. The claim that installation or copying into RAM to run software represents some sort of restricted copying is as silly as claiming that making a tape copy of a CD to listen to in the car is restricted. So why is computer software somehow different?

Don't buy into the software industries claim that you have no rights to a product you purchase. It's on shaky legal ground and they know it. There is no reason for citizens to let them extend copyright in this new way without a fight.

Re:What about EULAs?

[Foulman]

I would think that just the limitation of liability and no reverse engineering parts of that have some serious holes then, if you install some software and it toasts your computer and you lose all your data, you just void the agreement and then they ARE liable? Reverse engineering would have even more nasty applications along those lines.

Re:What about EULAs?

[AintTooProudToBeg]

Does this mean that minors
- cannot be prosecuted for violating NDAs
- can be prosecuting for using software they weren't granted rights to use under the EULA

On another note, has anyone ever tried returning their just opened copy of WindowsXP to CompUSA claiming that they don't agree to the EULA?

Re:What about EULAs?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Show me some food that has a license agreement. For that matter, produce a music CD as well.

Re:What about EULAs?

[ktakki]

Show me some food that has a license agreement.

Monsanto Roundup.

k.

Re:What about EULAs?

[Drachemorder]

That's not necessarily true. If the EULA were invalid for whatever reason, the software would be covered by standard copyright law. This means that you wouldn't have the right to distribute copies (i.e. make copies for friends). However, it WOULD mean that you WOULD have the right to make copies for personal use, and could therefore legally install Windows XP on every computer in your house if you were of such a mind, something that the XP license does not allow you.

The key is that EULAs don't grant rights. You're not asked to agree to the EULA until after you've already bought the software, so you would by default have the right to use the copy you've purchased, in the same way that buying a dead-tree copy of a book gives you the right to use that book. The EULAs restrict rights that you would normally have by virtue of buying that copy of the software. By clicking on the "I agree" button or whatever other method of coercion the software vendor chose to implement, you are (technically speaking) "agreeing" to concede certain rights.

To sum up: You have certain rights to use a copy of a work you've bought. EULAs seek to add restrictions on top of the ones imposed by copyright law. So, nullifying an EULA would indeed be a Good Thing.

Re:What about EULAs?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Show me some food that has a license agreement.

Monsanto Roundup.

You Eat that stuff?

Re:What about EULAs?

[geekoid]

why do you think I have my 4 year old son do all my installing?
I'm not kidding.

Re:What about EULAs?

[ewhac]

The EULA is the only thing that grants him any rights to use the software; [ ... ]

Absolute horsesh*t.

EULAs are a legal fiction and have no force or validity whatsoever.

The fictitious need for a "license" at all stems from an impossibly boneheaded court decision made in the 1970's which stated that the act of loading the software into memory for the purposes of execution constituted an infringing copy (the copy just made from disk to RAM), and was not covered under Fair Use. Ergo, a license was required.

The merest child could see how stupid this ruling was. Eventually, Congress got around to amending copyright law to expressly allow loading a program into RAM. So the highly specious need for a "license" from the vendor no longer exists. Like books, music, and videos, software is sold.

However, this idiot ruling from the court (which still serves as a crucial reference in the history of IP case law) serves as a jumping-off point to illustrate the unsustainability of the existing copyright regime in the light of modern digital media: Congress expressly gave you the right to make a copy in RAM. But what about that copy on your hard disk, which you copied from the CD-ROM you bought? If you've got enough system RAM, there's probably a complete copy of the work in the filesystem cache. Is that allowed? How about the copy in the read cache of your disk drive and/or disk controller itself? What about those fragments sitting in the L2 cache of the CPU, or those even tinier fragments in the L1 cache?

"Licensing" is not a reasonable or workable model. Copyright law needs to be fundamentally reengineered to live in the modern world.

Schwab

Re:What about EULAs?

[leviramsey]

Sorry? Minors are allowed to purchase things, like food, yes? Does this mean that if a food had a license agreement that said that it could only be eaten if the recipient was over-18 (and I'm not talking about alcohol) then it could be bought but not consumed.

To be blunt, yes. The only way around this is to have a legal guardian (generally a parent) sign something granting the child the right to enter into a contract with the food company.

Surely, some-one not bound by the terms of the EULA who had purchased the software would only be bound by the same laws covering (say) music CDs. Meaning they could install the software, and do anything with it so long as it was not expressly prohibited by copyright law. (Like copy it.)

Any EULA worth its salt has a clause saying that use of the software constitutes agreement to the EULA. While this clause has not been found legally valid by a court of law, it is valid by default. AFAIK, there have been no cases questioning the validity of EULAs. Since the act of using the software therefore binds one to its terms, it is impossible to use the software without agreement to the terms. Since a minor cannot agree to the contract, the minor cannot use the software.

That said, no software company is insane enough to go after 15-year-olds using the software. If it ever got to court, there is at least some chance that major components of the license would be rendered inoperative (namely the "use constitutes agreement" clauses). So the software industry will not force the issue.

And those opposed to EULAs shouldn't necessarily be rushing to court. There is a chance that the courts will rule that the EULAs are fully legal, in which case the battle over UCITA will become moot and it will be up to us to pass laws explicitly overturning the EULA.

This is somewhat similar to the Second Amendment. That amendment is almost never invoked in the courts for fear that a definitive interpretation will result which ends the stalemate.

Re:What about EULAs?

[Royster]

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.

I strongly disagree. The First Sale doctrine gives you all the rights that you need to install and use software. You do not need a EULA to do so even though the software industry would like you to think so.

There have been several cases recently which held that, in the absence of a validly executed EULA, the law which governs the sale of a copy of software allows all of the rights which come with first sale. Arguably, those rights include the ability to use the software in the manner it was intended to be used.

Re:What about EULAs?

[Ravensfire]

Good idea - but that won't work.

You are implicitly agreeing to the contract by using the software. You may also be getting into the gray area of fraud by your actions. You know the license, don't like the license, and use someone else (who is a minor, and thus can void contracts) to get through the license. Note that, if I remember correctly, when a contract is voided by a minor, it's not a one-sided void. Everything needs to get reset - that would include the removal of the software package.

Although a humorous idea, I'd suggest avoiding any major disputes using it.

Re:What about EULAs?

[bnenning]

EULAs are a legal fiction and have no force or validity whatsoever.

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.

Re:What about EULAs?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Licensing" is not a reasonable or workable model. Copyright law needs to be fundamentally reengineered to live in the modern world.

"Licensing" is exactly the problem that copyright was supposed to solve.

The original U.S. copyright laws covered "maps, charts and books." Why specifically single out maps and charts? It was to solve the problem of map licenses. Ship captains needed maps and charts in order to safely navigate the waters. Mapmakers were in a precarious position -- preparing an accurate map was a difficult and expensive proposition, and the result was a single piece of paper -- that could be easily pirated.

The result was that mapmakers licensed maps and charts to ship captains. These licenses were the NDAs of the age. The result was that each captain was sworn to secrecy, and no one was able to compare and correct inaccurate maps and charts.

The primary purpose of copyright, with respect to charts and maps, was to rectify this situation by establishing a quid pro quo between the mapmakers and the public. In exchange for open publication of the maps, so that they could be compared, corrected, and eventually enter the public domain, the mapmaker would receive a government monopoly over the printing and distribution of their work.

Now we've come full circle -- Software automatically receives a 95 year monopoly, but that isn't enough for the software companies, who have unilaterally brought back the "bad old days" before copyright when you needed to sign a license just to read a book, or a map. In the case of software, you actually have to sign a license that says that you won't read the work, "Reverse engineer" being a fancy term for "read and understand."

Copyright doesn't need to be fixed. The only "fix" necessary is to outlaw software usage licenses entirely.

Re:What about EULAs?

[bnenning]

Using the software without a license would likely constitute copyright infringement

What is your opinion of the meaning of 17 USC 117, which appears to allow making a copy of software if such a copy is an "essential step" in using it? To me, it seems to negate the argument that you need a license to run software, but I'd appreciate the opinion of someone who actually IAL.

Re:What about EULAs?

[youngsd]

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

Re:What about EULAs?

[Pig Hogger]

Not bound to fine print eh.. does that mean he could do whatever he wanted with purchased software, ignoring EULAs since he's not bound?! perfect! reverse engineering and hacking for everybody!

So, then, why was that norvegian kid hauled in jail because of DeCSS????

Re:What about EULAs?

[Pig Hogger]

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.

Is that legal " #include <stdio.h> " ?????

Re:What about EULAs?

[grahammm]

That just proves what many people already believe - that "the law is a ass".

Purchasing (or otherwise legally aquiring) a software "package" should automatically include the right to install and run that single copy. It should not need an EULA to allow the software to be run.

Re:What about EULAs?

[silversurf]

I think it would come down to intent. Of course if copying is an essential step to using it, that is probably permitted under most EULA language, such as installation from CD-ROM to your hard drive in order to use the product. But if you were to go make a copy of the cdrom so your buddy could use it too, then that violates the EULA if the EULA says copying is prohibited, and it would have to be determined that your copying was under the intent to distribute, which is illegal. So I'm willing to take a guess that most sofwtare companies could care less if you cloned their cd-rom for a backup copy, as long as it stays in your possession and is only installed and used in accordance with the license your purchased.

I'm sure there are more technical terms for the legal pretenses that this falls under, but IANAL. But loose interpretations usually are judged on intent and reasonableness. So if you were to claim it was an "essential step" to copy that cd-rom and install it on your friends computer in addition to your in order for you to use the software, probably isn't gonna fly.

just my thoughts,
-s

Re:What about EULAs?

[youngsd]

See my reply to an earlier post.

The long and the short of it is: I replied too quickly. The main thrust of what I was trying to say (voiding the EULA doesn't get you much) is probably right, but I goofed on the use==infringement point. Mea culpa.

-Steve

Re:What about EULAs?

[ewhac]

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 [cornell.edu] 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.

Actually, that may not wash, either. A sufficiently oily IP lawyer could argue that the making of the copy in (for example) the filesystem cache is not an essential step; the software will run just fine without the cached copy. Ergo, infringement. By Napsterian "logic", the OS vendor, by providing the filesystem cache feature, is a knowing contributory infringer and would also be liable.

Would you like to pay your fine by cash, check, or major credit card?

Schwab

Re:What about EULAs?

[grahammm]

Which is different from almost every other licence. Licences allow you do something which would otherwise be illegal. Thus my ham radio licence allows me to transmit, a drivers licence allows you to drive a vehicle, a liquor licence allows a publican to sell alcohol etc. None of which would be permitted without the licence. So an EULA should, like the GPL, only grant rights which you would otherwise not have.

Re:What about EULAs?

[zaffir]

What happens if the kid voids the contract? I know that he is no longer responsible, but does he have to delete all the source code he's gotten? Does he have to give everything he got from the contract back/up?

Re:What about EULAs?

[An Audience of One]

The claim that installation or copying into RAM to run software represents some sort of restricted copying is as silly as claiming that making a tape copy of a CD to listen to in the car is restricted. So why is computer software somehow different?

Thats actually a bad analogy, and rather interesting. In the UK it is illegal to make a tape copy of your CD to play in the car - no fair use over here. You would be allowed to use the software, except for the fact that it makes a copy to install / a transient copy in memory. Your aren't licensed to do that, unless you agree to their license. This is why its legal to play import videos, but not DVDs. You don't have a license to make any copy, since it wasn't sold in this country, and that includes the transient one a DVD player makes. The fact that you are allowed to watch the same thing on VHS, because the technology doesn't involve transient copies

Re:What about EULAs?

[Tetrad69]

By clicking on the "I agree" button or whatever other method of coercion the software vendor chose to implement, you are (technically speaking) "agreeing" to concede certain rights.

So if I somehow hack the installer to bypass the EULA, does that mean I never agreed to it, and therefore has no effect on me?

Or would hacking violate the DMCA? Damned if you do, damned if you don't, apparently. Ah well, as long as I don't get caught, who cares, eh?

Re:What about EULAs?

[psamuels]

(or GPL software for that matter, it has more than a few EULA like clauses)

Care to point out the EULA-like clauses in the GPL? I must have missed them. It seems to me that the GPL is quite the opposite of what one normally thinks of as an EULA. It grants you additional rights you didn't already have under copyright law - specifically, creating and distributing derived works. Most EULAs only purport to take away rights you have under copyright law - the right to use the software in your own home in any way you see fit, most commonly.

Re:What about EULAs?

[psamuels]

I think it would come down to intent. Of course if copying is an essential step to using it, that is probably permitted under most EULA language, such as installation from CD-ROM to your hard drive in order to use the product.

Nope, it isn't. Copying from the CD-ROM to the hard drive is an essential step in running xxx software on my second computer - yet the EULA only allows me to install it on one computer. Conflict. This is a simple example of a situation where copyright law gives me certain rights and an EULA, under guise of allowing me to use what I've already bought and paid for, tries to take away some of these rights (in this case, right to use on as many of my own computers as I wish).

as long as it stays in your possession and is only installed and used in accordance with the license your purchased.

I didn't purchase a license - I purchased software. They consider it a copyrighted work - doesn't that mean that when I buy it I get to use it according to copyright law? What if I refuse to agree to the EULA - why should I have to return the software for a refund? Why can't I just use it however copyright law says I can?

Re:What about EULAs?

[psamuels]

You are implicitly agreeing to the contract by using the software.

Says who? Says Microsoft. I say I am not agreeing to the contract, but simply using copyrighted material in a fair-use manner. What gives Microsoft the right to determine what action I need to take to agree to a contract?

Why can't the author of a book print an EULA on the shrinkwrap of the book saying you agree to burn the book after 1 year unless you purchase an extended license to "own" it for more than a year? Similar gimmicks were long ago ruled invalid by the courts, when they established first sale doctrine.

You can't make someone agree to a contract by saying that they are agreeing to a contract. That should be self-evident.

P.S. By reading this message you agree to pay me $200 in legal consulting fees, even though IANAL. If you choose not to accept this, you must immediately forget what I just said and contact your ISP for a refund of bandwidth charges.

Re:What about EULAs?

[sigwinch]

EULAs are a legal fiction and have no force or validity whatsoever.

That's true only for "shrinkwrap" licenses. I.e., licenses that are only seen after purchase.

If you agree to the EULA contract before paying money and receiving the product, it is enforceable. Be very, very careful when buying software from vendor websites.

Re:What about EULAs?

[odin53]

Nope, not usually. (The necessaries thing munges up the analysis and can give you a different result, but of course we're not talking about necessaries.) When I learned this in law school, I was aghast: I could have voided that those contracts from Columbia House that required me to buy x CDs within y years after getting the 10 free ones, and kept the CDs! What's more, if the minor voids the contract, he's entitled to restitution -- that is, the adult has to give back whatever he took from the minor within the bounds of the contract!

Another funny thing is that if the minor contracts with an adult, the adult cannot void the contract if the minor doesn't want to.

Of course, these rules can vary jurisdiction from jurisdiction, but in general, that's the law. In essence, it's what's called the infancy doctrine: Minors don't have the capacity to enter binding contracts.

Re:What about EULAs?

[odin53]

oh, and this is not legal advice, yadda yadda yadda...

Re:What about EULAs?

[Vulture_]

#include <disclaimers/ianal.h>

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.

If the license allows the licensee to redistribute the copyrighted work (as with free, Free, shareware, etc licenses), then the license is good for that, too.

Also, are you saying that the no-reverse-engineering clauses actually carry any real weight? I was under the impression that they're on pretty shaky ground.

Re:What about EULAs?

[youngsd]

Also, are you saying that the no-reverse-engineering clauses actually carry any real weight? I was under the impression that they're on pretty shaky ground.

As far as I know, reverse engineering clauses have not been tested in court, but I have never seen a good argument for why they would not be upheld in the U.S. (some European countries may have laws that protect reverse engineering -- those protections may trump EULAs).

There is a lot of mythology about EULAs floating around on the Internet that somehow becomes common wisdom. Don't assume that any of it is necessarily true.

-Steve

Re:What about EULAs?

[Vulture_]

By Napsterian "logic", the photons being selectively bounced off a sheet of paper constitute a copy of said sheet of paper.

As for being essential, have you ever tried to run a program with your Ln caches disabled? How about not copying the code into main memory, and just reading and executing the bytes directly off the disk? The software would be completely unusable, because then your computer would be slower than the Mark I.

Re:What about EULAs?

[muleboy]

However, if a minor buys a piece of software, it seems they are not bound to a EULA "contract". In this case, they still can't copy the software and give it to their friends (due to copyright law), but why can't they reverse-engineer it and distribute this information? After all, reverse-engineering is legal to do so for any piece of software if you haven't agreed not to in a contract. Or is it?

Re:What about EULAs?

[mpe]

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.

I think it's more like the contract ceases at that point in time than being treated as though it never existed. e.g. consider the case where a minor is contracted to do X amount of work for Y amount of money. If they do only X/Z amount of work they are still owed Y/Z amount of money.

Re:What about EULAs?

[mpe]

I didn't purchase a license - I purchased software. They consider it a copyrighted work - doesn't that mean that when I buy it I get to use it according to copyright law?

Problem is that proprietary software companies want things both ways. They want to one hand treat things as a product which can be sold off the shelf and on the other hand enforce a contract which only makes much sense if you had specifically contracted them to write the software.

Re:What about EULAs?

[mpe]

The claim that installation or copying into RAM to run software represents some sort of restricted copying is as silly as claiming that making a tape copy of a CD to listen to in the car is restricted. So why is computer software somehow different?

These claims are only silly until they actually make it into statute or case law. Problem is that some judges and legislators don't actually that the "copy in RAM should be copyright infringment" type argument actually is daft. So they are quite happy to create what is an unenforcable law.

Re:What about EULAs?

[mpe]

Thats actually a bad analogy, and rather interesting. In the UK it is illegal to make a tape copy of your CD to play in the car - no fair use over here.

Even though various law lords admit this is both daft and impossible to enforce no-one actually wants to change the law.

You would be allowed to use the software, except for the fact that it makes a copy to install / a transient copy in memory. Your aren't licensed to do that, unless you agree to their license. This is why its legal to play import videos, but not DVDs. You don't have a license to make any copy, since it wasn't sold in this country, and that includes the transient one a DVD player makes. The fact that you are allowed to watch the same thing on VHS, because the technology doesn't involve transient copies.

The obvious problem here is that VHS does involve creating transient copies. If it didn't you'd have a place once media :)
How do you read without creating a "transient copy"? Problem is that people have somehow got hold of the idea that digital media involves creating transient copies, analogue media dosn't. Which just happens to be a misunderstanding very favourable to a certain few publishing companies. Who can make a lot of money reselling what people have already bought.

Re:What about EULAs?

[mpe]

The fictitious need for a "license" at all stems from an impossibly boneheaded court decision made in the 1970's which stated that the act of loading the software into memory for the purposes of execution constituted an infringing copy (the copy just made from disk to RAM), and was not covered under Fair Use. Ergo, a license was required.

This is the kind of argument which superficially makes sense (especially if you dress it up in enough technobabble). Problem is that playing any media which can be played more than one must involve making a copy. Looking at anything creates an image (i.e. a copy) on the retina, etc.
Problem is that those making laws are often too boneheaded to understand that it makes little sense to consider "copies" (especially transient copies) created purely as a side effect of use to ever be "copyright infringement".

Re:What about EULAs?

[mpe]

A sufficiently oily IP lawyer could argue that the making of the copy in (for example) the filesystem cache is not an essential step; the software will run just fine without the cached copy.

They might argue that all caching is infringment, since it's not strictly necessary. What about disk mirroring, it's prefectly possible to have a HDD which mirrors platters, completly transparent to the OS...
It's a basic problem with the wording being over specific, especially when refering to fast changing technology. Far better wording would be something like "a transitory copy, created by the normal operation of any system, is never infringing, unless captured in some way."

Re:What about EULAs?

[mpe]

Care to point out the EULA-like clauses in the GPL? I must have missed them. It seems to me that the GPL is quite the opposite of what one normally thinks of as an EULA.

Maybe this needs to be in an FAQ somewhere. The GPL is not an EULA. It is has more in common with a publishing contract where the author does not sign over copyright to the publisher or even a contract between a band and a venue than it does with any "click this as you install" type "agreement".

Re:What about EULAs?

[A55M0NKEY]

If I buy software, and decide I don't like the EULA, do they have to give my my money back?

Unfortunatly the do have a right to do this.

[SirGeek]

Its not the brightest of solutions but they do need to protect themselves since he isn't legally able to agree to any legaleze. There are also laws about what information they man collect if someone is under 18 (and I don't see if he ever mentioned it before). Doesn't their signup form request an age ?

Was he getting paid?

[MonkeyBot]

It didn't look like he was getting paid for doing the work, so why is it even any of Apple's business how old the kid is?
Kids are getting better and better at programming at younger and younger ages...I'm kind of excited to see what the next generation of programmers comes up with, but at the same time, I'm kind of scared of some of these kids coming along and knocking me out of a job!

Eye for an eye?

[karot]

I suggest he excercises his copyright on the code he has written until they change their minds...

Re:Eye for an eye?

[prizzznecious]

So far as I can glean from the article, the only really worthwhile thing he did (tracking down the PPP bug) didn't involve any actual code authoring at all.

Re:Eye for an eye?

[Bouncings]

I think the copyright on his code probably belongs to them.

Good move

[Digitalia]

Apple's merely guarding their flank against potential impropriety. It might be worthwhile to see what relatively important open source developments have been released by minors. Though IANAL, if they're still undwer 18, they could break "contract" and recind Free access. Just think of the havoc this would cause of some of its code were integrated into a vital app, eh? Hoepfully this isn't too likely.

Re:Good move

[HiThere]

Apple's merely guarding their flank against potential impropriety.

So this doesn't seem improper then? I don't know about how it looks to you, but while I can see arguments that they could make, it certainly appears improper to me.

16 years

[AlexDeGruven]

I thought you were legally able to sign contracts at 16, not 18. If I were him, I'd check on that.

Personally, let the kid code, obviously he's good. Get his parents to sign a guardian contract, I'm sure they're aware of his abilities, and it would make an excellent entry on a resume in the future.

Re:16 years

[sunking2]

Right, check that out because we all know that the reason that Apple is doing this is because they hate 16 year olds. Apple's lawyers have no idea what they are talking about and are simply coming up with an excuse to wage their own little private war against this obvious hacker.

Re:16 years

[NanoGator]

It may depend on which state you are in, but I think the way it works is you can work at 16, but contracts you have to be at least 18 for.

Re:16 years

[parliboy]

I'm confused: "If I sell your burgers, you'll give me $5 per hour." What part of contract am I missing here?

Re:16 years

[NanoGator]

You don't sign a contract to sell burgers.

time for a new identity

[scbomber]

in cyberspace, nobody knows you're under 18

Child labor too, perhaps?

[fgodfrey]

Apple probably has more to think about here than just "can this guy be held to the click-wrap license". There are laws in various states regulating labor for people under the age of 18. I know I had "fun" with this when I worked paid theater shows in high school. Since Apple is going to take this and sell it, couldn't his work be considered "child labor"?

This sounds like such a boneheaded descision, though, that it must have come from their legal department.

Re:Child labor too, perhaps?

[KFury]

Since when is hobbyist programming 'labor'?

Soon you won't be able to build model planes because you're a minor and it's 'work.'

Re:Child labor too, perhaps?

[Dark Paladin]

Sadly, this seems like the case.

While I don't like the idea of those under 18 getting cut off from the development cycle, all it would take is some over-ambitious state attorney to say "Hey, Apple's got this kid working on code - and he's not old enough to enter contracts" - and then Apple would have to get into court and explain to a bone-headed Judge and lawyer that the kid volunteered to help, nobody paid him, etc.

Sad the legal shit we have to do to protect our asses sometimes. (Like me - I have to wear a warning label at all times stating how wonderful I smell so women don't go into a sexual frenzy around me. I hate that label.)

Re:Child labor too, perhaps?

[fgodfrey]

Well, while it is blatently obvious to you and I that hobbyist programming is not labor, it may not be so obvious to a judge when presented as "Apple is now shipping a product on which they are trying to make a profit that includes code that was written for Apple by a 15 year old". I can definetly see someone interpreting that as "labor". Also, I believe that Apple could still get in trouble even if both the kid and his parents agreed that it was not labor.

The building model planes part doesn't apply unless you plan on selling them for profit after they are built and don't conform to the laws on number of hours worked at certain times, etc.

Re:Child labor too, perhaps?

[Lemmy Caution]

Oh, yes. Things are much better for children where there's no regulation against child labor.

Re:Child labor too, perhaps?

[mpsmps]

I don't think there is a question about Apple's need to obtain and follow good legal advice, but how it handled the situation is clearly wrong (assuming Dobbie's account is accurate).

There may well be valid legal issues that Apple needs to be concerned about. I have spent enough time with lawyers for several lifetimes, and the law often forces you to do illogical things.

However, there is always a business decision associated with any legal opinion and Apple f'ed this one up badly. Someone should have contacted him, informed him of the legal situation, and made a good faith effort to see if a legally acceptable resolution was possible. There is no legal reason why they couldn't have done this. Instead, out of the blue, he was locked out of his account without a word of explanation.

Re:Child labor too, perhaps?

[evil_eyes]

From my understanding, he donated this source code and was not paid for it hince it is not "child labor" but meerly an enthusiast working on his own free time to promote open source software. If it is good enough to use, should it really matter if the kid is under 18?

Re:Child labor too, perhaps?

[Lemmy Caution]

The first laws against child labor - restricting the number of hours and defining the conditions under which children could do factory work - were drafted in Victorian England. They were not drafted at the behest of the straw-man liberal democrats, but rather at the behest of the factory owners - or a subset of them - who were horrified at the prospect of a generation of children whose educations were cut short by the work they were performing.

Why did the factory owners advocate for these laws, even though it meant increasing their own labor costs? Why didn't they unilaterally decided not to hire them? Because they were competing against manufacturers who were using them and could not unilaterally stop the practice. This is also why many plantation owners kept slaves against their own moral inclinations - because competition made it impossible for them not to.

The point of child labor laws is largely to ensure that children get a well-round basic education, so that they can get work even if the widget factory that employed them at age 14 closes. And to make sure that no one gets a competitive advantage based on keeping those kids from getting and education.

Re:Child labor too, perhaps?

[hyrdra]

This may come as a surprise to you, but people under 18 can work. Go to your local fast food restaurant or grocery store, and you will see many 15 year olds and up working.

In fact, the only stipulation on working is a federal work act of 1912 which states children can't work over 40 hours in a school week or past 11 PM on a school night, not to exceed over 8 hours in any school day. In addition, people under 18 must receive a 1/2 hour break every 3 hours, or a 1 hour break every 6 hours.

Minors can also volunteer, but the same restrictions apply. Still, even though Apple is selling this kid's code, I doubt he put more than 40 hours per week in it, or worked on it more than 8 hours in a day.

It would also be impossible to prove he worked over what the law allows, because there is no time system.

I think what Apple is doing is trying to protect themselves from what his code might do, rather than their license on Darwin not applicable to him since he's not yet 18. I'm sure his code is perfectly fine, but Apple does not want the image of script kiddies pinning away in their parent's basements on their new OS. It might also be much more difficult to blame him for any damage his code might do to Apple's customers, considering he doesn't have to agree to Apple's terms and the GPL doesn't apply to him.

What companies would take them seriously if they packaged tools ported by a kid? Really, it's all about age discrimination and in this case all the kids who got a reputation of being malicious made it bad for everyone else. Now everyone automatically associates teenage programmer with script kiddies.

Personally, contract laws for minors exist to prevent companies from signing young people into something they don't understand. When you reach 18 it is assumed a magical switch is turned and you will then have the capability of making decisions for yourself. It's a sad thing that many people well over that age can't do the later while a few under it have been making decisions and signing uninforceable contracts for years.

Re:Child labor too, perhaps?

[Drachemorder]

"This is also why many plantation owners kept slaves against their own moral inclinations - because competition made it impossible for them not to."

Thanks for that insight. I've often wondered why people who were seemingly of unimpeachable character otherwise, stood up to defend slavery in the early years of the U.S. (I'm not just talking about the Civil War; I'm talking about all the events from the founding of the colonies until that point.)

Re:Child labor too, perhaps?

[mpe]

The first laws against child labor - restricting the number of hours and defining the conditions under which children could do factory work - were drafted in Victorian England. They were not drafted at the behest of the straw-man liberal democrats, but rather at the behest of the factory owners - or a subset of them - who were horrified at the prospect of a generation of children whose educations were cut short by the work they were performing.

Also could it possibly be that the factory owners didn't just need unskilled labour, were looking at things long term and didn't want to pay for the entire education of their workers if someone else was prepared to provide education.

Re:Child labor too, perhaps?

[mrfiddlehead]

Not even in the bloody US would they possibly consider an under 18 year old to be a child, would they? Kids must be able to work at McDonalds dishing out death, no? I mean, they kill teens under 18 in the US so certainly they allow them to work, right? Maybe the kid is under 12. That would make the Child Labour issue an issue, okay?

Gotta go to work.

Re:Child labor too, perhaps?

[Lemmy Caution]

No. The fact is that most of the factory workers were motivated by religious compunctions about the misuse of children. There was never a danger of a labor shortage such that it would have provided savings to refrain from employing labor - other, non-economic considerations applied. You may want to begin here for some background.

Incidentally, I was incorrect to specify "Victorian" England as the epoch at hand - the child labor movement began in the early 19th century.

What about his parents?

[alsta]

Can't a legal guardian sign an agreement with Apple?

Sorry folks, it's the law.

[purduephotog]

Now with most laws, he could get his parents to sign the contract releasing such problems, but, he obviously violated the TOS. The government has said that anyone under 18 can't make decisions for themselves, and must have parental consent. Get that consent, problem solved.

Don't go ragging on Apple for this - if they weren't taking these steps, I'm sure a case could be made for child labour law violations.

Re:Sorry folks, it's the law.

[Lemmy Caution]

I really doubt it has anything to do with child labor at all. It has a lot more to do with the ability to sign the contracts. Like you said, if Apple chose to pursue it, his parents could sign.

If being a hobbyist developer is child employment, then little league players are professional child athletes.

let someone "hold his hand"

[augros]

why can't he have a legal guardian perform the legal actions in his name? isn't that normal? i would think apple would do this unless they want a very ticked, intelligent group of minors seeking to rot them to the core.

Minors and Contracts

[_J_]

IANAL, but if memory serves any contract involving a minor is non-binding. The only way it could be binding is if the contract were made on the minor's behalf by a legal guardian. That being said this should be obtainable for Finlay Dobbie.

But this brings up an important question in my mind - should we be getting minors to buy and install all our software? Would that allow us to ignore all the click-through licences?

IMHO, as per

J:)

Re:Minors and Contracts

[x24]

But this brings up an important question in my mind - should we be getting minors to buy and install all our software? Would that allow us to ignore all the click-through licences?

You'd probably be brought up on charges of contributing to the delinquancy of a minor.

Re:Minors and Contracts

[Stonehand]

That approach would probably hold only as much legal water as looking away while clicking randomly during the installation process, until you hit the 'accept EULA' button. Judges, in general, aren't imbeciles; nor are publishers.

Did you agree to the EULA? No.

Then what right do you have to use the software?

Oops.

Re:Minors and Contracts

[91degrees]

Then what right do you have to use the software?


The contract was formed when the software was purchased, and not when I clicked (or possibly did not click - were there witnesses?) the agreement.

IANAL, YMMV, But its probably a fairly good position to take.

Re:Minors and Contracts

[geekoid]

If it never asks me to accept, how can I agree, or disagree with it?
I didn't avvept any agreement for this win 2k box I use at work, and I won't consider my self bound to it since I was never give the opportunity to read it.

Re:Minors and Contracts

[UncleFluffy]

Did you agree to the EULA? No.
Then what right do you have to use the software?

I agreed to all the terms presented to me at the time of purchase.

If someone wants to modify the contract after the fact, then they can go take a long walk off a short cliff, as far as I'm concerned. Personally, (IANAL and all that) I'd say that your argument would only be valid if the EULA was printed on the outside of the retail packaging to be reviewed by the customer before money changes hands. There may be some legal justification for the bait-and-switch involved in springing an EULA on someone *after* they have purchased the software, but I sure can't see a moral one.

Legality - under-18 - and the big BUT...

[rblancarte]

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

Re:Legality - under-18 - and the big BUT...

[0x0d0a]

And a nice letter of apology or something. Christ. This guy saved them a freaking lot more money than they have risk in taking him on.

I kinda understand

[binaryslave]

I can see where Apple is coming from on this point. However, I think that they should just wait until the kid turns 18 then give him back his membership and let him become a contibutor

Stupid, but not unusual.

[yakfacts]

Back in the 1980s, many companies were willing to work with

The day when being a great programmer was the top priority may be gone. Now the first concerns are all legal issues.

Re:Stupid, but not unusual.

[Vulture_]

You forgot

• How pretty you can make the GUI. (God forbid there be no GUI...)
• How many meaningless high numbers you can rattle off about the software (eg, lines of code).

to make the brainless PHBs buy it and force it down engineering's collective throats (because, of course, engineers lack the ability to make decisions regarding their own specialty without being told how to do their jobs by a PHB who doesn't even know what their jobs are).

</cynicism>

Big Deal

[dlb]

While I can't blame apple for canning him, I think their method was a bit sketchy and aloof.

On the other hand, welcome to corporate America, kiddo. Life sucks, wear a helmet.

The problem isn't with Apple

[lw54]

because he's under 18, he can't be legally bound to the small-print agreement.

The problem isn't with Apple. It's with the US legal system. I've never been a fan of Apple but don't punish them for something that isn't their fault. Instead of griping to Apple, gripe to your congressional representatives on how current laws are stifling our countries competitiveness on a global scale.

Re:The problem isn't with Apple

[Beliskner]

So why not pay the kid in Hershey bars instead of cash? It's open source code so ANYONE can look at it, surely they can get some guy to give his code a quick once over and that'll be that? What sort of message is this sending? Kids can be ha33ors and get away with it because they're under-age, but if they want to make a positive contribution to society then they get shut out by the companies. No wonder all these kids burglarise houses and smoke crack ?-)

Re:The problem isn't with Apple

[jurros]

The problem isn't with Apple. It's with the US legal system. I've never been a fan of Apple but don't punish them for something that isn't their fault. Instead of griping to Apple, gripe to your congressional representatives on how current laws are stifling our countries competitiveness on a global scale.

I believe that Finlay isn't a resident of the US. How does that factor into all of this? I'm sure in some countries the contract age varries. If your local country's law said you had to be 21 to agree to contracts and Apple let an 18 year old from that country develop, wouldn't they have the same problems? And some contries wouldn't even honor any contracts in the US. Will we next be seeing articles that US companies won't let non-US citizens work on their open source projects?

Any international contracts lawyers have any insight into this?

Re:The problem isn't with Apple

[kindbud]

That's right, why export all that labor to 3rd world adults when we can exploit our own children right here in the good ol' US of A.

Re:The problem isn't with Apple

[Ayatollah]

You have got to be kidding me.

"current laws are stifling our countries competitiveness on a global scale"

Where are other countries crushing our industries with the child labor we need to be using? This is the same logic that says we should have child labor for the dumb kids - that way, with only the smart ones in school (like other countries), we can finally compete on those global school kid rating events.

This story isn't newsworthy. The kid probably agreed he was of legal age (the "I Accept" option) before even getting involved with the project. Apple found out and removed him to limit the potential damage to their company.

On our competitiveness, what industry do we need child labor to break? Textiles? Give me a break. We have enough employment worries as it is, without opening up that demographic. Talk about market saturation.

Oh, and did you support NAFTA? Because you shouldn't, since you must want us, as a nation, to be sealed off from the world to be more competitive. Just like China! Brilliant idea.

Re:The problem isn't with Apple

[isa-kuruption]

Instead of griping to Apple, gripe to your congressional representatives on how current laws are stifling our countries competitiveness on a global scale.

At one time in the United States' past, children as young as 5 years old were working 18 hour days carrying coal in mines without masks. Our child labor laws protect children from THAT. If you want to change the laws so kids can work, then what's to stop parents from forcing their 12 yr old kid from working 2 full time jobs after he gets home from school everyday?

The point of child labor laws is to protect children. The fact that Apple doesn't want to have this kid working for them means they cannot be held liable for hiring a child to do work. This has nothing to do with stifling our country's competitiveness. Every first world nation has child labor laws.

Re:The problem isn't with Apple

[Louis_Wu]

It took three transatlantic phone calls, an e-mail and a week of waiting for them to come up with the answer: ...

If we assume that Apple is based in the USA (Cupertino, CA seems a safe assumption :), then our friend Finlay was in the Europe area; his email is through British Telecommunications. I don't see how Apple's NDA and other contracts can even be held as legal in the country Finlay resides in. Oh, wait, Jon Johansen was arrested in Norway; silly me, US corps don't need real laws with real jurisdiction, some threats to a foreign nation will do.

Re:The problem isn't with Apple

[mpe]

So why not pay the kid in Hershey bars instead of cash?

The type of consideration is utterly irrelevent to contract law anyway.

get parents sig?

[Acoustic_Nowhere]

Maybe he could work something out with Apple where his parents sign for him?

What about licenses?

[aberkvam]

Apple has a point here. In most places minors can not enter into legally binding agreements. This brings up an interesting point. What about licenses like the GPL, the Artistic License, or the Apache License, to name a few. If a minor releases software under one of these licenses, do the licenses apply or are they invalid since the minor can't enter into a legal agreement? How does the law treat a minor's ability to control how their work is treated?

Re:What about licenses?

[maroberts]

In theory if minors cannot enter into legally binding agreements then they cannot be bound by the GPL. But thats alright because minors *are* bound by general copyright law which is what they'd be sued under if they breached the GPL.

The GPL gives you extra rights over the basic law, which is why it works when a license which removes rights does not.

Re:What about licenses?

[Cirrocco]

I haven't read the Apache or Artistic licenses, so I can't comment on those. However, if they use more or less the same scheme as the GPL then it really doesn't matter whether a minor follows the GPL license or not. He downloads it, modifies it, redistributes it with the modifications but doesn't include the GPL...who would know? And of those who would or would not know, how many would use that minor as a source for the source code? Not many, I'll bet. Yeah, technically it could be an issue, but not bloody likely. I STILL want to see if minors can be held to EULAs. Any lawyers want to comment? I'm waiting...

Re:What about licenses?

[Krusher55]

"But thats alright because minors *are* bound by general copyright law which is what they'd be sued under if they breached the GPL."

Really? I am not sure this would work. What is copyrighted is the sequence of characters (i.e. the code) not the the compiled binary which he could distribute because he cannot enter into a legally binding agreement.

Can't they get authorization through parents?

[nufsaid]

Although he can't be held legally
to the contract, surely his parents
or legal guardians can be?

hrm

[gtx]

i fail to see how apple's covering their own ass is really all that bad. sure, they may have been a bit heavy-handed, but they were only doing what any sane entity would do to avoid a possible legal fiasco

Re:hrm

[Ranger Rick]

But, Apple had already worked with him previously, and he *had* an agreement with them that his parents signed for, and they were OK with it.

But the ADC is a different "department" of Apple, and decided to cut him off, without any warning or checking for prior arrangements.

Co-signer for NDA?

[kdgarris]

Couldn't a parent or guardian co-sign the NDa agreement to make it legally valid?

-Karl

Have his parents sign?

[Kizzle]

Could'nt apple work somthing out to where his parents signed some stuff instead of him?

...wow this this mac section is realy macish looking :)

Re:Why Linux Sucks:

[MrHat]

No I'm not willing to pay $49.99 for Opera, I have Internet Explorer on my Windows box and it is fantastic.

You probably paid about $49.99 for that too. Unless you stole it along with Windows.

Yeah, yeah. IHBT. I know. Whatever.

bad string of luck for under 18's

[Jonny Ringo]

This of course just happened after being denied access to a 18 and over dance club.

I remeber thinking everything will be great when I'm 18, I can buy smokes, go into tity bars, drive.

Than when 18 comes, man I can't wait until I'm 21, than I can drink anywhere I want, man life will finally be good when I'm twenty one. But it just never comes true!!!

But don't worry, I bet everything will be great when your finally old enought to code. :-)

Re:bad string of luck for under 18's

[bluGill]

Once I turned 21 I realized that 13 was the perfect age. Old enough to ride my boke to the beach alone, young enough that all the teen aflections don't affect me yet. (girls wouldn't become desirable for a short while yet, and that throws out a lot of hastle)

Sigh, back then I though being 16 and able to drive was great. Now I hate driving. Worse yet, jounior high was right around the corner, and that by far was the worst years of my life.

I guess I could look ahead to retirement, but the way my body is going down hill (and I'm doing better than many my age) I don't know if I can look forward to it.

What do you want them to do?

[mmusn]

There are all sorts of legal problems both the open source Darwin project and Apple could get into if they accepted his code.

However, what they could (and should) do is have one of his parents sign the license agreements and other legal agreements.

Does this mean the same for all EULA

[Dutchmaan]

It seems that this could set quite a precedent for a lot of kiddies to abuse any EULA for almost anything.

What a great time to be under 18... no restrictions on your software usage, it would be unenforceable!

Re:Does this mean the same for all EULA

[qwerpoiu]

No, you misunderstand. The law works the way the huge soft-money-giving companies want, not the way non-voting kids want. :-(

Re:Does this mean the same for all EULA

[Ayatollah]

If you're under eighteen, feel free to sign up for any credit card offers you get. They can't legally make you pay, and can't ruin your credit, and they know it. The companies knowingly lose some money on the smart kids to make a fortune on those who can be threatened into paying for the stereo and SCUBA gear they purchased.

Plus, mom and dad will come bail out junior if they think it will ruin the future they worked so hard to build. I'm not kidding. College funds, tutoring, supplies; parents pay a lot of money to help their kids do well in life. They will usually jump in to bail out the kids if they think it will save their credit.

Typical CYA

[Visigothe]

Apple is just trying to cover their own colective arses. Here's the deal, say some sub-18 year old kid decideds to take/steal someone else's code [from work, from a friend, etc.] and then submits this code to Apple. Apple likes the code, so it gets included in the Darwin source. Later it is found that the code is actually the IP of aome other company, Apple gets litigated into oblivion, as the code is sitting right out in the open. Apple has no recourse on the sub-18 year old kid.

Apple is not evil, they are just covering their own arse. Yes, I do agree that kids under 18 should be allowed to contribute, but the problem is that Apple is a corp. They need some way to make sure they are protected. "Signing" a document is a good way to do that. Falsly filling out a form is not a solution, it just makes matters worse.

Cool.....is this like 17 year old drug dealers ?

[CDWert]

Does that mean that next time i want an oracle installation I can benchmark I should have 16 year old install it sho he isnt bound by the terms.

This is STUPID on apples part, this guy showed an affinity and a brightness devoted to apple. They have now alienated him to some degree.

Now that said , if he isnt legally bound by the terms, He could RE-Liscence the code he already wrote and Apple would be forced to remove it.

Thats it lets alienate our developer base.
I asked for certain GPL code, modified by Apple and had a hell of a time getting it (no it wassnt on FTP and per GPL didnt need to be, but I litterally had to talk to their legal dept before getting the code sent to me through the written offer clause)

Re:Ok, so?

[Beliskner]

WHY WHY WHY do all the lawyers seem to post as Anonymous Cowards? Is it some sort of legal liability thing? In that case I'd better tell you that software installed by your boss (transparent proxy e.g. squid, VNC, whatever) tracks what you post as anonymous coward as well as when you're logged in. You aren't buying yourself any anonymity. (We have to get rid of the anti-Napster peeps somehow ;-)

Legal Guardians

[hotsauce]

Can't his parents co-sign or something? I can't believe Apple Legal can't come up with something. They are not showing much concern for someone remarkable who has contributed so positively.

Parents or something

[nullard]

Maybe if the coder's parents signed, it would work. Also, certain states allow "removal of restrictions of nonage." This allows a minor to become a legal adult. In Florida, it just requires you to take your kid to the court house and sign some forms.

There must be some solution of ther than simply kicking the coder off the team. I didn't join ADC when I was under age, but I did write plenty of Mac programs. I don't see how throwing away young talent is a sound business practice.

Re:Parents or something

[JabberWokky]

In Florida, it just requires you to take your kid to the court house and sign some forms.

Specifically, it can even be used (in Florida) to only apply to a particular contract, a copy of which is included with the forms. It came up when we were fighting the curfew laws here (my little brother, who is a US citizen, was the first person in North Palm Beach to get hit with them - the judge threw out the case, calling the law "ridiculous". Gotta love the three branch system).

--
Evan

Re:Parents or something

[enjo13]

What law where you fighting? I'm just curious, as we have long standing underage curfew laws here in Arkansas... I'm wondering if it is something that has been thrown out in other states ( I was arrested several times for breaking curfew before turning 18).

Re:Parents or something

[JabberWokky]

I've gotten two emails about this, plus you, from different parts of America. You guys seriously need to get together and start a information resource on the net. For the next week, anybody who gives me their email address at slashdot at timewarp.org, I'll bounce it back out to everybody else - you can all start a mailing list or something to get together and plan. Some people have gotten in touch with local civil rights groups. I'd say this is Stuff that Matters - after everybody gets together and gets organized to handle lots of feedback, toss it out as an Ask Slashdot.

--
Evan

Shakespere was right...

[CokeBear]

"First thing we do, lets kill all the lawyers."

Re:Shakespere was right...

[aidan64]

This quote is almost always taken out of context.

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.

Re:Shakespere was right...

[Fulcrum of Evil]

t 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.

Actually, it's a toungue in cheek line spoken by one of his cohorts.

Re:Shakespere was right...

[NanoGator]

I think Back to the Future 2 may have diluted the meaning of that phrase. "The justice system moves a lot faster since they have abolished all lawyers."

Re:Shakespere was right...

[lupercalia]

Bzzt! Wrong. See Seth Finkelstein's excellent analysis of the phrase, which states:

Few people are unfamiliar with the phrase The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Rueful, mocking, it often expresses the ordinary person's frustration with the arcana and complexity of law. Sometimes it's known that the saying comes from one of Shakespeare's plays, but usually there's little awareness beyond that. This gap in knowledge has inspired a myth of "correction", where it is "explained" that this is line really intended as a praise of the lawyer's role.

[snip]

As long as there are lawyers, there will be "lawyer jokes". And lawyers will show how those jokes ring true by trying to explain how such lampooning really constitutes praise for their profession, thus by example justifying the jokes more than ever.

Re:Shakespere was right...

[56ker]

And that happened to be the one BTTF film where there was total anarchy!

Re:Shakespere was right...

[Drachemorder]

It was also referred to by Q in "Encounter at Farpoint", if I recall my Star Trek correctly.

Of course, knowing the nature of Q, it probably was a sarcastic comment.

Re:Shakespere was right...

[Sabalon]

I've never actually read that play, but I can just see BlackAdder and Baldrick going back and forth in that scene.

Re:Shakespere was right...

[NanoGator]

Makes you wonder if law is too tightly defined, doesn't it. I mean why is the chronological age of 18 such a big deal? In the olden days, it was safe to assume that an 18 year old would have a good understanding of consequences. But is that true today? It seems to me that somebody of the age of 17 that can do coding that Apple would find interesting would understand what he's getting into. What happens 20 years from now when 12 year olds will be able to write programs people want?

Re:Shakespere was right...

[aziraphale]

Dunno about where you live, but where I come from there are these things called theatres, where we can go an 'watch' plays. Still, you carry on reading them.

Have you read 'Star Wars'? I hear it's great...

Re:Shakespere was right...

[Zordak]

Not that this is on topic at all, but I have read lots more Shakespeare than I have seen acted out. I don't have any hard evidence, but I think this is the general case. Most people have read several Shakespearean plays in the course of their formal educations. Mocking somebody for having implied that reading is the normal means of exposure to Shakespeare makes you sound like one of a) an uneducated flunkie or b) a teenager who just doesn't know what he's talking about.

Re:Shakespere was right...

[Darren Winsper]

Actually, it was Picard, who was deriding Q's kangaroo court.

Re:Shakespere was right...

[arkanes]

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.

Re:Shakespere was right...

[isaac]

Few people are unfamiliar with the phrase The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. Rueful, mocking, it often expresses the ordinary person's frustration with the arcana and complexity of law.

As someone wrapping up his first year of law school, I can relate to frustration with the arcana and complexity of law. However, as a hard-core (and until recently, professional) computer geek, I can also relate to frustration with the arcana and complexity of hardware and software. That doesn't mean I think "First thing we do, let's kill all the geeks" is a positive sentiment.

The law is complex and computers are complex -- frankly, everything in life is complex. There are things that don't seem complex because we have evolved to be capable of doing them unconsciously - breathing, for example, or walking. Agriculture is phenomenally complex, and in our society there are relatively few who understand it. (I, personally, can't keep a houseplant alive without instructions. In another era, this would make me dead.)

Compared to agriculture, legal systems are spring chickens - the common law tradition dates back (in recognizable form) less than a millennium, to the aftermath of the Norman conquest. In that time, the range of possible human conduct has vastly expanded, mores have changed, whole religious doctrines have arisen (Martin Luther wasn't even born 600 years ago), etc. etc. and the law has tracked these changes. Admittedly, it lags behind, and tends to accumulate cruft (ask me about fee tail estates or the rule against perpetuities sometime!), but by and large it does the job we ask of it, which is to (A) provide a binding forum for resolving disputes between private parties and (B) provide a check on arbitrary exercise of state power.

Now, I would not suggest that the legal system is perfect, nor that it accomplishes even these two basic functions perfectly or even with competence in all circumstances. I would, however, suggest that "let's kill all the lawyers" is not a good idea. Yes, access to the courts is an old and enormous problem, SLAPP suits are a problem, volumes of statutes that always grow and never shrink are a problem, judges who don't understand modern technology have always been a problem, etc. etc. "[K]ill all the lawyers" is not the solution to any of these problems. To those who would replace our legal system wholesale, I pose the question - what replacement, then? The Chinese system? Hey, no lawyers, just arbitrary judicial authority unchecked by anything but familial and political alliances. Is that preferable? Or maybe we just do away with vast chunks of legal code? Sounds good to me - less to read. Which chunks? Who gets to decide? Legislatures? We've got those already. Appellate courts? I thought we were getting rid of the lawyers. An all-powerful executive? There are plenty of places in the world where the executive makes all law - none are particularly pleasant places.

Anyways, I'm rambling. The point is, simply, that just because a field of human activity is arcane and complex and touches your life doesn't mean that exterminating the practitioners of said profession will necessarily improve your life.

-Isaac

Re:Shakespere was right...

[binarybits]

The difference is that computer geeks don't usually use their grasp of arcana to fleece people, whereas many lawyers will use their knowledge of the law to harrass enemies of wealthy clients, fleece defendents with deep pockets, needlessly complicate otherwise simple transactions with legal nitpicking, and otherwise make our lives more complex, more legalistic, and more adversarial.

Successful geeks make their money largely by hiding the complexity of their craft-- by building clean, simple interfaces to complex underpinnings. Lawyers, on the other hand, often use the complexity of law as a club to intimidate less-clever opponents.

People don't hate lawyers because they're good at mastering arcana. They hate lawyers because too many of them use their grasp of arcana to enrich themselves by fleecing and harrassing others. There are estimates that every lawyers who enters the profession costs the US economy more than his salary in dead-weight costs. It's that dynamic-- not a resentment of success of intelligence, that I think drives resentment of the legal profession.

Re:Shakespere was right...

[Sabalon]

Yeah...I seem to remember those things, but my mom always told me that I should read more often and stop watching the damn theater so much - that it'd rot my mind :)

Problem is most of the local theatres like to do the musical standards - very little classical stuff. And the ones that do are further than I care to drive, or are a pain to get to.

Re:Shakespere was right...

[Zordak]

I would call this a matter of preference. I have enjoyed Shakespeare via both of these media. My bone to pick with the poster was not that he asserted an opinion that Shakespeare is more enjoyable when watched, but rather that he acted as though it were ridiculous that someone reads Shakespeare rather than watches it. It may be that Shakespeare is better seen than read, but I still maintain that most people have read more Shakespeare than seen, therefore the poster just sounded like he didn't know what he was talking about.

Kids

[johnpelster]

I'm 15 and have been an avid Mac evangelist since 1993, when I got my first Mac.

So this kid has been "an avid Mac evangelist" since he was 6!? I'm getting so tired of hearing young people complain how the get no respect and then tout themselves as having 9 years of experience because they've owned a computer that long.

I'm young myself - 23 years old - but I know that I have to put my time in the industry and pay my dues. I don't have 15 years IT experience becuase I had a Commodore 64 when I was 8. I don't have 8 years UNIX experience because I plyed with MUDs in highschool.

Sure, this kid helped out, and he should be proud of what he's done. But this is business, and Apple needs to be able to protect itself legally. Hell, this kid isn't even old enough to pull the french fries out of the McDonald's grease!

Re:Kids

[kableh]

Bah!

My experience with DOS & Windows dates back to when I was 7. As does my BASIC experience (TRS-80s and a TI-99). I dont claim that on my resume though, which reflects my professional experience.

He didnt claim it was professional experience, he just said he has been a Mac evangelist that long. Doesn't sound too extreme. For the record, I set up my middle school's Mac network while I was attending school there =).

Re:Kids

[mkldev]

Umm... I started programming when I was 6.

Re:Kids

[fcrick]

I don't see why this comment is relavent. The guy OBVIOUSLY must be damn good, otherwise why would he be getting recognized as a major contributor. I'm sure they weren't considering his age when judging his contributions. I don't think anybody is pressing for the fact that he is amazing because he's done x years of so-and-so. The fact is, regardless of his past experience and his age, he is being just as or more valuable then all those other contributors who may have been coding for 50 years for all you know.

Re:Kids

[Sabriel]

So this kid has been "an avid Mac evangelist" since he was 6!? I'm getting so tired of hearing young people complain how the get no respect and then tout themselves as having 9 years of experience because they've owned a computer that long.

Sir, look up "evangelist" in a dictionary. Now look up "experience". Different? Damn straight. Think before you post. So few do.

I hope they can work out a solution

[alexhmit01]

I really hope that they are able to work this all out. That makes sense from Apple's legal department, but not from a desire to get good code written. Perhaps they can speak with his parents and arrange for them to sign an authorization on his behalf. I really hope that a good solution can be found.

Alex

Typical.

[Vegeta99]

As minors, we always get the shaft.
Forced to act as adults, hell, we get charged as adults for most crimes.
But when we take adult responsibility and try to get some of the benefits, God no! Can't have Johnny-sixteen-year-old working anything but a burger flipper job! Can't have Johnny-sixteen-year-old driving!

The 18 thing is strange..

[Havokmon]

Only in America are students considered to have zero rights, yet all of a sudden, you turn 18, and having sex with a classmate can put you in jail.. (In WI, you'd be branded a child-molester, and the police would notify any new neighborhoods you want to move to.)

He could be tried for Murder as an adult, but can't program for a big company?

Are there any exceptions that are POSITIVE?

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[AnamanFan]

No, 25 or 26 is. You can't sign for a rental car, nor drive a rental car until that age (varies from state to state).

In other words, there is solid age discrimination, but it's a wavering issue. On one hand, actions such as the under 18 clause protect a minor from a contact that may place a minor into a situation that s/he did not fully understand. However, there are a lot of kids who are smart and are able to understand a contract, or murder for that matter.

As far as Apple is concerned, I understand their position. I don't like it, and I don't think Apple really likes it either. However, that is the status of the legal system, and no matter what good intentions all parties have, you can't let that out in the open. But I don't know what other avenues can be taken (parents co-signing, etc) so I can't suggest a venue of outcome.

It's a matter of dumb kids and smart kids. Course; there are also dumb adults and smart adults. A very tough issue, but then again, some matters are just plain as day.

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[Havokmon]

HAHAHA Thanks for reminding me. I did that in 6th grade.. But when I was older, and wanted to REALLY do it, they wouldn't let me.

Ah well. Here's to my ZZ Top cassette!

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

Isn't the rental car restriction a private industry thing? Where they didn't want to pay exorbinant insurance rates because young drivers have so many accidents?

Is there any LAW that makes it ILLEGAL for people 18-24 to drive a rental car?

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[lkaos]

Only in America are students considered to have zero rights, yet all of a sudden, you turn 18, and having sex with a classmate can put you in jail.

Most states have some sort of grace period (NJ is 4 years I believe) where an 18 year old can still legally have sex with a 14+ year old.

The real interesting thing is that the entire idea of a teenager (13-17 as not being an adult) is post-Industrial Revolution. What essentially happened was that all the sudden, there were a lot of 13-17 who didn't have farms to work on (since their parents now worked in factories) and were being put into schools in order to give them something to do until they were old enough to work in a factory like everyone else.

All the sudden, there is a new period of life where one is essentially in limbo, having the body of an adult, but not being part of the adult world. There was an interesting book written on the matter (although I cannot remember the name). I figure that this whole concept of "the teen years" won't last very long considering how our society is shifting to greater intellectual extremes. It just doesn't make sense that an uneducated 18 year old has more rights in society than a very well educated 17 year old.

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[alcmena]

...yet all of a sudden, you turn 18, and having sex with a classmate can put you in jail.

In Ohio, at least, the law provides a 2 (maybe even 4) year buffer. That means that an 18 year-old can still date a 16 year-old. This was to keep the situation of high school sweethearts being labeled as pediphiles because one turned 18 before the other did.

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[Bouncings]

That's a very ignorant point of view. Perhaps you aren't aware that exactly 567648000 seconds after you are born, something happens. For every person, this happens at the exact same second, with the exact same result:

• You are intelligent and mature enough to vote.
• You are intelligent and mature enough to buy cigarettes.
• You are intelligent and mature enough to pay State Farm insurance less money.
• You are intelligent and mature enough to operate heavy machinery at your job.
• You are ingelligent and mature enough to ... contribute to Darwin.

Of course, based on more sound research, we have concluded that consuming beer is prudent exactly 126144000 seconds after that. You can even run for President when you're exactly 1103760000 seconds old.

NOTE: Your body's natural development cycle may depend on any leap years within 1103760000 seconds of your birth. Of course. You really should know that.

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[belg4mit]

This is not true, the insurance just costs more.
I want on a business trip @ the age of 21 and
the company got me a car, they just had to drop
a bit more $$$ for it.

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[mother_superius]

We can't vote, so no one raises the issue.

Even worse is that the only people who can vote for school board are those who are graduated and don't care anymore. (except for freaks like me who are born in September... still, that constitutes less than 2% of the school population)

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[praedor]

And what about the totally valid, peer-reviewed research that demonstrates that a person's brain, in particular, those parts of the brain involved in judgement, are not fully developed until one is in their low 20s?

There are valid reasons that a society cannot trust the young and require adults to be caretakers. Same applies to contracts, voting, etc. Your mind is NOT fully developed, your judgement is NOT clear. I'm sorry if you don't like the fact that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, or that your brain is not fully developed and, therefore, you need to have an adult to ultimately be responsible for you, but that is reality and if you don't like reality...then that just proves the point.

Apple IS correct here. What they should do is allow the parent of a minor to grant permission and thus take all responsibility for their kid's actions. It is not reasonable (here comes the underdeveloped prefrontal cortex again - thus weakened judgement) to expect a company with liabilities and properties worth many millions to simply let someone who cannot (rightfully) enter into a binding contractual agreements have access to their properties. The correct thing to do is ask Apple to permit PARENTS/legal guardians to take on the liability for their kid's actions.

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[Rinikusu]

I think you may be referring to Neil Postman's The Disappearance of Childhood.

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[Luyseyal]

Also, see Dorothy Sayers' "The Lost Tools of Learning".

http://www.trinityschoolnc.org/sayers.htm

-l

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[Art Tatum]

Riddle me this, why do we let people drive at 15 then? And, secondly, why is it that people used to start families at the age of 16 and were perfectly responsible people who made contributions to society?

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[Pig Hogger]

It just doesn't make sense that an uneducated 18 year old has more rights in society than a very well educated 17 year old.

Allright. What part of All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. don't you understand????

That very argument was used by pinochet (remember the CIA puppet in Chile?) to justify his fascist regime.

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[Luyseyal]

If you're under 25 and single, you can be claimed by your parents if you go to college even if you don't live with them and they don't pay a dime for college, rent, bills, etc.

That, my friend, is a real pain. Been there, done that, got teensy refund, and crappy FAFSA review. Just b/c mom & dad make a combined 100k doesn't mean they're giving any of it to me, dammit.

a little bitter,
-l

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[FFFish]

Yes, of course. Because we don't have any adequate means of testing maturity, we should just throw our arbitrary definitions out. Let's let four-year-olds have sex with Uncle! Let's put eight-year-old Johnny to work in the coal mine! Bobby is going through puberty -- let's fire him into the army, where he won't be such a pain in the ass!

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[praedor]

Time to bring the non-scientifically adept up to speed vs the legal system. The legal system of ANY country is not about reality or facts or science. For such things as driving age, age of consent, voting, etc, the legal systems all must come to a compromise vs reality when it comes to these things. First, many laws were put on the books before most of modern science properly existed, and WELL before any real developmental biology was worked out. That, plus the fact that lifespans were shorter in the past, on average, than today and you find you need to make adjustments.

If you wanted the legal system to be completely self-consistent and based on reality, then EVERY individual would have to go through a battery of biological and psychological testing to give the legal system an idea as to your level of emotional development and judgement level. Some few people would gain full legal rights at 20, others at 25, and so forth, due to natural biological and developmental variation. This is clearly not the way we can reasonably expect it to go so we need to compromise and provide for graduated rights.

In case you haven't noticed lately, since it is a FACT that teenage drivers are the most dangerous people on the streets, bar none, many states are beginning to change the laws such that even 16 year-olds are NOT allowed to drive freely and at will. They are receiving restricted driver's licenses, subject to stricter review, requiring that you gradually develop into a good driver with full driving priviledges. Expect this to spread to more and more states rather than remain restricted to a handful of vanguard states.

Many of you are looking at this backwards, as if the law is reality and reality isn't. The law has very little to do with reality. For instance, I would go so far as to say that countries in which the age of consent is so low (did someone mention 12?) are stupidly WRONG. WRONG WRONG WRONG. Not because of some moral qualms on my part, but because of developmental biological FACTS. Sex is NOT harmless emotionally nor physically. It DOES have consequences that go beyond whether or not one gets preggers. A 12-year-old is in no way, shape, or form emotionally mature. They are also strongly lacking in judgement. They, as a matter of fact, cannot make thoughtful, logical, mature, reasoned decisions because the faculties required for such are not fully developed yet.

I think we could make the laws more properly fit with biological and psychological reality by creating graduated rights, but instead of basing it on testing everyone, you go with the average rate of development for humans. Thus, 15 year olds would have a subset of rights, 20 year olds a larger collection of rights, and then 25 year olds the full set of adult rights...because by 25 MOST people have fully developed "equipment" to allow for full, clear judgement. Of course this isn't perfect, but again, the laws are more about wierd compromises rather than reality.

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[lkaos]

Allright. What part of All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. [un.org] don't you understand????

Ah! Not natural rights, but civil rights. Everyone has the right to be free, but not everyone has the right to vote. There is a distinct difference in that civil rights are not granted, in any natural law theories, to those in society who are not capable of reason.

My argument is that an educated 17 year old is more capable of reason than an uneducated 18 year old.

If your curious about the distinction between natural rights and civil rights (specifically on the extent of civil rights in society), consult "On Liberty", by John Stuart Mill.

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[nn43]

Just b/c mom & dad make a combined 100k doesn't mean they're giving any of it to me, dammit

Pain duly noted and been there too. There is a reason so many kids are coming out of college 50K in debt these days. Thats ok, the government is run by the bankers and they like that interest.

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[dadragon]

I'm 19. I've rented many cars in Saskatchewan and Alberta (Granted not the USA, but still....) They didn't complain about my being 19. The reason: Saskatchewan's insurance is carried on the driver, not the car.

In Alberta, the young people can't rent cars on their insurance because they're under 25. The insurance there is discriminatory against males and young people.

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[dadragon]

In Canada, a 25 year-old can have sex with a 14 year old. 14 is the age of consent, for vaginal sex... anal is 18.

There's a political issue going on that isn't getting much press. Gay people are saying that it discriminates against gays. Interesting, eh?

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[krmt]

Just wanted to say that this was a wonderful post. Kudos.

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[mpe]

The real interesting thing is that the entire idea of a teenager (13-17 as not being an adult) is post-Industrial Revolution. What essentially happened was that all the sudden, there were a lot of 13-17 who didn't have farms to work on (since their parents now worked in factories) and were being put into schools in order to give them something to do until they were old enough to work in a factory like everyone else.

Effectivly the age of legal majority has gone up, whilst, due to better nutrition and medical care, the age of physically maturity has gone down. One of the areas in which this has generated a whole heap of problems is in respect of ages of consent.

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[Bangback]

Big corporations avoid it all the time. I rented a car at 17 on the contract of a firm I was interviewing with. Most towns have non name-brand places that will rent to 21 year olds. Its only the national chains that are vehement about 25 (and only as a chain policy -- I've rented at individual locations at 21; usually with a $10 surcharge).

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[White Shade]

I'm not 100% certain about this, but I'm pretty sure that there is an 'exception' where an 18 year old can have relations with a 17 year old and it's not illegal, but anything below 17 is illegal for that 18 year old, and for a 19 year old the exception doesnt exist anymore

If anyone knows anything about this, please let me know .. I don't want to go spreading inaccurate information...

Re:The 18 thing is strange..

[Art Tatum]

In case you haven't noticed lately, since it is a FACT that teenage drivers are the most dangerous people on the streets

Yes this is a fact. But why? Because their brains aren't fully developed? No. It's because the discipline, structure, and morality of our society has been evaporating steadily for the past 100 years or so. Go back a century or so and you see 16 year olds leading entirely responsible lives.

parent or guardian?

[Lxy]

AFAIK, a minor can enter such legal agreements as long as a parent or guardian is willing to cosign all the paperwork. I'd think that Apple's legal team would at least look into the possiblities of various methods that would allow him to continue his work, if he is indeed of such value to the code.

Play their game, sue

[nuggz]

Fine play their game.
Send a bill for your work. Sue for illegal distribution of your work.

You obviously weren't able to legally transfer any copyrights to them, nor work without renumeration.

This could be good leverage, either treat you like a person, or don't, not only the stuff that is to their advantage.

It just pisses me off to see "minors" treated like they have no rights, when "adults" don't take responsibility for their actions either.

Re:Play their game, sue

[alernon]

Yeah, that's a great idea. That will really show them it's a good idea to let a minor contribute next time.

Re:Play their game, sue

[lkaos]

He's got a good point. They can't use your code. Actually, they can't use your parents code :)

Of course, they could counter sue for you illegally agreeing to their contract (since it was spelled out in the EULA).

The better course of action would be for your parents to sign a letter saying that they forego any rights to the code you right and give permission for Apple to let you see anything and also containing a clause that if your account isn't restored, they wish all code written by you to be removed and recalled from their product.

Actually, just have your parents try and be nice about it, there is a legal way to clean this all up.

Kids worked at APPLE!

[litewoheat]

When I was working at Apple there was a 17 year old kid working there on Copland (MacOS 8.0 1.0) What's the difference? Oh maybe Apple is no longer an anything goes college dorm. (do they still do the weekly beer bash?)

Proxies

[prizzznecious]

A lot of people are saying he should contribute through a proxy. I don't see how this is possible, since in order to make meaningful contributions, he would have to see the source code of the project. Showing him that source code would almost certainly violate the NDA of the proxy.

Clearly Apple doesn't want him seeing the source code, anyway, since they cut off his access to it. I'm sure he's a competent coder, but I doubt he's so good that it would be worth the legal risk they would be taking by having him aboard.

SSSCA interesting

[Beliskner]

Ahhhhhh so this is why they are pushing through the SSSCA (DDBTC.. whatever), they want to stop people under 18 from using P2P completely. In that case the RIAA and MPAA could be guilty of specifically targetting legislation to restrict the semi-legitmate activities of minors (kids buy loads of CDs). Surely the extra laws protecting the rights of minors could be used to defeat the RIAA|MPAA????

Young Kids

[qurob]

First, I should probably explain a little about myself. I'm 15 and have been an avid Mac evangelist since 1993, when I got my first Mac.

According to that, he was a Mac evangelist since he was about 6?

C'mon! I bet he's a smart kid, but this is nuts.

Re:Young Kids

[gowmc]

Yeah, but because of the low incline of the learning curve on Macs, the average "evangelist" is younger :)

Re:Young Kids

[uspsguy]

My kid could boot a PC and handle some basic text menu choices before he was 3. Blew me away. I have no doubt that some kids are more computer
proficent than their parents by age 6.

Unbeleivable

[buserror]

I always tought the lawyers at apple were BAD. but that story is really the cherry on the cake.

Before lawyers ruled apple, they KNEW the 12 years old useless kid MIGHT become a professional developer and contribute to the apple world.

I know first hand, I WAS one of those. I received free copies of 'confidential' documentations, free access to some developer resources, a bunch of encouragment, LOTS of patience and ultimately a few friendship with some apple people that date back like.. 20 years now!

But then, I spent the last 20 years as a die-hard mac developer, writing many shelf software. so it DID pay to humor me when I was a useless and fuckingly curious kid.

And now, the morronic lawyers decide to stick by their fucking law books and ENFORCE that to everyone with the sense to realize that age has very little importance.

Burn them!

Happened to me too

[Matthaeus]

I was in a similar situation when I was 16...AT&T wanted to hire me to do unix bitchwork coding out in Seattle for some top secret project they're working on. Found out I was 16, and then called back and said, "Well, we'd just love to make good on the job offer we gave you, but you wouldn't be legally bound by the NDA. Sorry." Ended up writing a database for my uncle using MS Access for a summer job instead. Can't tell you how much more experience I would have gotten by working with Unix instead.

THIS IS NOT APPLE's DECISION TO MAKE!

[bbum]

(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.

Re:THIS IS NOT APPLE's DECISION TO MAKE!

[Sabriel]

In other words, once again the U.S. legal system is making life difficult for its citizens. No wonder U.S. folks on slashdot comment about emigrating and the increasing risk of a 'brain drain' to other countries.

Re:THIS IS NOT APPLE's DECISION TO MAKE!

[LadyLucky]

Heh, i find this funny.

here in NZ, (and almost every other country in the world) we do actually have a brain drain. Only, they are all going to the US, which is one of the few countries with a brain gain. If they're gonna drain outta the US, where will they go?

Getting around EULAs

[Kriticism]

Does this mean that software stores can no longer sell to children? Because if they do, and the kid goes home and opens the software, does that mean that the EULA doesn't apply?

Apple is just stupid and clever at the same time

[Eugenia Loli]

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.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Apple is within their rights here...

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue here is that heisn't 18, and thus cannot be bound by an NDA. Apple is in the business of making money and creating new ideas. In that situation, they have a very real need for NDAs, which he cannot legally be bound by.

Because he is not 18, he cannot be bound by the agreements that are required of anyone to join the Darwin Project or the Developer Connection. Given that, it isn't at all unreasonable that Apple cut him off.

The real problem is that somewhere along the way, he ignored a Terms of Service that demanded that he be over the age of 18. It is a shame that a talented developer can't contribute in all the ways he wants to because of his age, but that is just the way things are.

As usual, the Slashdot community is a little confused about just exactly what the words "Freedom" and "Fairness" actually mean. No surprise there. What exactly, rhetoric aside, is Apple supposed to have done wrong here, besides covering their IP? Regardless of your personal views on intellectual property, do you really think it is so ridiculous for a company to take steps to protect the results of its own R&D?

Re:Apple is within their rights here...

[alizard]

Young people sign multimillion dollar contracts every day in the entertainment industry. One of my friends (a guitarist/songwriter) was offered on at 16. She turned it down and plans to sell her CDs via CD-on-demand.

Is there anybody on slashdot who believes that the inventors of the DMCA would take that kind of risk under circumstances where the kid could bail on the contract and leave the record company on the hook required to pull all the entertainer's albums out of stores because he/she changed his/her mind?

I hope the kid waits until his code has been distributed on a million or two Macs before he demands that his code be pulled.

Actually not

[Hektor_Troy]

Being a minor, he wasn't allowed to license his code to them, but that doesn't invalidate his claim to the copyright. Well - his parents are probably the rightfull guardians of that copyright, but no matter what, if they can't let him contribute because he's a minor, then they can't use his code without breaking the copyright law either.

IANAL etc.

Re:Actually not

[MoneyT]

Actualy if I remember right, Apple has a policy which states that unless you have signed thier ADC agreements (and I will asume are leagaly bindable to that contract) they do not want you to submit code or designs to them, and that any code or designs you do submit become property of Apple. So technicaly, they can use his code.

Re:Actually not

[lmfr]

Apple says that he being a minor makes contracts, ADC agreements, etc, non enforceable, thus voiding the part that transfers copyright to Apple!

If he can't submit code, they can't accept it.

"Dude, Where's My Car" reference....

[kindbud]

AND THEN....???

He's lying about his age and abilities

[fhknack]

15 years old. Accomplished coder. AND literate? I don't buy it. Where were the typos and spelling errors? We all know that anyone that geek and that young has to be a script kiddie, but at no time did he slip into l33t c0d3.

I don't buy it. He's probably a back-to-college mother of three English major just trying to stir things up.

Re:He's lying about his age and abilities

[prizzznecious]

It's sad commentary on the state of the internet (or the world?) that if somebody posts an article that contains no glaring grammatical or orthographical errors he is lauded as a likely english major.

It should have been obvious from his scattered style and his petulance that he is no older than 15. Just because he's coherent doesn't mean he's a genius.

Re:He's lying about his age and abilities

[Anonymous Coward]

>We all know that anyone that geek and that young has to be a script kiddie

I know you're probably speaking in jest here, but your comment merits a response because, unfortunately, a lot of people believe those things you said. I lived four years of my life in the same situation as Finlay, and I still have some of the same experiences even now that I'm of legal age. Not with contract problems, of course, but with "the age thing."

There's a general stereotype that all kids spell poorly, have poor grammar and poor communication skills, are socially inept, spend more school time smoking weed in the bathroom than paying attention in class... The list goes on. When it comes to geekdom and the internet, the model extends to include typos, 1337-5p34k, warez hoarding, even more social ineptitude ("else why's the kid on the computer instead of out getting laid," they wonder) and network abuse.

While I'll agree that many kids deserve the stereotype (especially those outside the geek world), there are plenty who don't. Online, the smart ones learn early - as I did - that being able to present yourself well by writing coherently is the best way to get what you want. Whether you're looking for respect, answers, technical support, friends, or even a job, you're going to have much better luck if you come across as worthy conversant.

Unfortunately - and yes, I do think it's a downside - showing any degree of literacy, especially combined with talents elsewhere, gives your correspondents a certain mental image. As you can imagine, that picture isn't of a 15 year old kid wearing a Tool shirt, downloading porn on the other computer and chugging a Dew (unless you've told them this ahead of time). When you write well, and especially if you're cynical, people picture an intelligent, distinguished, professional middle-aged kind of guy. Balding a bit in the back, probably wears glasses; likes sipping Chardonnay and going to the opera, or some shit. And sometimes, that can burn.

The first few times it happened, I was flattered. For the rest of those four years, it was largely a nightmare. I was offered several jobs, and at one point I was even encouraged to relocate. They'd always react the same - "You're kidding, right?" - when it came down to the age. Unless you've been through it, it's hard to grok the frustration of being offered something incredible that you simply can't accept. Imagine someone offering you a million dollars, but only if you promise not to spend a dime of it, and you might be halfway there. Now, at 22, I'd love to have just one of those offers on the table - it felt worse back then, though; knowing I was the right person in the right place but at the wrong time; knowing opportunities like that might never come again. It wasn't fair.

It sucks being 15 and having people think you're 40. I suppose it sucked for them, too; especially the ones who offered jobs, thinking they'd found the perfect person. So it goes, but I don't regret spending my hax0r years typing out proper English instead of u's and 4's. Which reminds me, proper English will get you pretty far with the h4x0r crowd, too - they tend to look up at people who can do something they can't.

I know what Finlay's feeling: "You never asked my age, how was I supposed to know it would be a problem?" I felt it many times myself those four years. I have to say that he's doing a better job of coping with such a seemingly high-profile blow than I would have. With honey, not with vinegar, at least not to the outside; for some reason it doesn't surprise me that he's a Mac guy. Though I guess I shouldn't start throwing stereotypes around.

If you're reading, bro, here's some advice from a guy who's been there and done that. Get drunk out of your mind this weekend, let the thoughts and anger - I know there's anger - fade, then go forward and don't look back. You can't change the past but you can build a better future. It'll be better in 3 years. And with exposure like this, something good is sure to land on your plate.

Re:He's lying about his age and abilities

[fhknack]

Yes, the comment was most definitely made in jest--and appreciation.

I have been railing for years to anyone who would listen about the sad state of America's "coming of age" rules. A kid can drive (in most states) at about 16. He can go to R-movies without Mom at 17. He can vote and die for his country at 18. If he's Jewish or Catholic (and probably others), he can become an "adult" in his religious life somewhere between 9 and 13. But although he can't have a beer before he turns 21 and most companies won't rent him a car before 25, he can be tried as an adult as young as 10. I figured most of my frustration would pass as I left those years behind, but as a 36-year-old father of four, it hasn't diminished a bit. My eldest will turn 13 this summer, so his "fun" is just beginning.

I also appreciate Finlay's use of the language. It has always bothered me that so many geeks--the same ones that can keep the syntax of 6 different coding languages separate in their minds--are completely incapable of writing a sentence where the subject agrees with the verb.

As for your advice to him to get blasted this weekend, I would only add this: Get somewhere safe. Don't drive drunk, and don't ride with anyone who's been drinking. If you have to, call home for a ride. Your folks would probably rather pick you up sloshed than have to identify your body. And being grounded and chewed out is better than being dead.

Age Discrimination and my rant...

[Muggin]

I am 27 almost 28, and have been doing development work for the last 5-6 years. In that time I have been privileged to have work with some very bright young people. Most falling in the 17-18 year old range. They worked every bit as hard as an adult and in many ways were as mature if not more mature than many adults.

Here is the rub. The way age discrimination laws read they only apply to adults 40 years of age or older. I say this is utter crap what of the younger people that fall between 16-18. In the US most kids have their first jobs when they are 16. If the teen can show he is capable of doing the work, and doing it well let him work. In some cases they can do just as well as someone that has been doing the work for as long as me, and in some cases are more willing to learn and adjust to the needs of the group. Since when has open source discriminated on anything (ie., sex, race, or even age). Personally I would like to see someone take this and rub it in Steve Jobs' nose, because this stuff just doesn't fly!

Yes, this is an outrage, but...

[LibidoBoy]

at least in this great country of ours you always have a way to voice your opinion. At the next election he can march right up to the polls and...d'oh!

EULA and so forth?

[Sly Mongoose]

Does this mean that under-18 purchasers are not bound by the EULA? So that DMCA and so forth don't apply?

Re:EULA and so forth?

[The Bungi]

Nice try, but there's a double-double standard here. Minors can be tried as adults in many states (and have been), so I doubt the RIAA or anyone else would think twice about sticking it to a minor that way.

But they can't write code. Yeah, that makes sense.

Re:EULA and so forth?

[Squidgee]

Hrm...this could be the loophole all the 'evil' closed-sourced (ex. Microsoft) companies may be looking for.
I hope apple goes back on this -- not only would they be cutting off one of their better free contributers, but they would be setting a nasty precedent...

Interesting

[The Bungi]

I have to say, for a 15 year old this guy is more articulate and clear than many 35 year olds with MBAs and PhDs I know.

Hope he's allowed to get back in the fray. His talent should not be wasted by Apple, especially considering he was contributing to their profit for free.

About Apple's Policy

[zachlipton]

I'm currently 13 years old and am an active part of the Mozilla project. I also have an Apple ADC membership, so this is my official notice to Apple: Take my ADC membership away if you want my username is zachlipton!

I realize that not everything is Apple's fault, it is just as much our legal system and our general philosophy of how we treat the next generation.

In my involvement with opensource, the only times that I have ever been descriminated against my age was http://www.advogato.org/article/331.html (a total and complete mess) and by various run-ins with child labor laws (I'll get to those in a minute).

Creating policies like this hurts opensource and kids in general. Having to lie about your age to get a Yahoo email account is stupid and pointless. I know several very gifted and talented hackers, people writing the backend code for perl6, or working to make Mozilla/Netscape Composer just a little bit better who have done an incredible service to the community.

Below is a bit of a rant on child labor laws that I wrote in October of last year:

Also, and perhaps more importantly, how do the child labor laws which were created to protect kids from being chained to looms for hours making rugs or soccer balls apply today in the real world. I can't tell you how many stories I have heard (and experienced several personally) where kids have been turned away from great experiences because of these laws. Several years ago, I was set to TA at a tech camp that my school was running during the summer, only to find that I couldn't until I was 15 and only then with a work permit. About 8-10 months ago, I got a contract offer (by email) and a possible offer of full-time work from collabnet to do work for them with the Bugzilla bug-tracking system which I am a developer with. Of course, this offer was quickly dispensed with after I told them that I was 12 years old :) These kids of life-changing experiences are being blocked from kids as a result of laws intended to prevent child labor. This isn't an issue of my family being poor and needing to sell my soul to Silicon Valley so that they can eat. This is my wanting to do and learn more, something which isn't possible with a class on a college campus on java or web design.

Internships are too rare, already struggling .com's can't afford to spend money (even though the intern is unpaid) on someone who will work mainly part-time and needs a full set of computers, software, etc and requires everyone else in the company to spend time to get the intern up to speed. Besides, who wants to hire a 13-year old? Even if they do, I don't think that they can without violating the child labor laws.

What can we do to make the opensource community and the Internet at large a place where kids are welcome? Everyone talks about making the Internet _safe_ for kids, but don't we really have to do even more than that?

Re:About Apple's Policy

[0xbaadf00d]

I have to disagree with you about child labor laws. Why on earth would you want to have a full time job at 12 years old. You may have a higher IQ and be more intelligent than your average 12 year old, but you're still 12. You're a kid. You need to get out and do things that other kids your age do. You'll have plenty of time to slave away behind a desk when you're older. Get out now and enjoy your youth. These laws were created to protect children exactly like you!

Re:About Apple's Policy

[lkaos]

I'm currently 13 years old and am an active part of the Mozilla project.

Wow, I'm suprised you have the balls to go around saying that (knowing how people tend to discriminate against younger folks).

Several years ago, I was set to TA at a tech camp that my school was running during the summer, only to find that I couldn't until I was 15 and only then with a work permit. About 8-10 months ago, I got a contract offer (by email) and a possible offer of full-time work from collabnet to do work for them with the Bugzilla bug-tracking system which I am a developer with. Of course, this offer was quickly dispensed with after I told them that I was 12 years old :)

Ok. I don't anything about you, but this is what my opinion on the matter is.

I don't blame the school for the under 15 year old stuff. I know that kids under that age can have moderate tech skills but there are more things involved than just tech skills for most jobs.

What I assume is that your a moderate to good programmer, and being 13, that's incredible. My advice to you though is don't go off and try to get a job just yet. Keep sharpening your skills so that you become one of the best programmers, and then when your 16-18, you can get a real good co-op.

Don't rush off to be part of the cube-farm world. I know the money is tempting, but at the current rate, you could be making massive amounts more of money later in life. There is experience and whatever that is gained in at a job but you have a special oppertunity to increase your base skillset.

Of course, if you are one of the best programmers out there already, then you need proof of it, so I would suggest spearheading (or becoming a _major_ contributor) to some OS project.`

Otherwise, enjoy the rare oppertunity that children have to learn without impedment. I was in a similiar situation to you and looking back, I realize that while I learned a lot from High School co-ops, I built most of my skills on my own and that is what seperated me from everyone else.

Everyone talks about making the Internet _safe_ for kids, but don't we really have to do even more than that?

No, but things like COPA are much different from contract agreements. As far as agreeing to NDAs are concerned, the internet has nothing to do with it. Someone under 18 cannot enter a legally binding contract on their own.

In my opinion, its not a good law, but totally abolishing such protection would probably be worse.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[PhotoGuy]

On a related, but important note, you appear to have a valuable skill that is all too lacking in adults in this industry. Your grammer, punctuation, and spelling are excellent. That alone will help you stand out among other techies. Combine that with your technical skills, and I'm sure you have some exciting years ahead of you.

The labour laws are frustrating, and need to be changed. But in the meanwhile, enjoy yourself, learn lotsa cool stuff, and be ready to hit the ground running in the workforce when the time comes. You'll have such a huge headstart on others.

Also, they can't stop you from being self-employed. While the signing of contracts would be a limiting factor there, with your parents help, there should be some possibilities. If you create a great technology, and sell it off to someone, that shouldn't be subject to employment regulations. (Hmmmm, would a 13 year old have to file a tax claim for a $2M capital gain? :-) I guess it'd fall on the parent's tax claim.)

-me

Re:About Apple's Policy

[the_tallman]

Child labor laws aren't a throw back to 19th century New York as you described. They are quite relevant in a society that's increasing trying to treat children as adults. Growing up, I worked at a computer retail store that would frequently threaten to fire me if I didn't work late nights for inventory etc. My only recourse in these situations was to remind them that I was a minor and couldn't work until 2 am. Otherwise, I would have to choose between completing school work or not having money to live.

I think some of the brightest and best people for the tech industry are those who are growing up in it. Hell, I'm one of those kids who was put on a blacklist at school because I understood computers to a higher degree than my school's admin. However, I don't think that negates the natural process of maturity that comes with age. Nurture that need for learning but realize who and where you are right now.

Ivan

Re:About Apple's Policy

[0xbaadf00d]

Yes, and you'll probably have fun playing shuffle board with all the old fogies at the retirement home... Oh, wait, they probably wont let you into the retirement home if your 25-35. Then what? Unless, of course, you know of some other place that's apropriate for a 25-35 yr old, retired, burnt out, overachiver. Sorry but there is much more to life than work, $$$, and early retirement.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[garett_spencley]

First of all, lkaos made some great points and I almost didn't reply because he said something very similar to what I was going to say. But I do have a few things to add.

If I were you I would concentrate on school and do all the OSS stuff you want on your spare time. I know I know, you hate to hear this, but I'm talking from experience not just repeating what everyone else said to me.

I started programming at probably the same age as you. I was good at 13. Not great but competent enough to hack out some working code.

By the time I was 17 I was offered a full time job at the company I work for now and I dropped out of school to accept it.

My situation was a little more complex than yours (at least I'm assuming it was) because my girlfriend was pregnant with our first child and I wanted to provide for them rather than having them live with her parents whom I hate (but that's a different story ;^).

Anyway needless to say that now when I look back I wish I had stayed in school, worked part time to provide support and just lived with my mother until I finished high school and got the University degree.

I wouldn't have been any happier but I would have been much better off now. I won't go into what it's like to be a parent or whatever because it's not relevant to your situation, but even if I didn't have a child on the way I know how tempting it was to want to just get school over and done with and be an adult once and for all.

But the fact of the matter is, once you start working and experience a little taste of what you get after growing up it's very hard to concentrate on being a kid and staying in school. The ironic part is that once you've been there for a year or two you wish you could go back :O)

I want very badly to go back to high school and get my diploma. I am doing it from home via "distance learning" but it's very slow and very hard to stay focused and motivated. Although high school was probably one of the hardest parts of my entire life it would have been a hell of a lot easier to get that diploma if I had just sayed no to my temptation to work full time and live with my kid and stayed in school full time.

My only point is that at 13 years old you should not be worrying about work and life. I know growing up sucks. It's hard. But let me tell you something. When you hit adult hood and you're out on your own and especially if you have a family to support it makes growing up look like kindergarden.

But I never listened to any of this when I was younger so I don't expect you to listen to me. I'm just saying it to hopefully give you a bit of perspective. The world is not a nice place to live in. It doesn't matter where you are in life you always want to be somewhere else. In this case the grass is not greener on the other side. Your just not going to believe me until you get there and see it for yourself.

--
Garett

Re:About Apple's Policy

[BlowCat]

Your grammer, punctuation, and spelling are excellent.

Your grammar, punctuation (no comma here) and spelling make me cry.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[dkh]

In what way pray tell was my post a "troll"? The point is valid.

Sorry to tell you but "you'll understand when you get older" is one of those things that infuriates young people but, in general (heaven forbid anyone speak in absolutes), is true, perspective and maturity mean a great deal, being smart isn't everything, being talented isn't everything.

Neither is being older of course...

Re:About Apple's Policy

[praedor]

A kid's brain is not fully developed until they are in their low 20s. In particular, the part of the brain involved in JUDGEMENT isn't. It doesn't matter how intelligent one is with numbers, words, etc, as this has NOTHING to do with judgement and emotional maturity which is more important. Being emotionally immature AND judgementally impaired due to the facts of developmental biology are reasons that minors must have adult supervision and oversight (and why minors cannot enter legally binding contracts, vote, simply quit school legally, etc).

Programming well at 12 or 15 means NOTHING vis a vis emotional maturity and judgement.

Totally separate things.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[0xbaadf00d]

Duh, of course I'm exaggerating... But seriously, going to a full-time job at the age of 12 is going to seriously screw someone up. Especially in this industry.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[3am]

A friendly hint. Take the following out of your resume:

"1998 - 1999 Windsor Star, Windsor, Canada
News Paper Carrier

Collected, sorted, packaged and delivered news papers Monday through Saturday mornings to Windsor Star customers; Flyers on Tuesdays and Sundays; Collected payments from customers weekly;

Summer 1997 Maryvale, Windsor, Canada
Gardening, landscaping and maintenance worker
Worked with teams and individually to perform gardening, landscaping and maintenance duties including: mowing large areas of grass, trimming hedges, planting and caring for outdoor flowers, indoor and outdoor janitorial duties etc."

Re:About Apple's Policy

[ThomasXSteel]

Your options:

(1)Enjoy your youth. Hang with girls. Work your ass off when you get to high school and maybe go to a top shelf university, figure out what you want to spend the rest of your life doing. Get your degree. Maybe get a Masters and PhD. Work hard in your field. Gain the respect of your peers. Retire early because you kicked ass and travel the rest of your life, or continue working till you die because you found something you love doing.

(2) Drop out of school when you are old enough, get a GED, show everyone how smart you are by working full time. Realize that you have become a blue collar coder whose job just got shipped off to India. Show everyone how dumb you are by foregoing option (1). Lose the respect of your peers. Go to a community college because the Ivy League doesn't accept people who make horrendously bad decisions. Never gain the respect of some very smart people that you will never meet because you never went to a good college like you could have. Develop a chemical dependency and appear on Jerry Springer.

There are reasons minors (even smart ones like you) aren't allowed to enter into contracts. Poor judgement and lack of wisdom are two good very good ones. You would probably not retire at 25-35 if you could start working full time now, you will probably not retire at 31-41 if you start working full time at 18. Don't be such a dumbass. Graduate HS early and fastrack through college if you are that hyped to work. TXS

Re:About Apple's Policy

[zaffir]

Wow. Offered a full time programming job at 12? Dayyyyum. I haven't even figured out pointers and arrays, and i'm 16.

The TA thing is a shame, yes. You obviously have some talent and would have been a great aide to the program. Hell, i wish my school taught something other than Visual Basic, let alone run tech camps. How old were you when you were set to go there? 9? 10?

However, you don't really need a job at 12 or 13. An internship? That would be alot better someone who is really interested in the subject, like you or me. But a real job? No. Bosses can be real assholes and take complete advantage of you, not everyone out there is your friend. Those laws are meant to and do protect you.

Some form of job shadowing or limited internship should be offered to young people such as yourself. Don't swet it though, you still have tons of free time; when highschool comes, that will all change.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[Pig Hogger]

I'm currently 13 years old and am an active part of the Mozilla project.
...
Also, and perhaps more importantly, how do the child labor laws which were created to protect kids from being chained to looms for hours making rugs or soccer balls apply today in the real world.

When you'll be 30 years old, you'll understand why.

You're 13. Enjoy your childhood; don't try to act like an adult, 'cause when you'll finally be an adult, you'll awfully regret having skipped over your childhood.

Trust my experience.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[Art Tatum]

Can't disagree on the grammar/grammer thing; but the comma before the third list item is perfectly legitimate. It's called an Oxford comma.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[Sir Robin]

[...] (no comma here)

Why not? I've seen both in common usage, and prefer the comma there. My college english teacher taught me to put a comma between items in a list of items, including before the "and". Commnet.edu agrees with this usage:

Use a comma to separate the elements in a series (three or more things), including the last two. "He hit the ball, dropped the bat, and ran to first base." You may have learned that the comma before the "and" is unnecessary, which is fine if you're in control of things. However, there are situations when, if you don't use this comma (especially when the list is complex or lengthy), these last two items in the list will try to glom together (like macaroni and cheese). Using a comma between all the items in a series, including the last two, avoids this problem.

See also Strunk & White's The Elements of Style:

2. In a series of thee or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[dave_c]

Also, and perhaps more importantly, how do the child labor laws which were created to protect kids from being chained to looms for hours making rugs or soccer balls apply today in the real world.

I ran into this exact problem several years ago; I was 15 and had a summer gig with a video production company (I'd practically grown up in a TV studio). After a run in with the HR people, they said they had to let me go because I was under 16 and in violation of child labor laws. So I went straight to the local public library, pulled out a copy of the Ohio Revised Code (the consolidated laws of the state; if you're in the U.S., check to see if your state has something like this), and actually read the child labor laws of the state.

Well, it turns out I *was* permitted to work. In Ohio at least, there were explicit prohibitions on certain types of work, e.g. I couldn't operate heavy machinery, and there were certain conditions applied to work, e.g. a mandatory 15 minute break every 4 hours, a maximum 8-hour work day, etc. But other than that, I was free to sit in an editing booth or at a mixing console and work away precisely because I wasn't slaving away in some factory.

While this doesn't help Mr. Dobbie's situation, as it appears to be an issue regarding contracts, to all you young coders out there: don't assume that child labor laws lock you out of the industry until you're 16/18! Take a look, or ask for assistance from someone well-versed in these matters.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[Surt]

The comma was not incorrect, and is preferred by most writing guides.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[fcrick]

I think its a real shame you're not allowed to do what you wanna do. I'm amazed at how many comments you got here from people giving advice...

So here's mine:

Do whatever the hell you wanna do, tell all these people who say you should do whatever to f*** off, and when you are older, if you find yourself looking back and regretting your actions, just take responsibility and remember that you made your decisions and no one else made em for you. I think its such a shame how the older people get, the more they think they can tell other people what to do because of the life they've had. The fact is they are living their own lives and the only person who can tell you what to do is you.

(so all you fogies leave us younger people alone!)

I'm not as young as wish I was, but any mistakes I made as a teenager were MY mistakes, not some 'experienced' person's advice, and I'm grateful that I had the piece of mind to do what I wanted to do.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[AlistairMcMillan]

I have to disagree with you about child labor laws. Why on earth would you want to have a full time job at 12 years old. You may have a higher IQ and be more intelligent than your average 12 year old, but you're still 12. You're a kid. You need to get out and do things that other kids your age do. You'll have plenty of time to slave away behind a desk when you're older. Get out now and enjoy your youth. These laws were created to protect children exactly like you!

How condescending is this?

Isn't the idea about being a kid, learning how to deal with life as an adult. If this guy has the smarts and the ability needed to hold down a full time job now then why should he have to wait eight years?

Just because you make no secret of the fact you hate your job, it doesn't mean that everyone else hates their jobs.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[Mr. Sketch]

The above poster is absolutly right with option one. With your skills, you can probably easily fast track through college. I'm guessing you'd be able to test out of your first year or two of CS classes and depending on math skills you could probably take care of that too. Take as many AP classes as you can during high school, they'll help out a lot. I took 7 APs classes and tested out of the first year of CS classes and basically started as a sophmore, and almost a second semester sophmore. If I hadn't been going for a double major (I wanted to pick up some hardware stuff too so I also did a computer engineering degree as well as computer science), I probably could have graduated in 2.5 or 3 years, instead I still graduated a year before the rest of my classmates (it was a 5 year program). Pick a college that has a good co-op program, hell, you could probably get some co-op experience in High School which will be worth a whole lot more than a degree. Combined with a degree and good experience (and of course excellent references), you will be set to have companies falling all over you trying to hire you. When I graduated a year ago, I had four companies, that I wanted to work for (lots of others that I didn't want to work for), that were trying to hire me, and of course I used it to my advantage and got hired 50% higher than the initial offers which put me to almost six figures, but I'm sure you'll fare better than that especially by the time you get out.

With your current skills and abilities at your young age, you will be set to kick mucho arso when you get out of college. Enjoy your childhood, get a degree, stay current with technology, and be prepared to turn heads.

I wish you well in the future, you have bright one ahead, and may the force be with you.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[PhotoGuy]

Your grammer, punctuation, and spelling are excellent.
Your grammar, punctuation (no comma here) and spelling make me cry.

Sigh... Attacked by someone who is presuming to be an expert. How unusual on /, and wonderfully constructive. Please see The Case of the Serial Comma, as one, among many, sources who discuss this common fallacy.

Man, giving a kid some credit for grammar and punctiona *far* and *above* the average seen here, and people try to tear me and him apart. Nice. Oh well, to be expected, I guess.

-me

Re:About Apple's Policy

[nim_eye]

i find your "you're too smart, go out and play with the plebs" additude a little condescending. the child is doing what he wants and making a contribution to society at the same time, while most of his peers are spending their youths in a candy induced daze infront of a television screen staring at whatever drivel MTV/Coke lets them watch.

The state should not be allowed to dictate what he wants to do with his time. he should not be forced into mediocrity.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[Sentry21]

Your grammar, punctuation (no comma here) and spelling make me cry.

Your grammar, punctuation, and lack of comma after 'punctuation' make me sigh. Text should be written the way it is meant to be spoken, and people (at least, every person I've ever met) will say 'grammar *pause* punctuation *pause* and spelling', as opposed to 'grammar *pause* punctuation and spelling'.

The old grammatical rules used to be as you suggest. They were updated in the last decade and a half to reflect the realities of speech.

--Dan

Re:About Apple's Policy

[i_am_nitrogen]

Counter:

But it's okay to attend school full time, where no learning is possible (since they have to dumb everything down so that the "lesser abled" kids have the same opportunity as the geniuses and quasigeniuses)? I know all about age discrimination against young people. A few months ago, before I turned 18, I had an interview with a video editing and production company, and because of my young age the company's president assumed that I was just playing around with a new toy I found and had no artistic talent whatsoever. Several months before that I tried to get a job at a local computer store, and while I (think I) more than demonstrated my knowledge (I even wore a tie!), the dude interviewing me said "well, you seem to know your stuff, but you got some of the specific details wrong (Like what's the exact difference between a BX and LX chipset...)," plus I said I worked with AMD processors and they at the time only sold Intel.

Further back than that, when I was like 12, I sent in this post card to get information on some do-it-yourself programming courses, but since I put down my real age, they never sent me anything. I got another post card from the same company, sent it in with my dad's name and age, and got lots of information back, but then when I tried to apply for a course with my name and age, I was once again ignored. Not rejected, ignored.

Finally though, I turned 18, and now I've been working full time with a particularly prominent software company for a month, and already got "promoted" from tech support to Q/A. Crappy part is, I don't have time for Open Source coding anymore (going from full-time code potato to full-time job is kind of a shock).

Okay, enough ranting. Life's a glitch, then you segfault... Code on.

T(H)GSB, yada yada...

Re:About Apple's Policy

[dvdeug]

You're 13. Enjoy your childhood; don't try to act like an adult,

People should act like who they are. A 13-year old should not be forced to be an adult, but that doesn't mean that he's better off trying to force himself (or being forced) into somebody's ideal of what childhood should be. Being forced to spend 6 hours a day ignoring teachers and students is probably not going to improve him; nor is ceasing to do serious programming.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[Saint Fnordius]

1. I know it's hard to accept, but the reason that internships and legal commitments to projects are so hard for minors to receive is a good one, namely that the minor's right to walk away at any time needs to be preserved. If you do work in your free time, fine. But committing to a project where others are depending on you to hold a schedule is too risky for most companies. After all, school and stuff like that comes first; companies don't like playing second fiddle.

2. After reading Finlay's rant, I noticed that Apple *did* try to let him legally contribute, namely through a proxy developer. The arrangement wasn't fun or productive, so Apple decided to pull the plug.

3. That Apple was so tactless is also due to geographical distances. If Finlay lived closer to the Mothership, I'm sure he would have been contacted before the plug was pulled. That's the downside of our global model thingy.

4. Another thing: I didn't see anywhere that Apple didn't want ANYTHING to do with him, they would probably welcome him with open arms one he's a legal adult. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple wasn't already hammering out a system to handle minors as developers and contributors in their Dungeon of International Law Experts.

5. No list is truly illuminated without a fifth point, so here goes: if Finlay hadn't written his rant, we wouldn't have noticed this at all. Apple isn't alone in this (see your own example), but open source projects need new rules. Is is fair to allow a minor access to code and the right to contribute? Can you legally hold them to a schedule? How do you reward young progammers? All this needs to be discussed a LOT more, or the myth that all underage programmers are malicious hackers or *wunderkinder* will continue.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[grahamm]

I have often thought it strange that you get retired people who cannot find enough time to do all they want, and at the same time unemployed young people who cannot find enough to do with their time.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[kesuki]

I think that child labor laws are out of date. When they were written they weren't meant to stop kids from working at all! They were meant to make sure that kids weren't used as a cheap disposable labor for the coal mines. We've perverted the original intention of the laws to make sure that very few kids actually learn to pick up a trade until they're old enough not to ever want to work.
We weren't meant to spend the first 17 years of our life in a bubble. If I had started working at 12 I might have started learning the values of saving money etc. When I was 12 I was constantly trying to find ways to get money for the stuff I wanted, but by the time I was 16 I really didn't want to work at a fast food for a few bucks to get stuff I wanted.
Right now I'm unemployed and looking for a job seems more depressing than it's worth. Especially since I'd be forced to degrade myself and accept a job that any trained chimp could do.
I can understand that kids should be protected moreso than adults, but we should let them make an honest living, especially if they're too smart for their own good. Let's face it, if this kid is smart enough at 12 to be seriously contributing to OS code, do you think he's going to make friends with people half his intellectual age? Sure, he could do the homework for them, or maybe help them ace tests, but that's not the same as really making friends. Exceptionally bright kids Are being hurt by the 'child labor' laws, and maybe they're even hurting the work ethic of normal kids too.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[dvdeug]

The willingness to lie to get that yahoo mail account is part of the problem. It is indicitive of why minor's can not sign contracts (judgement, character, responsibility etc).

Right. Because adults never engage in little white lies. Nope, never-never.

Honestly, how many people do you know who wouldn't lie to get around an stupid (in their mind) arbitrary restriction that no one was ever to call them on? I know a few people who wouldn't, but most people I know, if it was needed to get a webmail account, would happily click away.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[Lord Raze]

You'll have plenty of time to slave away behind a desk when you're older.

1) If he works now, he can legitimately claim to have 10 years experience when he's 22. Advantage.

2) If he actually starts making money now, that's another 10 years of compound interest on his RRSP. He can retire at the age of 32 without any silly fake .com boom stock options. Advantage.

Re:About Apple's Policy

[Artifex]

These laws were created to protect children exactly like you!

No, the laws were created as protectionist measures for older workers, not younger. Having lots of teens in the workforce lowers the market rate for unskilled and semi-skilled workers, because there is more labor in supply relative to the demand than before. If you look at the "schools" that many child actors attend while making movies, you'll see what a farce the whole matter is.

As far as kids programming for big projects: as a group they can learn spoken and written languages better than adults can, up to a certain age. If they want to take advantage of this ability and learn programming languages, why shouldn't they profit from it? Why shouldn't we all, as long as they still socialize normally? There's an IRC client for BeOS called Baxter. From what I read, some 12-year-old made it a couple years ago. It's probably still considered the best IRC client out for that OS. Don't tell me he didn't have fun doing that... and I doubt it damaged him, except to give him false hope in a non-Microsoft OS =)

Corel had the same clause!

[pcb]

Does anybody remember that this same issue came up when Corel released their beta distribution a few years ago. If memory serves correctly, they were crucified for it; lets see if Apple is held to the same standard.

Read Deeper...

[RedHat Rocky]

The issue of age isn't the primary story here. Rather, the telling point is how Apple handled as well as Finlay's account of interfacing with the Darwin folks. Cutting off access without any attempt at communication? Making obvious code improvements painful to apply? Ditching a PROVEN contributor because an NDA can't be enforced?

All this paints Apple in a "we are dinosaurs" light. It certainly doesn't seem to me that they really "get" Open Source, rather they seem to view it as a marketing scheme or a way to get cheap code debugging.

From http://darwinfo.org/:

"Most importantly, the source to most (but not all) of Darwin is available."

Buh? How does partial source qualify as Open Source? I guess it's only "Mostly Open Source".

They've hired a 16 year-old before.

[alphaseven]

I saw a news documentary on Canadian TV recently about wiz kid Tom Williams (more), who started working at Apple as a teenager. Turns out he picked up a nasty drug and alcohol habit while he was there, which might explain why Apple is so wary of working with someone so young.

The program showed he was doing, and he seems to have kicked all that and went into AA, and he's not working at Apple anymore. Apple wouldn't answer any questions the reporters had about what may have been a violation of California labor laws for having someone so young work for Apple, but perhaps they tightened up their policy since then.

When Will We Learn!?

[Lethyos]

Apple is NOT open-source friendly! This should be glaringly obvious from MacOS X. The only development Apple did that was original is on the components that they keep closed and proprietary (the API's, Quartz, etc). The parts that are open are the components that were open to start with. It's tantamount to theivery ... considering Apple gives nothing back to the community. They are using keep business sense to get a lot of free development work and they could care less about how we're all affected.

Open source developers: STOP doing work for Apple until they start working for you. If Darwin is such a great platform, fork it and then relicense it to keep it out of Apple's grubby hands. It's not their work to begin with anyway.

Re:When Will We Learn!?

[Anonymous Coward]

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_.

Re:When Will We Learn!?

[bnenning]

The parts that are open are the components that were open to start with. It's tantamount to theivery ... considering Apple gives nothing back to the community.>

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.

Re:When Will We Learn!?

[IamTheRealMike]

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.

According to this page the following projects are open sourced under the terms of the APSL:

• Darwin
• Streaming Server
• CDSA (parts of the os x security system)
• OpenPlay - networking
• Chess.app
• and some kind of header generation utility

Cocoa isn't open sourced, nor is NetInfo, nor CoreFoundation according to this list. I couldn't comment on whether they contribute to apache and gcc or not.

Re:When Will We Learn!?

[bnenning]

Cocoa isn't open sourced, nor is NetInfo, nor CoreFoundation according to this list.

NetInfo and CoreFoundation are part of Darwin and available here.

Re:Revenge...

[WestonB]

Uhh, aren't we talking about Darwin code? Isn't that open-source already?

If he's not bound by apple's agreements

[Perl-Pusher]

Then he should demand they not use any of his code. That would be preying on the talents of an adolescent and probably falls under some contract or child labor law. (IANAL) They should remove his code immediately.

What's sad is

[xinn]

that when he is 18 he wont be able to drink a beer but he WILL be able to be drafted and even right now he is NOT responsible for his contractual obligations but he CAN be tried as adult if he got caught hacking into NASA. I wish we had at least some consistency in our laws (other that being inconsistent).
my $.02

The problem IS with Apple

[witten]

Why do they require a non-disclosure agreement to do "open source" development?

GPL != EULA

[PaxTech]

So technically no one under the age of eighteen can install Microsoft software (or GPL software for that matter, it has more than a few EULA like clauses).

How many times are people going to misunderstand the GPL? I know it's a complex issue, but how many times does it have to be explained? Especially here on Slashdot I'd think people would get it by now.

Your homework assignment is to write 100 times : "The GPL affects DISTRIBUTION of software only, and DOES NOT restrict the USE of said software in ANY way."

Re:GPL != EULA

[sir99]

Except for the pecuiliar views of the XSane author. http://bugs.debian.org/132679

Re:GPL != EULA

[leviramsey]

I should have been more clear...

Under US law, minors cannot agree to the GPL. Therefore they cannot modify or distribute code licensed under the GPL, because:

5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

Now it's not entirely clear what modification of the software means (the same can be said of distribution). Obviously modifying the source code applies. An interesting question is if configuration files included with the distribution qualify. IANAL, but an argument could be made that such configuration files do apply (configuration files that are not included with the software are a different matter).

The end result is that, legally speaking, nobody under 18 can modify or distribute a GPL work. So if you're 17 and give your friend a Debian CD, the FSF could technically go after you for distribution without the right to distribute. If you're 14 and posting patches to the LKML, Linus could file suit against you for a GPL violation.

Granted, this is unlikely to occur. The press would be horrible. But is the law.

The way around this is simple, have your parents "sign" for you. I would imagine that an affidavit stating that they bind you to the terms of the GPL would be sufficient, but again, IANAL.

Re:GPL != EULA

[tricorn]

Under US law, minors cannot agree to the GPL. Therefore they cannot modify or distribute code licensed under the GPL, because:

No, as several other people have said, a minor can enter into an agreement/contract/license. However, in some cases, that minor can later back out. Doesn't matter to the GPL - once you back out of the agreement, then you can't distribute it any more. At worst, it might mean that if you choose to distribute it with the written offer option for the source, you could later decide not to honor that written offer. That won't keep me up late at night, I tell you.

New Web Site

[pgpckt]

BEGIN MOCKING TONE

Welcome to the new Apple Teen Coder Site! Watch our barely legal teens respond to your commands! These young teens can code in PERL, Java, and even go down and dirty with all the C varients. Watch Our barely 18 teens sign NDAs on GPLed software. Download the movies to your Apple and IPod. Watch them as they help evolve Darwin!

Re:New Web Site

[afflatus_com]

Dude that is superb. Thanks for the laugh. Moderators, could this have a few more +1 Funny's? Best wishes,
Robert

This is not apple's fault . . .

[DrMaurer]

really, it has to do with the age of majority statutes here in the U.S. of A. You cannot enter any contract while you are under 18, even, I think, if you've been emancipated from your parents. Parents, technically, own their children.

In the US, you're not a real citizen until 21, and for some things, 25.

Give Apple a Break...

[SerpentMage]

Seriously, while I agree that it sucks that the guy cannot submit code, Apple's hands are bound. Apple is a corporation that has a board, shareholders, etc. And while they would like to do otherwise it simply is NOT POSSIBLE.

I hope at least that they give him a free computer or something like that. Show him some appreciation...

Re:Give Apple a Break...

[Ooblek]

I wonder if they gave him a free Apple if he would consider it adding insult to injury. If I were him right now, I'd be mighty, mighty pissed (actually, I don't know if a word exists to describe how pissed I'd be).

There are better ways around this than Apple took. Probably some dumb customer-service type that decided to be so heavy handed about it. This is obviously going to generate a lot of bad press considering what the kids done for them.

Re:Give Apple a Break...

[doggo]

"Seriously, Apple: Way to shoot yourselves in the foot. You think this brilliant young hacker is going to forget about this? If it were I, I'd work twice as hard now... at stomping Apple into the ground for a competitor."

"If I were him right now, I'd be mighty, mighty pissed (actually, I don't know if a word exists to describe how pissed I'd be)."

These kind of statements are why minors are not allowed to do certain things by law. It's clear that the reason Apple has to deny the kid access, etc. is due to the law. Which is unfortunate since the kid's obviously smart, and well spoken if his page is any indication. But as adults, we see that there are reasons for such laws. (I'm sure he does too, but it stings at 15.)

However, as Ooblek says, this could have been a serious PR coup for Apple if they played it right. Child genius commercial, etc. Apple's people should have found a way to accommodate him, by engaging his parents in the situation, or something. Though he did say they tried to accommodate him by hooking him up with an Apple engineer.

I can't help wondering if Apple did the best they could and Finlay's just suffering from the age-old problem for teenagers. They feel as though they should be considered as adults, they feel as smart as adults, or smarter, as big as some adults, etc. But it's about emotional maturity too.

We wouldn't say that a 15 year old girl should be allowed to become a surrogate mother would we? She could physically, but we wouldn't suggest that she'd be mature enough to weigh the consequences of a surrogacy contract, right? And not to suggest that an ADC contract is as serious as a surrogacy contract, though many programmers think of their projects as their "babies", but you see the analogy.

Anyway, too bad Apple couldn't have found a way to work with him.

Re:Give Apple a Break...

[Bodrius]

Actually, it has nothing to do with the OSS definition, just as it has nothing to do with the Apple contract. It's just hard to deal contractually with minors directly.

A minor is not bound by a contract, because of his/her status as a minor. Apparently only the adult part is bound by the contract.

Therefore, a minor is not bound by, say, the GPL, to release the code he/she takes for a closed-source project. The licensing of copyright is tricky, to say the least, if he/she decides to violate the GPL...

I'm not sure whether the copyright licensing never took place, if it took place but is cancelled after the violation (with previous compliant work valid) without legal repercusions (because of the minor status), if it took place but is retroactively cancelled (as if it never took place, I guess), or maybe you could actually take the kid to court and see if he can be treated as an adult on a per-case basis.

I know one thing: it's so messy I probably wouldn't want to get a lawyer to deal with it.

Now Stallman created the GPL to "battle propietary software" or something like that. So it's doubtful that a minor will be taking over the world with a propietary software monopolist company, because of the same contractual difficulties.

So it would not be a matter of whether the GPL (or any other "open source" license) is appliable to minors or not. It's not. It's a matter of whether you care about minors breaking your license. Apple does.

The contract/license is not a legal contract anymore, it's more of a "gentlemen's agreement", and Apple (like anyone else) has all the right to be careful entering such deals if they want to.

Re:Give Apple a Break...

[geigertube]

These kind of statements are why minors are not allowed to do certain things by law.
-------------

Yes. Thats it exactly. I sure am glad that people suddenly become mature, cool-headed and responsible when they turn 18. People never get angry and attempt revenge after they turn 18. Yup.

Re:Give Apple a Break...

[Ooblek]

I'm not a minor, but I sure hate it when punks like you pull the more experience card when it is total bullshit. The problem here is that it wasn't a problem when he was nothing more than a login and an email address, but became a problem when he decided to stand behind his work and get his reward. You would think that people on an open source oriented forum where your contributions are not solicited for money, but are a result of your own interests. I've certainly seen my share of OS people post how pissed they are that they did a bunch of work and then got their project forked and their name cut out of the credits.

Personally, I can't stand Apple machines and I don't write software for them. I decided not to try to give any value to their business after I bought their new line of 500 series laptops only to find them discontinued a few months later. I'm bitter about paying $200 for a 12v piece of crap power supply (that has big globs of solder on the board because it was done by an unexperienced person on some third world assembly line). I'm also bitter about their "smart" batteries knowing when to stop charging so that they can rape you for another one of them. But, thats me. It still doesn't make it right to treat someone the way Apple treated this guy after he actually did some work that they found useful. Someone got too scared to actually face the human on the other end of the email address and tell him, "Thanks, but we have a problem. Lets work it out."

Re:Give Apple a Break...

[Doctor Faustus]

I hope at least that they give him a free computer or something like that. Show him some appreciation...

They're being much more rude than that. The letter from Apple specifically said they wouldn't even give him a refund for fees he paid to have access to their bug system.

Re:Give Apple a Break...

[doggo]

""I'm not a minor, but I sure hate it when punks like you pull the more experience card when it is total bullshit."
You may not be legally a minor, but your comments above and the rest of your post show that you are mentally immature and can therefore be classified as one, cognitively. "

"Punk"? I haven't been punk in like 20 years. Punk is so over.

Like the AC says.

My point was not dissing you (or the other guy I quoted), per se, but that younger people are often bitter when rules are imposed on them which seem arbitrary. I know. Been there, felt that.

The rest of my point being Apple should have found a way to work with the kid. But that their hands may indeed be tied, legally. And it's not like Apple just blew him off, they did assign an engineer to help him along. Which by the way, would have irked me, being the engineer. As though he doesn't have enough to do with his own work, but to have to "babysit" someone else who seems to be pretty competent, at least in terms of programming. Though it may have been voluntary

Re:Give Apple a Break...

[mpe]

Therefore, a minor is not bound by, say, the GPL, to release the code he/she takes for a closed-source project. The licensing of copyright is tricky, to say the least, if he/she decides to violate the GPL...

AFAIK minors do not have special status when it comes to infringing copyright.

A better question is...

[fmaxwell]

Since he's not legally bound by the license, will he give away Apple's code?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Am I on crack... or?

[tweakt]

Does the slashdot header have an Aqua-style theme for this (and only this) story?? Does anyone else see this? was /. hacked?

Take Gun, Aim at Foot, Pull Trigger

[TheDarkRogue]

Apple is seriously shooting themselves in the foot with this. Not only are they Turning down his work, but they are turning the possibilty off to all minors. There a kids out there that know programming and networking better then me and they have never even taken a college course, and they are willing to help and be productive like Finny here, and to top it off they are sending out a negitive message to minors about themselves that will ultimatly do nothing more then hurt them.

Maybe ;) (more)

[aardwolf64]

You may be on crack, but you're not hallucinating here. Slashdot did that on purpose. Go here:

http://apple.slashdot.org/

Obligatory 26th Amendment Comment

[LittleGuy]

You turn 18 in the US, and you can vote and (mostly) assume adult status in legal eyes, aside from consuming fermented wine, barley, and hops.

Figure BillG would be flipping burgers if his pre-18 coding wasn't legally accepted by IBM?

Re:Obligatory 26th Amendment Comment

[blane.bramble]

Figure BillG would be flipping burgers if his pre-18 coding wasn't legally accepted by IBM?

With the million dollars he was given by his family on turning 18? I don't think so.

Question

[The Cat]

Might the young man have parents?

sigh... another bright decision by some guy in a suit somewhere, probably talking on his cell phone right now in a 1200 square foot office with half a donut hanging out of his big mouth, calling meetings and planning to "leave for the day" about 1:15PM...

Apples loss..

[Chicane-UK]

Well - if he is capable of programming for Apple and still has yet to hit 18 years old, then I am sure now that Apple have dropped, another company will pick him up and pay him a nice salary.

Apples loss.. this is great publicity for the kid - he will be fighting off job opportunities.

f@ck apple then....

[greymond]

my 2 cents would be to tell the kid to stop coding for apple since they obviously dont want him and put his skills into linux a "truly" open source environment - if he's really as bad ass as he says he is, then he could do a lot of good for any of the distro's out and about.

Why is this such a big deal?

[Mustang Matt]

I understand Apple's point of view.

He can just work through someone else. Let someone who's older than him review his code and when he turns 18 he can sign up and be legit.

It kind of sucks for him, but legally he's just not able to work on it yet.

RAM copies: EULA violation is infringement

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

RAM copies being covered by copyright is silly but there are legal precedents (MAI vs Peak Computer is one) where that is the case.

It should be fair use, because making a copy is NECESSARY to even USE the product, and one is expected to be allowed to use a copyrighted work that one was bought. That's logical, but not in all cases what the courts have decided.

There are also legal precedents where fair use is overridden by the DMCA (the DeCSS case in the Southern District of New York)

Re:RAM copies: EULA violation is infringement

[tricorn]

Was section 117, allowing copying that is necessary to run the software by a person who owns or has been authorized by someone who owns an authorized copy of the software, added after MAI v Peak? There's also a paragraph in there specifically authorizing "maintenance" type work, perhaps that was what was added.

I thought that the key element of MAI v Peak was that the clients didn't own a copy of the software, they were leasing it (along with the machine), and thus weren't able to authorize Peak to do "make copies" of the programs by running it while doing maintenance. The key decision was that copying into RAM was indeed copying. That doesn't mean you can't do it, even without an EULA.

Re:RAM copies: EULA violation is infringement

[nusuth]

If there is such things as RAM copies, how come use of authorized DVD players doesn't violate DMCA?

Not that simple

[justin sane]

>> Dear Junior, because we can't force you to play
>> nice, we assume you'll play nasty.

>> Oh yeah, great message. Add in the
>> MPAA/RIAA's "You're all thieves and liars that >> need to be controlled" and we've arrived at a >> really enlightened society where everyone you
>> don't have a strangehold on is assumed guilty.

That isn't their movtivation at all and, furthermore, the analogy to the RIAA/MPAA is poor. You need to understand this: he is a minor so no contract with him is enforceable including licenses like the BSD and GPL since licenses are contracts governing use and other rights one consents to give up for the consideration of using the code. Now imagine what happens to Darwin if the young man's code "poisons the well" so to speak because of a tainted license?

They could work around this if a person of leagl age checks-in the code and takes responsibility. Any of you whiners ready to put your responsibility where your /. mouth is? Ha! I didn't think so.

Re:Not that simple

[Darren Winsper]

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.

Tom Waits Said...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The large print giveth, the small print taketh away." -- From /Step Right Up/

Oh Please!

[mmclean]

With a name like Doobie, he has to be up to no good. Go Apple!

Re:Revenge...

[EllisDees]

No, not really. You are still bound by Apple's non-open source license, even if the source code is available.

The Apple sweatshop

[fmaxwell]

"Here with a News 7 exclusive is Senior Technology Reporter Jim Wright."

"Thank you Tom. It has just been revealed that Apple Computer, the corporate giant that manufactures the Macintosh computer line, has been using unpaid child labor to create the "operating system" that powers their successful computers. For those not familiar with the term, an operating system is a computer file that contains computer program instructions. These computer program instructions allow the computer system to operate -- hence the name "operating system."

According to sources close to the case, young Finlay Dobbie, has worked for hundreds of hours for Apple computer yet never received any pay. Apple, instead, has formed a cult-like group that refer to themselves as the "Open Source Movement." This group convinced Finlay and many others to spend countless hours writing and improving computer programs for Apple's operating system -- which Apple then sells at a tremendous profit.

When Finlay was released from the group, he staggered outside, pale, gaunt, and squinting his young eyes that have not seen sunlight in many months. I had trouble understanding what he was muttering exept for "pee, pee, pee" leaving this reporter wondering if Finlay's keepers have even been denying him the right to use a restroom.

Sources at Apple computer refused to return questions, stating that it was a matter being handled by their legal department.

Tom, back to you.

Re:The Apple sweatshop

[jsse]

*yelling at TV*

This is absolutely outragous! Hire criminal, now child labour, what next?! SON! Forget your dirty-IT college study, go get some real job in military!

How did they find out?

[wackybrit]

I did a lot of programming between age 13 and 16. In fact, I was a much better programmer *then* than now, and even edited and contributed to a few online programming journals and Web sites.

No-one knew my age. So how did Apple find out here? If you're a youngster, mentioning your age can be mucho bad (like with this).. and if you do mention your age, and you're particularly young.. well.. no-one likes a smartass.

Let's fix this:

[3vi1]

I'm a PC guy who's never owned an Apple, and I'm definitely not a minor (I'm 32), but I had to send them some feedback on this.

I've included what I sent below, minus all the cursing (just kidding). Everyone else here who has the time, please send Apple something similar (be polite if you really want to help Finlay). I really hate to see this happen to a seemingly helpful, bright kid.

-----------

I just read about Finlay Dobbie on slashdot.org. I then read his complete story on his personal website.

If what I read is correct and truthful, Apple has done a great disservice both to its users and itself. The fact that no alternative was given to this bright kid who had already made meaningful contributions to the Darwin project is shameful.

I guess Apple's next move will be to disallow the sell of software to those under 18, since they can't be bound by the EULAs?

By way of this feedback, I *beg* of you to forward this to someone in a position to do the following:

A) Reprimand the person responsible for cancelling Finlays account without any written notice (even after the fact).

B) Talk to the company lawyers and find out if there is a viable solution (parent co-sign, legal change of status to adult, etc.) that would allow Finlay to contribute to the project.

In his writing, Finlay seems incredibly mature about this whole ugly incident. If someone were to approach him with a solution, I'm sure he would regain his faith in your company. An apologetic letter to him about the SNAFU would also do much to redeem Apple in the public eye (I'm *sure* some Apple-hating, PC using, reporter is going to put this kid on TV when they hear the story).

I'm not Apple's biggest cheerleader, but I really enjoy having you guys around even if it's only to keep MS & the PC world on their toes. Please make right what is wrong.

Sincerely,

Not Surprising

[moankey]

Apple has always been very legal about their software and hardware, even more so then any company I know. Its is common for them to screw, lack of a better word, their developers, resellers, clone makers (remember them?), and people working with them for the benefit of themselves. Ask anyone that has been any of the above. Some get angry while others just accept that thats the way Apple is.

Their loss

[_Shad0w_]

I figure it's Apple loss and we probably all think slightly less of them than we did 10mins ago - ageist swines ;)

Does this invalidate click through liscenses

[Hypnocraze]

If a kid can't enter into a liscense... I see a market opening for kids to install software for users So that they do not have to enter into the Contract... I never saw the do you agree or disagree.

Actually...

[LiquidPC]

It's rather wise to stop contributions from minors, since that person could submit harmful code or something to that effect, and probably not be legally punishable, I'm not sure on that but it makes sense. Also, I wonder even if his parents signed off on it if he could submit code then, that sounds like a reasonable thing. Oh well, he'll turn 18 eventually, he'll probably not want to work with apple then though.

Re:Actually...

[HobbitGod42]

I think that apple or any company would notice if someone was posting harmful code... what will happen is that the brightest minds will go work for a REAL open source project... not a pseudo-open soruce project. Apple has basically said 'hey we can change it from open source to proprietary at the flick of a switch and basically fuck the coder over.'
Ponderous... Fucking ponderous.

Re:Apple is just stupid and clever at the same tim

[msebast]

Marcelo is Brazilian.

Connectiva is a Brazilian company.

Obviously American child labor and exploitation laws do not apply.

I've experienced both sides....

[flxkid]

I started developing when I was 9 yrs old. Because of California law, I wasn't able to actually get paid for my work until I was 14. At the time I was working as a developer for my Great Uncle's insurance agency doing corporate database development.

This corporation is run by the books, so basically they told me I could do what I wanted, but that they wouldn't be able to pay me for my work until I turned 14.

I've also been an active member of the development community for the product that I develop with (www.dataaccess.com). I have given many speeches, even submitted source that was incorporated into the language, all while under the age of 18. Now of course I have no problems, I'm almost 21.

But I've also used this whole 'under 18 no contract' thing to my advantage. It came in handy when dealing with a warranty contract on some equipment I purchased. I shouldn't have even been able to purchase a warranty, but they let me. Later when the product broke, I took it back and they told me that the contract stated that I had to send it in for repair, not bring it in for replacement. After pointing out to him that I was under 18 and he could get in trouble for even selling me a warranty, they promptly accepted the broken product and handed me a nice new box.

So I used it for a threat. So what, all the same ;) Anyways, I see both sides of this story. I feel that I was being shafted while under 18, but I also used it to my advantage.

In the long run, I would hope that something would come along to patch up this hole in contract law.

I think in California that maybe this has been dealt with. I was able to open a bank account and even have a VISA before I was 18 because my father signed as a proxy on the contract. (He couldn't though access the money in the account, he was not a signor on account, just a contract proxy)

OLIVER

But he could be tried as an adult........

[FXSTD]

You are under 18, you can
Get married - May need parental consent in some places
Be a father/mother -Greatest responsibility ever... (pay child support for 18+ years...even if you are married)
Decide to end your child/fetus' life (don't get started on the pro/anti abortion thing ok)
Wield the greatest weapon ever created (cars have killed more ppl than guns and bombs ever did)
Serve life in prison for crimes
Pay taxes
Work at a burger shop (does this mean you may get fired because they cannot enforce the confidentiality agreement that keeps thousands of minors from giving up the ingredients to "secret sauce"

List goes on.

But you can't contribute in a meaningful way to anything meaningful that has to do with lawyers.

By the way, the next shrink wrap EULA is getting opened by my 9 year old son......

Re:But he could be tried as an adult........

[the eric conspiracy]

cars have killed more ppl than guns and bombs ever did

Not even close. Armed conflict in WWII alone killed 20 million people at least. Even in the worst years world-wide traffic fatalities have barely exceeded 100,000.

Re:But he could be tried as an adult........

[Peyna]

Doing some research and rough estimating, WWII killed more like 50 million people (including civilians), I don't believe those numbers include all deaths related to the Atomic Bomb, since civilian deaths in Japan is only listed as 300,000.

Re:But he could be tried as an adult........

[Vulture_]

I believe the cumulative tally of deaths due to cars and deaths due to guns and bombs. I would imagine that traffic fatalities have killed a lot more people since the invention of the automobile than guns and bombs have since their invention.

Time to Boycott Darwin / OS/X

[MrJerryNormandinSir]

Well I'm sure most of us feel the same way. He's got to demand that none of his code is used in the Darwin code base because according to Apple his contract was null and void to begin with. Also, I welcome his skills on the Linux / "Real" BSD (Not AppleSauce) team! It's time for him to migrate on over and develop Open Source code for Real open source platforms. His age does not matter to me,
just talent.

Sarcastic/Angry

[nuggz]

Well that was an angry almost sarcastic post.

You can play the rigorous legal game, which I personally think is a stupid excuse to raise the GDP without doing anything productive.

Or play the "in good faith" game that most people who want to get stuff done do.

I just hope that the world gets a justice system and drops the legal junk.

It comes down to a balance, you would be irresponsible to loan your car to a 5yr old, although it's okay to let an 18yr old drive it.

Somewhere there is a balance point, and I think in this case an intelligent capable coder is probaly responsible enough irrespective of his age.

Feedback

[mstyne]

Since Apple's looking for feedback anyway, this might be a good opportunity to do so. I'm sure there *has* to be a way they could make this work. Somehow it seems unfair to stifle this kid. I understand there are legal ramifications, but that's never stopped anyone before. Also, I like how I'm paying for a subscription to Slashdot, yet there are still banner ads at the top of the screen. Thanks, Taco.

Apple is correct

[praedor]

Since there IS small print that must be agreed to, Apple is absolutely correct and in the right to remove him. A minor cannot be legally bound to a contract. The only option in this case should be for his parents to accept responsibility - which might be best of all. The kid wont do anything to bust the fine print agreement because the heat would fall upon his PARENTS instead of him.

Gr... Apple !@#$#^%

[EdMcMan]

Well, I had always thought myself an open kind of person. I had a mac, and I used it, didn't hate it, didn't particularly love it. Sure, Mac OS X is cool, but Apple's business strategies are turning more and more into Microsoft, and are just in general annoying me. They over charge, have shitty support, and well, their board of directors needs to get a kick in the ass (one that's hard enough to kick them out of Apple)... sorry Steve. I foresee Apple losing most of their developers in the future.. leaving them left with an operating system that yes, is developed by people over 18, but has no software to run! Apple is doomed, and I predict it will be gone within 10 years (probably bought out). They have cool stuff, but seriously, who wants to pay, and who wants to put up with crap like this? I'm sticking with open hardware, and *truly* open software.

Gotta Love Teenagers

[rbeattie]

I'm 15 and have been an avid Mac evangelist since 1993...

It seems he's been going around making speeches about the great qualities of Apple products since he was 6. Heehee.

I better shut up now, since he's still a better programmer than I am...

-Russ

Re:Gotta Love Teenagers

[0xbaadf00d]

What are the parents of these kids lacing their children's Cheerios with that turns them into computer geniuses by the age of 6? Can you buy it at your local health food store? I'm 31, is it too late for it to work on me?

Re:Gotta Love Teenagers

[WildBeast]

"I'm 15 and have been an avid Mac evangelist since 1993..."

For that, he gets a slap in the face from Apple :) Maybe now he knows what Apple is made of.

Re:Gotta Love Teenagers

[rbeattie]

I think the appropriate metaphor would be "slap on the bottom..." *harharharsnort*

-Russ

Re:Gotta Love Teenagers

[Chris Johnson]

Hey, for a long time Apple (with Guy Kawasaki) has conducted setup races.

On one side, a PC tech of distinction, like a magazine editor or Microsoft employee or something.

On the other side, Guy Kawasaki and a 6-year-old. And Guy sits there, and doesn't help. The 6-year-old unpacks the Mac, sets it up, plugs everything in and boots it (I believe it's sometimes also included setting up networking and going online.

Six-year-old generally wins over the PC team...

heres what I would do...

[HobbitGod42]

since hes a minor... the code is technically the property of his parents. have them sue to have the code removed. it might work... you never know... ---E Pluribus Unix---

ha33ors ?

[autopr0n]

Haeeors? Haieors? What?

Re:ha33ors ?

[Beliskner]

ha33ors is errrr hAcK33rS pronounced with a British accent I think, I better go look it up in the Hacker's dictionary if I can find an unhacked copy.

I hate this...

[ellem]

I understand that legally this is what must be but it is also abosolutely galling and YASITWD* for Apple.

They need to make this work. And they need to reinstate his membership somehow.

(Yet Another Step In the Wrong Direction)

Finlay Dobbie please join Linux development!

[Anonymous Coward]

You would be very welcome to contribute to Linux (or *BSD) for that matter. Forget about Apple - they are on a road to ruin. Open software is the only way.

Did you even read the comment?

[Colol]

Here's the part you apparently grazed over:

* If the parent's [sic] 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...?

That is exactly how it is applied to COPPA, and is spelled out in a quite straightforward manner in the original comment. COPPA sucks, but what choice does Apple have? He can't sign into agreements effectively, much less agree to the Apple Public License terms under which most of Darwin is licensed, and his parents could say "take everything he's poublished away".

Allowing contribution to continue could hurt Apple far more than simply pulling him until he reaches the age of majority.
Kids these days...

Re:Did you even read the comment?

[dangermouse]

AC is an ass, but he's right. The COPPA very clearly applies only to "personal information", a term which it defines explicitly.

COPPA

The original poster's interpretation of the COPPA seems to be badly off.

Is he English?

[teamfish]

Judging from his url he is British. So wouldn't he be covered by UK law regarding contracts and not US?

Although I believe that he still wouldn't be able to sign a leagally binding contract till he is 16. Unless a parent or guardian can sign for him.

The tricky question of majority

[jhantin]

Unfortunately, chronological age is but a poor approximation of competence. People develop their faculties at very diverse rates. I (and probably a lot of other Slashdot readers) have the classic 'nerd' problem: ahead of the curve abstract thinking skill development, behind the curve in social skills; I have met people with the reverse as well, highly developed social skills with underdeveloped abstract thinking skills. This inconsistent development rate makes it hard to keep things consistent even within the scope of a single person's development. The result is simply to handwave away the problem of personal development by setting some chronological age by which it is assumed most people will reach competence.

Re:The tricky question of majority

[NTeraGator]

What is it about social interaction that leads you to believe it requires less abstract thought?

Re:Don't support Intel or Apple

[MoneyT]

Intel only says that because both Apple and AMD are promoting the Mhtz Myth

The only issue here is this

[Uttles]

Did he ever say he was over 18? If Apple asked this person to disclose his age and he was dishonest, then he is getting what he deserves. Now, if they never asked him for his age, they are being absurd. There are plenty of ways they could force him and his parents to go in on an agreement that would be perfectly legally binding (in Apple's eyes at least) and so really the only justification here would be that he lied about his age, if he indeed did.

Apple

[Lord Kano]

I have many issues with Apple, especially now that Jobs is back at the helm, but I don't fault them on this one.

Maybe they could have found a more diplomatic way to handle this, but they didn't. This guy can't be held to the terms of the contract because he's a minor. Why do you think that so many businesses won't hire minors? Becuse they can't be held to any contracts.

"By signing this agreement, you are agree not to divulge any of the personal information of our clients/customers including, but not limited to Names, Addresses, Social Security numbers, Credit Card numbers, or the nature of the service that we provide them."

There is a flipside to every law, or principle of law, that provides protection for someone. For example, in Ohio utility companies can't require your social security number, so many businesses have simply chosen not to do business in Ohio.

You don't have to let the police into your house without a search warrant, but when they have a search warrant they might even be able to subject you to a strip search.

Ageism and Forced Lying

[This Is Ridiculous]

I'm a sixteen year old Perl and C hacker. I have commit priviages on Parrot, and I've written at least five or ten source files and touched at least half of the files in the distribution.

And I have to lie to do much of anything online.

Within the OS community, I'm completely open with my age. Nobody cares about age--just skills. It's absolutely wonderful. The only other place I get that is in college classes.

But on the rest of the Internet I have to lie. I have to lie to get an instant messaging account, a webmail address, access to a news site, some web space, or a chat room. I have to lie to get API data from Palm, Microsoft and many other companies. Some of these places make it exceedingly easy to lie--for example, one videochat site just has you hit the submit button again, implicitly promising that a parent is submitting th eform this time. In others, you have to jump through hoops to do it. But in most cases it's pretty easy to lie.

It gets on my conscience, though. Every time I lie I feel like a cheat. Every time I pretend I didn't see the "by clicking this button, you agree that you are over eighteen" line, I feel like a bad person. But I do it anyway, because I can't do what I want and need to do otherwise.

I understand that this is necessary because of contract law. However, I think that points to a deficiency in contract law, not in kids.

I haven't thought very long on this issue, but at least one solution comes to mind. It follows the model of child labor laws. Before fifteen (which, incidentally, I think is older than is really necessary) you simply can't work. Between fifteen and eighteen you can work, but with restrictions on what you can do and how long you can do it for. At eighteen, you're free to sell your labor in any way you please.

Perhaps similar provisions should be written into contract law. For example, between age X and eighteen, you can enter contracts unless they obligate you to pay money or do work.

In any case, I believe that the current system is Evil and Wrong. We should fix it instead fo forcing kids to be liars.

Re:Ageism and Forced Lying

[micromuncher]

This is not an issue of discrimination, and I would argue that stating that you are being compelled to lie only illustrates you are not mature enough to grasp the issues around contract law and exactly the reason why issues of responsibility and accountability are denied to you. I have heard this arguement so many times; for example, I am a kid so I cannot afford to buy software so I am compelled to pirate it. You know you are purgering yourself, and you know it is wrong, so you are expressing the "will" to do it anyway. Law makes a big deal about this little issue.

Re:Ageism and Forced Lying

[anderman]

Let me get this straight because of his age he is not allowed to do something and you are saying they are not discriminating against his age. Got news for you it is discrimination. Just because there is a law doesn't negate the fact that its discrimination. And just in case you want to argue against it here's 2 definitions:

Treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice: racial discrimination; discrimination against foreigners.

or:

unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice

Re:Ageism and Forced Lying

[micromuncher]

Dictionary definitions of discrimination do not apply in this context. A juvenile has no rights under most western law, in fact, juveniles are interpretted as property. A juvenile is usually defined as a person lacking the cognitive skills to conduct themselves appropriately in "adult" society; that is make rational, reasonable, decisions in accordance with the law, and the ability to enter into binding agreements. Most of the corpus iuris civilis upon which our laws are based are related to property. That is why parents are guardians of their children, and bare sole responsibility and accountability until the child comes "of age". A child cannot enter a binding contract without the guardian jointly entering the contract because 1) the child has no rights and 2) the guardian is solely responsible for the actions of the child.

There is also the point that Apple can have whatever constraints in its contracts it wants, and ALL the signor can do if he doesn't like the contract is ... not enter the contract. Apple is fully within its rights to cancel a contract made under false pretense AND seek remedy. Apple is within its legal rights to go after this kid's parents for damages (assuming it can prove damages.) It can request that all materials be returned to Apple. It can easily get a court order to sieze materials related to this breach.

From what I read, from this kids web sight, Apple is being quite generous by following its policy and NOT going after him for perjury, that can have significant penalty depending on the state.

What is particularily amusing is that Apple is also within its rights to ammend or modify any contract as it has done for under-aged in the past. Did the kid even CONSIDER asking Apple to modify the contract with respect to his age, OR did he just exercise poor judgement and lie?

Actions speak louder than words...

Re:Ageism and Forced Lying

[cheese_boy]

Before fifteen ... you simply can't work.

Not quite accurate.

I know you can work on a farm starting at age 11 or 12. (At least in some states - never found out if it was state or federal laws that applied to me and >100 of my classmates working for a local farming company.)

There may be other exceptions as well that you can exploit.
You seem intelligent enough to do the research to find out, so do it.

In any case, I believe that the current system is Evil and Wrong. We should fix it instead fo forcing kids to be liars.

I wouldn't say it was "evil".

IMO it is a problem that the point where one is considered an "adult" is determined by age.

But I haven't seen a proposal of a much better methodology.
We could have a "test" that you have to take - but those could discriminate against many groups.
And do people who always fail automatically become one when they are 18? 21? never?
How do you even construct a good test?

And with our current political system, it's obvious that below 18 has practically NO political clout.
Even 18-21 has very little political clout.

Add to that the fact that there are plenty of 18 year olds who probably shouldn't be recognized as an adult, and it's a ugly political problem.

Given all this, a teen-ager is IMO getting screwed by the system that's trying to "protect" him, and has little choice but to accept it and learn to handle it as one of the many disappointments of life. If he can change it for the better, he has my full support.
But I suspect he won't be able to, and all I can give him is my sympathy.

Re:Ageism and Forced Lying

[psykocrime]

Dictionary definitions of discrimination do not apply in this context.

Justification?

A juvenile has no rights under most western law, in fact, juveniles are interpretted as property.

That may be true, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's *right*.


A juvenile is usually defined as a person lacking the cognitive skills to conduct themselves appropriately in "adult" society; that is make rational, reasonable, decisions in accordance with the law, and the ability to enter into binding agreements.


And you believe that calendar age is in any way, shape, or form an automatic guarantee of whether or not an individual has "the cognitive skills to conduct themselves appropriately in "adult" society; that is make rational, reasonable, decisions in accordance with the law, and the ability to enter into binding agreements?"

I don't think so. Discrimination based on age is discrimination just as much as discrimination based on sex, race, religion, nationality, etc. Just because it's the law, doesn't make it right.

Re:Ageism and Forced Lying

[evilviper]

Think of it this way... You aren't bound by any contract, therefore you aren't doing anything illegial when you click the extra button saying you are over 18.

Secondly, the ACLU has fought in court to make sure that information given online is not legally binding. Specifically, they wanted to preserve the right to use aliases online. The fact is, you can say you're 18 all you want and it's perfectly legal (at least in the US).

In the words of Bobcat: "Kids have fun and commit crimes while you're still a minor... Don't worry about what your parents think. They're already mad at you for being young."

Re:Ageism and Forced Lying

[micromuncher]

This is a common argument with a common response. Law X discriminates against Y because of Z. Law X does NOT discriminate for the general case for the common good. Here is the example; anyone consider over the age of 18 is an adult. Real discrimination comes if one 17 year old is considered an adult, and another is not. Then it would be analogous to racisism, classism, or gender based discrimination.

The problem is always where to draw the line. Evaluation on an individual basis is not practical, and arguably, fair.

Re:Ageism and Forced Lying

[dosun88888]

If that are the law, then the law are an ass.

When everyone else is talking about why the law itself is fucked up, and you start lecturing everyone on what the law IS, and then provide absolutely no reasoning behind why the law should be that way, save for the existence of other laws - then any point you make is off topic.

You seem to be quite proud of your understanding of contract law, but nobody is talking about that anyhow.

~D

Re:Ageism and Forced Lying

[This Is Ridiculous]

By that argument, they didn't discriminate aginst blacks in the South because they didn't grant any blacks the same rights as white people.

Believe me, many people thought that discriminating against blacks was for the common good. We realize now that they were wrong, but they thought that they were right. Perhaps the same thing is true of our age limits.

There are rare cases where children have successfully petitioned courts to declare them adults. I don't want that. I just want the government to recognize that I and many other people under 18 are generally capable of making decisions--at least in many cases where there aren't any long-term costs.

was he asked his age?

[wardk]

I don't have an apple dev connection account, but I just signed up for an iTools account with a new iMac. it asked me if I was 18 or older.

Could it be that this kid was asked, and said yes?

Seems there isn't much that can be done, other than he will have to provide code to someone older to perhaps submit for him until he becomes legal age.

Re:was he asked his age?

[Kitu-mijasi]

I'm sure they did. When he decided to become a "Darwin Committer" somehwere in the policy it said that he has to be 18+, and him being so smart, he should've read it (and I believe he did). I dont see why he got all mad about it.

can't be legally bound to the small-print agreemen

[ZaneMcAuley]

"small-print"? excuse me? Isn't that an ancient technique of DECEIVING someone? Why cant they just print everything readable. Shouldnt hiding or INTENTIONALLY trying to hide somethings in a contract by techniques like that be illegal? DECEPTION?

Contracts

[Mistah Blue]

Unfortunate. I can see Apple's point. In the USA, you generally can not enter into contracts unless you are at least 18 years old. Now, I don't see why they can't get a parent or guardian to sign.

Spelling Shmelling

[WinPimp2K]

Will was the founder of the School of Creative Spelling. He spelled his name six different ways. (do your own google search)

Of course, maybe he spelled it so many different ways because it really was Roger Bacon doing the writing and he just didn't remember how he speeled it the last time....

Re:Apple is just stupid and clever at the same tim

[Anonymous Coward]

Eugenia--

Have you ever taken a step back and looked at your life? Taken a calming deep breath, cleared your head, and assessed the situation? Looked around at what you have made for yourself, what you've done and how it's affected you? If you had, it wouldn't be hard to see that things aren't as rosy as most people would be comfortable with; furthermore, it seems as if you're not comfortable with you or your situation either. It's no large feat to realize that things in your life are falling apart, and have been for quite a while. In fact, you don't really seem to have a life now and all that you own or have is going to go away eventually because it's not yours. Yes, Eugenia, here's the simple, terrible truth: your life is in shambles and it's only getting worse.

Let's take a look at the swill and depravity that you live in.

Your Slashdot journal entry from Saturday, March 02, 2002 encapsulates your attitude toward hygiene (or lack thereof) in one sordid little pill:

there is only ONE thing I can't stand: The upstairs people. They do things with the water at 6:30 in the morning, every morning

Eugenia, this is known as bathing. The concept may be foreign to your rancid Greek arse but it's a fact of life to millions of Americans everyday. Oops! I forgot you're not an American citizen. Well, we'll touch on that later...

Here are a few quotes out of your Slashdot journal, taken from Sunday, March 03 through Thursday, March 14, 2002 that do well to exemplify your lack of will-power and discipline.

Today, I started a "real" diet. And yes, this time, the diet IS HERE TO STAY [...] my diet goes well [...] Diet goes ok, I suppose. I mean, I feel that I do a more balanced diet now, as opposing of losing weight right here, right now. I hope it continues well [...] I feel a bit weak, but it is not too bad [...] Argh, I got a terrible headache now [...] I am roasting some pork and oven potatoes

Within just a short eleven-day period we see a rapid downward spiral into fleshly indulgence and lack of self-control, hastened by physical sickness and ailments resulting from simply eating properly. Your body has attuned itself so finely to your horrid eating habits that it actually grows ill over these eleven days to the point that finally, in desperation over a migraine, you cook up a grease-laden meal to satiate your thirst for all things fat.

Have you no self control? Look at yourself! You have a gut that just won't go away-- you look like an ugly, stinky, fat little troll even on your wedding day for Christ's sake! Have you no pride or respect for yourself? Not even just enough to make you stave off those pork and potatoes? Gluttony will destroy your life, Eugenia. It's already destroyed your body.

Eugenia, it's clear to me (and everyone else) that you're mentally unbalanced and delusional. Please, seek help immediately. You are in dire need of counseling and/or therapy for a myriad of issues, among which are hygeine, self-discipline, and proper English grammar. We're behind you all the way, Eugenia, you can do it.

Apple doesn't deserve a break

[extrasolar]

Look at Red Hat. They're a company. They have shareholders. Yet they manage to take in contributions from anyone.

The problem is Apple wants its cake and to eat it too. It wants to free a part of the operating system, yet remain a proprietary product. It wants to be more open with the community, yet retain Non-disclosure agreements.

Lets face it folks. Apple is a proprietary company--more proprietary than even Microsoft in my estimation. I don't know what prompted them to free Darwin (even with all them requirements upon it). Apple doesn't *think* that way. They think "this is mine, NDA, trade secret". Even the article said that Apple still hasn't grasped the principles of free software.

And don't tell me what is not possible. I don't know law and I don't think you do either. But with enough lawyers I think anything is possible.

And I think Apple has enough lawyers. Perhaps then they can be busy doing something else other than going after Aqua cloners on free systems.

Re:Apple doesn't deserve a break

[daeley]

Good Lord Almighty, how many malformed, misinformed, malicious, and downright reactionary phrases can you put in one post?

I don't even know where to start poking holes in the logic of your "arguments" -- especially as they're swiss-cheese like to begin with -- so I won't bother starting.

The Real World called, though, and is wondering if it did something to piss you off since you haven't been around for such a long time.

Re:Apple doesn't deserve a break

[extrasolar]

Actually, they were observations. Not arguments. And I think may have jumped to one conclusion. But I suppose whether one *likes* Apple or not is subjective so I feel I'm entitled to an opinion.

Sorry for your confusion.

(BTW, I wanted to email you personally but you don't have an email address listed.)

Re:Apple doesn't deserve a break

[arivanov]

I don't know what prompted them to free Darwin (even with all them requirements upon it).

They would not have been able to bring it to an OS standard that would have been a product to sell. One of the main goals of MacOS X prior to release was "update the networking to the level of current FreeBSD".Just leaching off BSD would not have worked because not all components in BSD nowdays have a BSD license (some are stricter) and BSD is mostly little-endian so keeping the code open helped hunt down portability issues.

Re:Apple doesn't deserve a break

[beowulf_26]

And this makes you better/more right than him in what way? Note your distinct lack of argument, at least his comments had some substance behind them.

Re:Apple doesn't deserve a break

[Courageous]

A GPL product can always get away with it, because any addition to the product is a derived work, and all derived works belong to the author of the original work, without regard to whether or not the contributor has the legal capacity to agree to a license or not. For example, if I wrote a few hundred lines extended the Linux kernel on my company time, my company would nevertheless have no ability to retract that code, as my code is a derived work of someone else, and that someone else owns all derived works as a matter of explicit statute. This would likewise apply if I were a child, operating on my own. Child or not, employee or not, the derivation belongs to someone else.

C//

Re:Apple doesn't deserve a break

[laserweasel]

And I think Apple has enough lawyers. Perhaps then they can be busy doing something else other than going after Aqua cloners on free systems. There are programmers who will work for free and contribute to open source - graphics designers won't. We need every penny we can get. :P

Re:Apple doesn't deserve a break

[daeley]

Like whomever you want. That's not the point. When you couch your "observations" in reactionary, blanketing statements like:

Apple is a proprietary company--more proprietary than even Microsoft in my estimation. I don't know what prompted them to free Darwin (even with all them requirements upon it). Apple doesn't *think* that way. They think "this is mine, NDA, trade secret". Even the article said that Apple still hasn't grasped the principles of free software.

... you gotta expect to get some reaction in return, especially the kind that points out that your "observations" are specious and not backed up.

Re:Apple doesn't deserve a break

[Lozzer]

I know its a bad habit to quote out of context, but this is a classic:

But with enough lawyers I think anything is possible.

How many lawyers does it take to produce cold fusion?

Re:Apple doesn't deserve a break

[3247]

A GPL product can always get away with it, because any addition to the product is a derived work, and all derived works belong to the author of the original work,...

This is plain wrong. A derieved work is copyrighted by the author of the original and the author of the derivation. As a result, the orginal author needs the derivation's author's permission to distribute the derivation and vice-versa.
If it wasn't like that, most Hollywood companies would not own their movies because they are derivations of the novel adapted...

It works both ways

[mangu]

imagine what happens to Darwin if the young man's code "poisons the well" so to speak because of a tainted license?

Being a minor means he can't give anything away either, the IP would still belong to Apple.

Otherwise, all I would need to do in order to get the copyright to the entire Star War series would be to get a minor to hand me those DVDs.

Re:It works both ways

[Suppafly]

no. If he signs a contract with apple saying he gets to check out their source code, apple is held to the contract, but he can void the contract if he wants because he's a minor. Granted, apple would still own their IP, they don't really give that away.. but they couldn't keep him from leaking it out to the internet because of his age.

Re:It works both ways

[mpe]

Being a minor means he can't give anything away either, the IP would still belong to Apple.

Apple still own their IP. However they cannot force him to hand over (or licence) his IP.
If he were both a US citizen and resident in the US then there would be little question that all of the IP was Apple's
However since he appears to be neither, he may well enjoy full copyright protection on any code he contributed. Without either a licence or assignment of copyright Apple cannot use his code.

Never able to see the other side

[LimpGuppy]

It amazes me that this community always bitches about companies for almost any decision they make. Never are they able to look from another point of view and see why a decision was reached and if it was valid or not.

GNU not immune

[rjamestaylor]

The GNU license suffers the same age of accountability limitation. So, MS could use 18 year olds to circumvent the GPL and there'd be nothing a court could do, since the age of accountability (contract-wise) is 18 in the US.

Re:GNU not immune

[PurpleBob]

The usual GPL misinformation.

A "License" gives you the right to do something. Companies like Microsoft have mangled this definition by tying their "licenses" to shrink-wrap agreements - first they take away all your rights to use the product, then their license gives you some back.

When you use or distribute GPL software, you never agree to a contract! This is a difficult concept for people to grasp in this age of EULAs. The GPL simply tells you that you _are_ allowed to distribute the software under certain conditions. If you don't accept these conditions, it reverts to ordinary copyright law, meaning you can't distribute the software at all.

If what you said were true, then it would mean that people under 18 are allowed to violate copyrights, which is quite different from nullifying contracts.

Re:GNU not immune

[mpe]

The GNU license suffers the same age of accountability limitation. So, MS could use 18 year olds to circumvent the GPL and there'd be nothing a court could do, since the age of accountability (contract-wise) is 18 in the US.

Actually there is plenty a court could do. Since using GPL code without following the GPL is "copyright infringement" (or as the likes of Microsoft prefer to call it "software piracy"). The only way Microsoft could get off the hook here would be to sucessfully argue that copyright does not apply to software. Which would be a complete "foot shooting" exercise.

You must enter your age to get ADC...

[micromuncher]

Apple has always required you be "of age" to be part of ADC or the seed programs. And they are exactly right; if a minor violates the agreements it is impossible to prosecute them. The easy way out is for the defendant's lawyer to say "they are too young to understand the terms of the agreement." One could argue by LYING on the form, it illustrates the character and/or maturity of the individual purgering themselves.

Death to smoochie.

Oops! Too late!

[ishmalius]

Now that he's seen and accessed the stuff, the Cat is out of the Bag, and he's not responsible for anything he does with his knowledge, data, documentation, software, etc.

Maybe Apple should sign up Mr Developer Sr. just in case.

Apple cannot legally..

[ghack]

Apple cannot legally use this code! His contract was invalid because he was under 18. Therefore they are obligated to employ someone to clean out all the code he submitted. And they also cannot look at it...because it is technically not licensed to them. If they do, he could theoretically sue...

Hey, if you're under 18, you can share that copy of quake with all your friends, but cannot license software under the GPL. (If what apple says is true). Sickening...

Speaking from experience..

[Famanoran]

I've just turned 17, and I've been working full-time in the IT industry since I was 15. I started as a programmer for a major New Zealand ISP, and moved up to network administrator within 10 months, and I'm now a software engineer for a New Zealand startup company.

I, personally, haven't had _too_ much of a problem with my age, although there have been some minor issues.

This is New Zealand, and finding people with my skillset and experience is a non-trivial event.

I am extremely saddened that Apple have chosen to discard someone who would probably have been one of their best resources. What I'm also worried about however, is whether or not other companies will follow suit. (Including the one I work for, funnily enough.)

All it takes is one large multi-national to start a trend, and then all people in our age-group will have an even harder time of getting a job in our chosen field.

I think Apple need to go back, and rethink their actions.

There are also laws against unpaid labor

[moyix]

And yet, people can write for free software projects. Why? Because they're volunteers. I don't think the same restrictions on child labor apply to those under 18, though at least in my state (Missouri) you must be 14 or older to do volunteer work.

Re:Gotta love contract law-GPL

[AxelBoldt]

The GPL is not a contract. If you break the GPL, you break copyright law, and not even minors are allowed to do that.

Don't blame Apple -- they're following the law

[inkswamp]

I don't know if anyone else has posted about it and I won't go on at length here, but thanks to the COPPA laws passed about two years ago (IIRC) Apple -- or anyone online -- can get into serious legal trouble for soliciting any kind of information or doing any kind of exchange with minors. Mock Apple all you want, but save the real derision for our lawmakers who, in their infinite zeal to protect us all from ourselves and to be a surrogate parent to all those kids out there on the net, are to blame.

You know-it-alls in the open source comminity can mock Apple's decision all you want, but I have a feeling you'll be singing a different tune when some parent decides to sue your ass off for eliciting information from their kid over the net through a web site. Thanks to our stupid lawmakers, it's not legal. Keep that in mind.

--Rick

I encountered this as well

[EvlG]

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?

Re:I encountered this as well

[Aapje]

I agree. AFAIK this should be sufficient. I've just submitted this to Apple's feedback page for OS X:

It has come to my attention that you have disallowed Finlay Dobbie the rights normally associated with the status of Darwin Committer and have later disabled his ADC-account, where these decisions were both based on his age. I am dismayed that you disallow this talented young programmer to work on Darwin. We should applaud and encourage this form of community service that benefits hundreds of thousands of your customers. His work has helped to fix a nasty bug that could lock up MacOS X for minutes. He has also added new functionality to the official Darwin distribution. I believe that his contributions and ability to carry responsibility should be judged based on his performance.

I understand that you may be worried about the legal implications of working with minors. However, the laws that protect minors were never intended to keep minors from learning, contributing to society or taking responsibility. They do give parents the responsibility to monitor and (if necessary) steer their children. We cannot monitor and steer our children if they have insufficient freedom to make their own decisions. A proper education of our children depends on their ability to take responsibility. I urge you to contact the parents of Finlay Dobbie and ask them to sign the contracts that are necessary for someone to contribute to Darwin. This should be sufficient to guarantee that your contracts with Finlay Dobbie are legally binding and you can stop any violation of the contract under the authority of law.

As your customer, I have always known Apple to be a company that tries to act ethically. This includes your policy of Equal Employment Opportunity that disallows your employees to discriminate "on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, marital status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity characteristics or expression, disability, medical condition, U.S. Military or veteran status in recruiting, hiring, training and promoting." I hope and trust that you will not limit this policy to your employees, but will apply it to your contacts with volunteers that contribute to your products as well. I hope you will soon correct this error and make me a proud Mac-user once again.

Disturbing.

[andfarm]

I had been considering joining up with the project - admittedly, I'm no programmer genius, but perhaps I could have helped.

Now that I've heard about this, they just lost themselves another possible developer. (I'm still in high school.) Sorry, Apple: if you're going to be this pigheaded about it, you'll have to find programmers elsewhere.

Re:Perhaps YOU are the one who is just plain dumb

[Archfeld]

apple had all kinds of choice in this they just chose a BAD one...imagine that Apple treading on customer/support toe's....They could have drafted an agreement with the kids parents, they could have gone the emancipated minor route and demonstrated that in THIS field, THIS minor was knowlegable and culpable. What they chose was to forgoe common sense and be directed by the written letter of the law not the spirit, and once again show that Apple actually has nearly the same lack of respect/regard for their customers that M$ has shown. Apple just has a better PR firm.

Wasn't Randy Wiggington under 18?

[shoppa]

Wasn't Randy Wiggington (who did some of the
"hard" coding in Applesoft BASIC and Apple DOS)
under 18 when he was helping Woz out with Apple
II software?

Legal BS

[pagercam2]

As ussual the scumbag lawyers screw things up with a benifit to no one. I'm 37 and have been an engineer for 16 years and I don't understand those "small print" licenses so I can't be expected to "follow the rules" either. Isn't an open source license just that I promise to share and give up personal right to submitted code ( and I have not stolen said code). They should give him his access back, if it makes the sharks (um, I mean laywers) happy, can't a parent or gaurdian accept the agreement for him??? If he's been valuable or even if he hasn't they should have found a work arround the open source movement is purely based on good will, and they ain't showing much. This is a pretty big suprise to me as I saw Apple as the good guys who did things right, in HW, SW and general practices, but this suggests otherwise.

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" - Ben Franklin

Underage contracts are trouble for a corp

[ryanvm]

Wow - this reminded me of my underage contract story. You all have one right?

When I was 13 years old I had a paper route. And let me tell you, $25 a week was "pimp city" for a 13 year old back then. Anyway, I signed up with BMG under my own name and everything. You know the routine: 8 CDs for the price of 1 gets you in, and then each month unless you explicitly tell them not to, they send you a CD.

I was doing pretty good for the first couple months. But alas, ADD (self-diagnosed) got the better of me and soon I was forgetting to send in the "no CD this month" responses. I ended up with a $400 bill and about 25 shit CDs that I wouldn't give to my worst enemy.

I blew them off until I started getting nasty letters from a collection agency (I'm surprised I never woke up with a horse's head in my bed). At this point I panicked and confessed to my mom. She promptly wrote a letter to the collection agency explaining that I was 13 years old and therefore couldn't be constrained by the contract. Sure enough, they completely dropped it.

Interestingly (depending on how bored you are), the minute I turned 18 I started receiving a shitload of solicitations from BMG. It was like the 8th year after filing bankruptcy.

Parent is a TROLL!

[asobala]

What's up with these moderators?

Sadly, no we can't...

[Art Tatum]

Love teenagers, go to jail. That's the law, unfortunately.

Disclosure of Darwin secrets ok?

[vindaci]

According to Apple's letter, it sounds like they're claiming Finlay isn't bound by the NDA. So does it mean Finlay can release everything confidential he knows about Darwin without legal consequences? If Finlay were ever sued for disclosing Darwin's secrets, he can show the court the letter and claim it was Apple that told him he's not bound by the NDA.

The system is screwed up

[nick_burns]

Though I bet if he were to turn his talents to malicious hacking and if he were caught, he would be tried as an adult. Ain't this country great?

I'm confused

[WildBeast]

I thought that Darwin was Open Source, or at least some people said so. Now I'm kinda confused.

This isnt too uncommon...

[coene]

I remember when I was starting the company I am in now, I was 17. When we first started it up, dealing with all of the Intellectual Property etc, we had to jump through a few loops to get investors. The reason was that since I was the premiere technology director, and the only person who could manage the technical aspects of the company.

So what it comes down to, is what happens when you cant transfer ownership to the company because you cant be legally bound to anything you sign, let alone employment contracts to make sure you dont run off to M$ when they offer you a $1M bonus, and leave the company and all of the investors high and dry.

This is a big problem IMO. The current US laws for this type of stuff, mainly IP and ownership, arent meant to handle a minor being a major contributor a corporation.

IANAL, but from my experience, its a tough battle. The way we eventually got around it was to keep my stock in the company until I turned 18, at which time a IP-for-Stock contract kicked in.

Much different than the situation here with Apple, but nonetheless its on the same grounds.

Pissed He's Not Big Man on Campus

[DeICQLady]

Am I the only one that thinks that he's just pissed off because he's not seen as 'Big Man on Campus' by Apple's red tape?

If he had persued the legal route, which is having his parents sign the contract then would there be anything to barf about? Legally he can't GPL can he? Is he going to write an article about that as well?

I think now all the Linux carnivores have something to say Apple is like M$ (let's eat!) but considering what they've done so far, (and excusing they are a big company that sometimes look at the bottom line). I think this open source business is a bit more than hype.

new slasdot graphics???

[recursiv]

does anyone else see the new slashdot banner graphic at the top of this page? It looks OSX-esque. I like.

Re:new slasdot graphics???

[Kitu-mijasi]

It's been more than a month. I find it cool, and its not only for Apple topics, the colors and graphics change for each topics.

Re:Why Linux Sucks:

[NinjaGaidenIIIcuts]

Unless you stole it along with Windows.
Why would a guy stealing windows? Maybe a die-hard cleptomaniac.

He's well aware, I think, of how to spell it

[screwballicus]

If you take a look at this very useful document, you'll see that "Shakespere" is a perfectly legitimate spelling of the man's name and occurs frequently. Other attested spellings are

Shake-speare (very common)

Shakespear

Shakspeer

Shaksperr

and

Sheakspear

Re:He's well aware, I think, of how to spell it

[InigoMontoya(tm)]

Other attested spellings are

Shake-speare (very common)

Shakespear

Shakspeer

Shaksperr

and

Sheakspear

You forgot "Marlowe."

More Marlowe Fun.

InigoMontoya(tm)

Not if...

[kikta]

...you file independently. Tell mom & dad that if they want to keep that juicy deduction, their asses had better cough up some cash to the cause of getting you educated. If they're not supporting you and you're filing returns of your own, they shouldn't be claiming you. I'm sure you love mom & dad, but point out to them that they are screwing you over by:

1) Claiming you.
2) Not giving you shit.
3) Messing with your FAFSA (and thereby awards & grants) due to #1.

And that if they don't fix the situation, you call the IRS. Christmas may be awkward for a few years, but remember that they're screwing you.

Re:Not if...

[Luyseyal]

3) Messing with your FAFSA (and thereby awards & grants) due to #1.

At the time, in 1996/1997, the FAFSA language read something like "If your parents can claim you, check here". They didn't care whether or not I was/would be actually claimed. They didn't care whether or not I was claimed the year before!

Check this: I had one year of independence because I was married at the time, but next year I was divorced (long story. email me if you want it.), and since I was divorced, I went back to being claimable and lost my FAFSA-based grants.

Anyway, after enough whining, mom convinced dad to pick up the cost of the loans for that year and now work is paying for my state college tuition. woot.

-l

Re:Not if...

[kikta]

I wasn't aware of the old language, thanks for the correction. I'm glad to hear that mom got dad to step up. Good luck with school.

one of first Apple employees a teenager

[peter303]

The name slips my mind. Does anyone remember? This kid just hung around Cupertino in the late 1970s and worked up to a pretty high position in Apple. I believe he was on the Mac development team.

My own NDAs

[Ndr_Amigo]

God knows I've signed NDAs with Matrix, 3dfx, ATI, etc with my work in open-source 3d gaming.

And as a note, at least one of those companies had to know I was 15 at the time. But I recieved driver source, API information and hardware samples. Of course, I still had to wait til I turned 18 to get the job I wanted, but that was for 'customer security'.

Thankfully in Australia things are a lot easier in regards to people catcalling 'Child Labor!' all the time, although I was dealing with international companies. The biggest problem I've ever had due to my age is getting into conferences. Apart from SAGE/AUUG where my uncle pulled some strings and everyone was very friendly.

It's quite a pity... that the problem is law doesn't take into consideration that (expecially in the IT industry,) most people make their mark when they are young. Hence why my username is always Ender, in sympathy for all those who have to deal with adults who can't deal with the fact a 13yo is more intelligent than they are!

Everyone goofed of this one.

[welshsocialist]

On the jilted developers webpage, it says he is 15. Why can't he wait 3 years and then reapply to join the Darwin project? Barring that, I feel that everyone goofed on this one. Blame should be assigned to Apple for not catching this before. His parents should accept a helping of blame. They should have kept track of what he was doing and have read the legalese before touching the code! The jilted developer should also be ashamed for not bowing out with grace.

When I was 15, I was flying though my history classes and going to battlefields and other historical places...

I hope she made you pay that $400 bill

[Weasel Boy]

The last thing we need is to bring up yet another generation on the idea that they can weasel out of any obligation they find inconvinient. Many of the problems society has today stem from peoples' basic unwillingness to take responsibility for their own actions.

Re:I hope she made you pay that $400 bill

[ryanvm]

I hope she made you pay that $400 bill. The last thing we need is to bring up yet another generation on the idea that they can weasel out of any obligation they find inconvinient.

No she didn't make me pay. And considering that BMG's entire business plan is based on bilking people for shit they forgot to tell you they don't want, I can understand why. There's a reason that minors are not able to legally enter into a contract - they're fucking irresponsible. And surprise - I acted irresponsibly.

BMG's membership plan is framed on deception. I don't feel particularly guilty about it since as a 13 year-old, they duped me into signing up.

P.S. - I find it ironic that someone whose handle is "Weasel Boy" is lecturing me on the principles of integrity.

Same thing happened with us on NDAs

[jpellino]

We did external research for Apple, and we had a dozen or so elementary students testing pre-release hardware and software for Apple ATG... they realized the kids couldn't sign a meaningful, binding contract,so we sorta shrugged over it, I read the kids the riot act, made them stand on one leg, raise their right hands, etc... and we all made it through - the lead time to rollout was only about a quarter, so it went OK - but we all held our breath for 90 days. One of the Apple employees on a site visit mentioned that on the flight out, he was seated next to a woman who found out he worked for Apple and was supremely interested in what he did, questioning him incessantly for most of the trip. When they landed, she handed him her business card - an intellectual property lawyer who had recently worked for Apple and decided to see how much of a secret he could keep. She congratulated him on passing with flying colors.

nice action...

[Ruliz Galaxor]

goodbye future Apple developer... I'm sure Apple could have come up with something better then this, which is legal and stuff. Now they're just loosing future developers because of this incident.
Not really smart thinking, Mr. Apple!

Save Finlay!

[mcelli]

Sweet, I was getting bored of Dmitry, now we can save Finlay Dobbie...he has a much cooler name anyways. Good timing too, protesting is a good chance to go outside and catch some rays!

Somebody kill the lawyers. Quick!

[crovira]

This is yet another example of a lawyer having his head firmly wedged up his ass and being surprised that maybe not everything is brown and smells like shit.

Jobs should fire the fucking lawyer, who does nothing but cost him money and piss off his customers.

In fact, I'm going to write to him right now and suggest exactly that. Bye.

Why not just hire him?

[rnd()]

Couldn't Apple just hire him? At least that way ownership of any IP that he generated would be Apple's, and all Apple would have to do is stay within the terms of their OSS license.

give him a honorary recognition award....

[mozkill]

give him a honorary recognition award....

why not?

You don't get it...

[Bodrius]

The joke is in the moderation.

That will teach him

[nilonaut]

about the stupidity to work for free for greedy companies.

Re:That'd be like...

[King of the World]

Which would be ok, asuming it's an evil baby.

disgusting

[samantha]

I was around when Apple was two guys in a garage with a silly looking prototype in a wooden box. In those days a lot of the best hackers were either very young (one outfit was run by a 13 yr old out of his bedroom), on SSI, on drugs or some combination of the above. Apple used to have hippies in vans camped in their parking lot for weeks in hopes of getting an interview. For them to act like a bunch of stiff suits now and particularly on such stupid legalistic grounds is utterly disgusting.

What the hell is Open Source about their process?

A new spin on the law-interpreting

[jonjohnson]

This may make it more complex, and maybe it has been said already. He's from Europe, too. I'm only 17, but a fairly good online buddy with him, and I don't really know the laws and how the laws actually hold up outside the US. This could actually be a very interesting job for some lawyer to review :P - Jon

GPL does not help in this situation

[dmoen]

A GPL product can always get away with it, because any addition to the product is a derived work, and all derived works belong to the author of the original work

Nope.

The GPL cannot and does not take legal precedence over copyright law itself. The definition of derived work, and the definition of who owns a work, is the same, regardless of whether the GPL or the BSD licence is used.

If I write a patch to the Linux kernel, then I own the copyright to that patch, unless I explicitly relinquish the copyright. By default, nobody can do anything with my patch without my permission (subject to "fair use" exemptions). Linus cannot put my patch into the Linux kernel unless I give permission. One way for me to do this is to release the patch under the GPL.

The GPL cannot take away my ownership rights to my patch. What the GPL does is to prohibit me from distributing a copy of the Linux kernel with my modifications, unless I release those modifications under a licence compatible with the GPL, or place them in the public domain, or sign over the copyright to my patch to Linus.

Doug Moen

Re:GPL does not help in this situation

[Courageous]

In general, you are incorrect. While I happen to have known about this for a while, I just talked to an intellectual property attorney about this very subject today.

Current copyright law is extremely clear on this subject matter. The law assigns "exclusive rights" for all derivative works to the owner of the original work. Lacking a binding legal agreement to the contrary, if you prepare a derivative work of someone else's work, the one and only person who has copyright over this work is the owner of what it is you are deriving from.

Enter "copyright derivative" into Google for more information.

As to whether or not your "patch" is actually a "derivative work" of the Linux kernel, I'll leave that for you to decide. What's clear is that if someone executes a cvs update or some other change to a GPL'd work at a central repository, they've made clear that their work _is_ a derivative. The matter of ownership is decided, and would require an act of god to reverse unless the so-called "derivative" were really a whole copyrighted work in and of its own right and not a "derivative" at all. Submitting a kernel patch that prints the text of the Lord of the Rings comes to mind.

Hope this helps.

C//

Re:GPL does not help in this situation

[tps12]

a kernel patch that prints the text of the Lord of the Rings

Any idea when Linus is going to add this? Thanks.

Wow. Talk about your cutting-edge journalism.

[softsign]

So, 3 hours after you posted the story, after ~600 /.-ers have sounded off against Apple, after a few other stories to grab attention have piled up, and at the end of the business day you finally realize that maybe you should occasionally do some research.

The reason? It turns out this kid's rant against Apple was missing one important detail... The one where we learn he was being provided developer access by someone who was violating a legally binding agreement. Maybe that's why Apple went all heavy-handed and cut off this developer's account? Oops.

I feel sorry for the kid if he wants to hack Darwin and Apple won't let him contribute his code back. I don't feel sorry for the kid (or his co-conspirators) for doing an end-run around Apple's contracts and getting burned. Welcome to the real world - you better get used to it.

You've got some points but...

[isaac]

The difference is that computer geeks don't usually use their grasp of arcana to fleece people

You may rest assured that computer geeks use their grasp of arcana to fleece people all the time. I see it all the time, from BOFH-types I'd encounter on the job to Bill Gates.

whereas many lawyers will use their knowledge of the law to harrass enemies of wealthy clients,

Yep. Unfortunately, this does happen, though wealthy clients who want to harrass enemies, real or imagined, will do so regardless of whether they hire a lawyer or a layperson to prepare the paperwork.

fleece defendents with deep pockets

A lawyer who takes his deep-pocketed clients' money without winning cases will very soon have no deep-pocketed clients to fleece. Again, this behaviour (not to excuse it) is hardly unique to lawyers; as a contract UNIX admin, I'd spend 4 gigs out of 5 cleaning up after some previous geek who had fleeced my client in the past and stuck them with broken or unmanageable systems and networks.

needlessly complicate otherwise simple transactions with legal nitpicking,

Like what? Wherever you see "nitpicking" in an agreement, you should know that means every one of the nits being picked has, at some point in the past, hatched and bitten someone in the ass who didn't expect it.

and otherwise make our lives more complex, more legalistic, and more adversarial.

Well, I don't think life would be any less complex or adversarial without lawyers, but I realize this is a point on which reasonable people can differ. I agree with you on "more legalistic" but that the existence of lawyers makes life "more legalistic" isn't a stretch, it's tautology. Computer geeks make life more complex and "more technologistic," but I don't count this against them.

There are estimates that every lawyers who enters the profession costs the US economy more than his salary in dead-weight costs.

I'd love to see a reputable source for this. It sounds pretty difficult to quantify, given that money that goes to lawyers doesn't vanish out of the economy. I won't argue that there aren't overpaid lawyers (or overpaid computer geeks), but that money doesn't just disappear.

-Isaac

Re:You've got some points but...

[binarybits]

You may rest assured that computer geeks use their grasp of arcana to fleece people all the time. I see it all the time, from BOFH-types I'd encounter on the job to Bill Gates.

I think the difference between lawyers and other professions is that other professions can generally only fleece their own customers, while lawyers often fleece complete strangers. This is where the term "ambulance chaser" comes from, for example-- lawyers who look for injured people who can rack up enormous damages due to "pain and suffering." Yes, some of those claims are justified, but oftentimes they are not, and the goal is to find the richest person involved in the accident regardless of whether he was primarily responsible.

I'm not saying that lawyers fleece their own clients, but rather, that they help their clients fleece wealthy defendants based on trumped-up charges. This raises risks and hence costs for everyone.

Well, I don't think life would be any less complex or adversarial without lawyers, but I realize this is a point on which reasonable people can differ. I agree with you on "more legalistic" but that the existence of lawyers makes life "more legalistic" isn't a stretch, it's tautology. Computer geeks make life more complex and "more technologistic," but I don't count this against them.

The problem is that the more lawyers you have looking for clever ways to sue people, the more you need lawyers on the *other* side advising clients how to avoid such lawsuits. As a result you get an ever-escalating arms race between the two sides, and lawyers on both sides get rich.

It's not simply that lawyers are legalistic (which I agree is a tautology) but that lawyers legalisms are forced on the whole country, because we *all* have to change our behavior to avoid getting sued. Even companies that aren't doing anything wrong need to hire lawyers to make sure they're not running afowl of any technicalities, and to defend themselves when they are falsely accused of wrongdoing.

The result is a dead loss to the economy. Both sides hire more and more lawyers, and while the results turn out the same, the costs soar.

It would be a little bit like if hacking were a profitable profession, and half the computer geeks went into hacking and the other half went into computer security. The more geeks in the hacking profession, the more companies would have to hire other geeks for security purposes. People would rightly view this as a protection racket.

I'd love to see a reputable source for this. It sounds pretty difficult to quantify, given that money that goes to lawyers doesn't vanish out of the economy. I won't argue that there aren't overpaid lawyers (or overpaid computer geeks), but that money doesn't just disappear.

I don't remember the source, but the argument is that every frivolous lawsuit wastes the time and resources of dozens of people to no particular benefit. In addition, people trying to protect themselves from future frivolous lawsuits are forced to go our of their way to cover their asses. (things like "don't trim hedges with this" warnings on lawnmowers) Obviously assigning costs and benefits is going to have a major political aspect, so I'm not going to claim the exact figure is objective, but I think it's clear that there is a certain cost imposed on the economy by frivolous lawsuits and excessive litigousness.

Re:You've got some points but...

[haystor]

Geeks write software for themselves and lawyers write laws for themselves.

That is, I agree with you.

Re:You've got some points but...

[isaac]

Even companies that aren't doing anything wrong need to hire lawyers to make sure they're not running afowl of any technicalities, and to defend themselves when they are falsely accused of wrongdoing.

Businesses consult and retain legal counsel because ignorance of the law is no excuse. Now, legislatures could draft laws that give persons who did not know about a given law an affirmative defense. They don't. Why? First, how do you prove the defendant did not know about the law they were charged with violating? The defendant's testimony to that effect? Nevermind the fact that such a defense creates an incentive for the defendant to be as ignorant as possible about the law, subverting its intent entirely. I think this is a pretty good rationale for ignorance of the law being no excuse.

If you're suggesting, rather, that the problem is that we have too many laws on the books, I'd agree with you wholeheartedly. That's a problem with the law, not lawyers per se.

I'm not sure I think it's unreasonable, in any case, that a company might need in-house counsel - large businesses are complex beasts with all sorts of contractual relationships, insurance and tax requirements, etc. Not every business transaction can be handled with an oral agreement and a handshake - we're talking about long-term contracts, construction contracts, fabrication or equipment supply, etc. etc. and somebody has to draft them.

-Isaac

Re:You've got some points but...

[mpe]

If you're suggesting, rather, that the problem is that we have too many laws on the books, I'd agree with you wholeheartedly. That's a problem with the law, not lawyers per se.

But isn't part of the reason for this that many legislatures have a disproportionate number of lawyers amongst their members.

Re:You've got some points but...

[isaac]

But isn't part of the reason for this that many legislatures have a disproportionate number of lawyers amongst their members.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc? No. I think most laws result from someone with a greivance saying "there oughtta be a law!" and lobbying the legislature. Usually this is a party with a financial stake on the outcome of the law, but occasionally a motivated individual with a popular cause can get their cause validated by legislators pandering for votes. I'm not defending this practice, just calling it as I see it. I don't think lawyers are the reason why legislatures pass bad laws.

-Isaac

Re:You've got some points but...

[WNight]

The solution to the complex laws that people need to hire lawyers to follow isn't to make ignorance a valid excuse. It's to simplify laws.

Part of high school (the required schooling) should be used to teach the law. Anything that can't then be understood by a graduate of this course with an average reading comprehension should either be revised until it can, or removed from the books. Ditto with the volume of law. If it can't be reduced to where the average person (with this mandatory training) could keep enough in their head at once to determine the legality of any action they contemplated, it should be simplified.

We've got a situation today where nobody, even a trained lawyer, can know all of the law. It's so complex that you pretty well can't avoid breaking some laws or opening yourself to liability in some way. This just means that you get selective enforcement. Everyone is guilty and the system punishes those they wish, everyone else who committed the same crime (even if only by technicality) goes free, through no fault or innocence of their own.

I'd say that this type of course (and tests based on it) should be part of the requirement for being a legal adult and being able to go to war, drink, and vote.

Moreover, to avoid abuse (setting the bar to high) there should be at least a 90% passing grade. If the schools can't manage this either the test is too hard (reduce the legal complexity) or better the schools.

An interesting side benefit of this is that if someone wants to study outside school they can challenge the tests. A precocious 12-year old can get themselves declared legally adult while a dull 35-year old perhaps could not. (It's not perfect, but makes at least as much sense as a hard age limit.)

Re:Don't blame Apple -- they're following the law

[inkswamp]

Insight, intelligence, and a sober viewpoint. Aside from the "know it alls" line, a well reasoned point. Mod this parent up!

Well, thank you. And, btw, the "know it alls" line wasn't meant to apply to all in the open source community... just the know it alls therein. No offense intended. :^)

--Rick

Finlay is concerned about the success of Darwin

[yuriwho]

If you read Finlays missive carefully, he raises the question as to whether Darwin is really OPEN source and whether it will succeed the way Linux and BSD have by attracting outside developers to contribute. His main arguments are that the bug tracking system "Radar" is not open and that they make it too legally difficult for anyone (even older than 18) to become a Darwin committer. These are very valid concerns and much more important than whether 15 year olds can sign an NDA....If Darwin is truly open source, no NDA should be required!

So, what do you think? Will Darwin be successful as an open source project or is it a closed source project masquerading as an open source project?

Y

Re:Finlay is concerned about the success of Darwin

[demon]

Apple is answering that question with their actions. Aside from the fact that the Darwin kernel in the public repository isn't even from the same codebase that's actually used in the shipping OS X product, the fact that Apple felt it necessary to relicense code which was already under the BSD license under one which is more restrictive, which they can use to keep control over the codebase (does it still have the termination clauses?), Apple's made it pretty clear they're not "open source" in the sense that Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD are.

the infamous PPP-hang bug

[zaqattack911]

ppp bug? Who cares about that?!
Could someone please track down the Infamous "aqua won't run on x86" bug.

thanks.

That is secret beyond top secret

[ynotds]

money that goes to ... doesn't vanish out of the economy ... money doesn't just disappear

You can't go round telling people that. If the word gets out the whole house of cards comes crumbling down.

If the wider populace starts seeing that the local concepts of saving and wasting money simply do not apply at a global scale they will no longer be motivated to do such things.

This is a secret that is so secret that the keepers of secrets are not entrusted with it, and here you are letting it out of the bag deep in the obsucrity of /. where it can only corrupt those minors that are the focus of this thread ... most especially those who have already learnt that there are rewards other than money to be had from doing good work.

It's all in the future you want.

[Erris]

Not only is apple within their rights here, but they must actually exercise this to protect future rights.

This just goes to show that Apple does not want to be free. The only future "rights" that can be protected this way, is for Apple to keep you from:
Using your software as you see fit.
Changing your software to suit your needs.
Sharing your improvements with your friends.
Allowing your friends all the above rights.

Don't tell me that this was not HIS software, but was Apple's. He was writing it, it was his as well as others. As with most non-free software interests, Apple locked our friend out of his work.

Why do people appologize and defend such obviously ugly behavior? Once again, the downsides of non-free development are made manifest. What were the benifits? That more people would use your code thanks to Apple's marketing department? That Apple would better control quality? That Apple's co-operation with other non-free software and hardware vendors would make sure that users of your code could use hardware not available to others? That you would have to give Apple money to have your software back? As you help Apple to deny other's rights you make them stronger and more able to do things like this to you. If you consider such impositions "protecting future rights", you are really warped.

Re:It's all in the future you want.

[mshurpik]

Don't tell me that this was not HIS software, but was Apple's. He was writing it, it was his as well as others. As with most non-free software interests, Apple locked our friend out of his work.

And somehow, this fine post, which cut right to the heart of the matter, was rated OFFTOPIC.

This author is talking about Apple, he's talking about this kid, and he's talking about the meaning and implications of this news item.

How is this offtopic? Who are you, Slashdot moderator, who is your god and how can I destroy him?

Re:Don't blame Apple -- they're following the law

[demon]

COPPA only applies to children under the age of 13. That's why sites that collect personal information all say something to the effect of "no one under 13 may use this site".

If you're going to start quoting law, at least be familiar with it.

Finlay Dobbie is the future.

[dudle]

Apple has to be out of their mind to allow corporate legal red tape boloney to squelch the brillant mind of Finlay Dobbie. They should be ashamed because they were once young themselves.

N.L.

Oh boy.

[Decimal]

Here it comes. Chants of "Apple had to do this to protect themselves!" from unwavering Apple fans.

Great.

[mindstrm]

Nice to see how the other open-source developers in the community stood behind him.

Or is the 'community' a myth.

They should have all said "You lock him out, we all quit"

Hollywood with Child actors went here before

[shovelface]

The movie business already had to contend with this. There are child actors all the time, creating content (performances), who are working and legally contributing. There are different rules for child actors than regular actors though, including shorter maximum shooting days, trust fund witholding (so that parents can't take the money from the kid before their old enough to use it), and other rules specific to minors. Sometimes studios decide they don't want to go to all that trouble for a role (why do you think everyone on Dawsons Creek or Beverly Hills 90210 was not *actually* in high school?) and hire younger adults anyway. But many times they hire minors, and because they law is figured out already, they do what they need to. Child actors can do what they love, and the government can still keep children from being exploited (as much as they can anyone).

Perhaps this is a good model for software development as well? (As are other corellations between making movies and making software.)

-Trout

The problem is with Apple

[twitter]

Don't think any free project would turn him away, would they? I'd say that the GPL protects children's rights just as well as it does anyone else's. Under the GPL, our friend is free to run his software as he sees fit, can modify it to his tast, and can share his improvements with his friends. Why not? US child labor laws protect children from exploitation, not education, entertainment and publication of bright ideas. The copyright protects him just as it does the original authors. He won't be able to use his age a shield to violate other people's rights to the good things that the much less restrictive GPL gave him. So there you have it, Apple chose a restrictive liscense so that they could violate their user's rights. This is an Apple problem, no one else's.

So, I might buy an imac anyway. When, oh when, will the Apple folks trust their superior hardware design's ability to sell? This whole propriatory software swindle does more to hurt them than it does to help. Imagine a Mac Debian distro as one of the simplified install optptions or simply preloaded. Kinda like, "here you go, have a movie editor, CD burner, and software to make all these cool gadgets work. You can install more if you like, after all it's your computer." Yes, I really would buy one, and so would everyone else.

No, not US citizens

[benb]

> In other words, once again the U.S. legal system is making life
> difficult for its citizens.

Why do you think that he is a US citizen? In fact, he seems to be British:

http://www.btinternet.com/~finlay.dobbie/ : (=British Telecom)

"It took three transatlantic phone calls..."

Re:No, not US citizens

[mpe]

Why do you think that he is a US citizen? In fact, he seems to be British:
http://www.btinternet.com/~finlay.dobbie/ : (=British Telecom)

Well it is possible for a US citizen to be resident elsewhere. Though it's starting to sound more like someone in the US attempting to apply US law to someone who is not resident in the US and most likely isn't a US citizen.
Back to the issue of application of national laws over the Internet. Who's law applies if you are accessing a computer in another country?
a) that of the country where you physically
b) that of where the machine you are accessing actually is
c) that of where the machine you are accessing perports to be e.g. use of a country TLD, contains a catalogue with prices in one currency.

Re:No, not US citizens

[benb]

> Who's law applies if you are accessing a computer in another
> country?
> a) that of the country where you physically

If you are a UK citizen residing in the UK, you are under UK jurisdiction. Only the laws of UK apply.

In theory. (There might be agreements between UK and US to apply each others law to a limited extend, esp. where they overlap.)

IANAL.

Re:No, not US citizens

[Sabriel]

Ah. Actually, didn't really have his citizenship in mind, was speaking somewhat generically. I guess then one can say the U.S. legal system is making life difficult for everyone? :p

I worked NDAs...

[James1006]

I did NDAs and stuff for Sierra when I was 15-17. Never an issue with them.

Granted I was not working code and wasn't contributing (only testing), but breaking an NDA is still a bad thing(TM).

I never even had to 'sign' the NDAs, it was a 'Click here to accept this NDA agreement' on an online form. I think they did have a clause saying that if you are a minor, your parents must consent on your behalf.

My mom thought it was BS stuff until I started getting FedEx deliveries every week. :p

So? Apple is a hardware company.

[torpor]

Free software that runs on their hardware is a blessing to their business.

So they do everything they can to help out, within the realms of their existing business model... until *someone* works out an economics model that functions under OSS ideologies capable of supporting an organization as *Big* as Apple, its staff, and shareholders.

But really, quit bitching about it. Apple make great hardware - and are *STILL* doing great things for computing for the masses, even to this day.

Not that there aren't other options, but while you've still got options, quit complaining about one of them!

This under-18 issue is really not worth the hooplah - its technologically tabloid. As others have stated, big deal - he'll still write OSS, he'll probably still love computing, and maybe he'll still end up contributing anyway.

And there's always emancipation!

Really, sometimes you /. people are just so knee-jerk, it kills me ...

No Refund for ADC Account

[herbierobinson]

It was really low that they didn't refund his ADC account.

They don't have any choice about accepting code, because effectively, he can't assign copyrights for his changes. Even if his parents sign for it, he could void the assignment after he turned 18 -- or at least would have a good shot at it, given that he wasn't paid for his work...

But, they should have been a lot nicer about it and at least had the lawyers explain what the problem was and maybe shipped him a free computer or something...

Re:No Refund for ADC Account

[nibs]

They don't have any choice about accepting code, because effectively, he can't assign copyrights for his changes.

this has nothing to do with accepting code. according to the article he _can_ continue working on darwin.

it's just a hassle for him to get updates to project builder, interface builder et. al. apple's gui tools.

the cli tools are a part of darwin ofcourse.

It was really low that they didn't refund his ADC account.

in the article he states he wasn't old enough to get a student account. this leads me to believe he had a free online account.

if he had a select or premier account, he wouldn't have mentioned/cared about the student account.

it's shady that apple wouldn't offer a refund, but apparently he hasn't lost any money at all.

Re:No Refund for ADC Account

[fdobbie]

Thank god I didn't give them any of my money! I have considered it several times in the past, but thought that $500 was a bit steep for the returns I'd be getting, being generally a hobbyist coder.

Re:Perhaps YOU are the one who is just plain dumb

[colmore]

actually they could have ignored it entirely.

obviously the kid is on apple's side (or was) and wasn't going to do anything against them. if they hadn't done anything about it, it wouldn't be in the news, no problem for them. this is a classic example of a kneejerk, lawyer reaction that nobody thinks to question.

Your Contemptous Atittude

[@madeus]

Welcome to the real world - you better get used to it
</quote>

Or, instead of being both lazy and cowardly, we could try and change it.

Perhaps you are anti revolution? All revolutions, even minor ones? Including the american revolution?

<irony>Best not to change anything, including da we we treat dem niggas, caus that's just the real world and the'd better get used it. </irony>

Re:Gotta love contract law-GPL

[mpe]

The GPL is not a contract.

Actually the GPL is a contract, which allows you to do things with a copyright work you would not otherwise be allowed to do. In exactly the same way that a publishing contract can allow a publisher who is not the copyright holder to publish a copyright work.

Re:Perhaps YOU are the one who is just plain dumb

[mother pussbucket]

Until the kid decides to tell his schoolmates how l33t he is. Which makes into the computer club newsletter. Is picked up by the local press as a human interest story. Spun by the national media (MSNBC) into an "APPLE EXPLOITS CHILDREN" headline.

Re:Gotta love contract law-GPL

[mpe]

Once copyright is something that expires after seven years or so, *whoosh* all that GPL'd code... mmmmm, tasty......

Not all GPL code, simply that which hasn't been altered for 7 years. Any active project would still have the current release fully protected by copyright. Microsoft would probably be very worried about new versions of Windows 95 which run well on all the latest hardware though...

Re:Parents or something (Curfews in Florida)

[lameland]

I can tell you're not a history major. Florida was given to the US by Spain in 1821 -- 40 years before the start of the Civil War.

It became a state in 1845, and seceeded in 1861 -- the third state to leave the Union.

You might want to learn some history before you start shooting off your mouth

What state are you in?

[fizbin]

There's a reason I ask: Individual Education Plans.

These IEPs are wonderful little inventions that many states have written into their education laws; basically, what they are is a way out for you and your school when/if you want to do something other than sit with a babysitter who happens to have teaching credentials.

It may be difficult to write an IEP until you get into high school, but you can begin researching some of the possibilities now. I remember finding The Gifted Kids' Survival Guide most helpful when I was about your age, though I didn't get off my ass and seriously pursue IEP stuff until 11th grade.

If you live in a state with sensible gifted education laws and in a school district which respects those laws (or have an intimidating attorney ready to go to bat for you), then it is possible to essentially write your own education plan. You may at most be able to get a few periods a week - there are still some courses you'll have to take, and doing poorly in them could scuttle everything else, so you'll just have to suffer through history of Western Civ. However, in the "spare" time you'll be able pursue anything you want; my personal suggestion would be to contact professors at some local college or university (there are probably some community college professors who would love to see anything approaching a talented and motivated student) and get them to sponsor some computing projects. This adds an air of academic legitimacy which your public school is going to need to feel good about letting you do something school administrators can't understand.

My IEP senior year specified AP Physics, since the offered physics course was a complete and total joke. I was lucky, and got five periods a week and an expanded book closet with desk. Occasionally they'd throw some old hardware at me, and halfway through the year the teacher who was nominally supervising me got promoted to an administrative position and I was left completely alone. It was a good year.

they don't deserve it.

[Penguinoflight]

Apple could do otherwise, they're just a mean company in general. The shareholders don't need to know about a expert programmer who is a minor, and neither does the board.

Show him some appreciation? I hope they do, but they won't.

And Johnny Torch says "Flame On"...

[feloneous cat]

Hey, I worked with the Apple folks on the PB of OS X (as an ADC member - legally!) and they are, from what I have been able to determine, a pretty good bunch of folks.

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?

Recourse

[signifying nothing]

This can't be right - if Apple were found liable to pay damages relating to code contributed by an individual, it is highly unlikely that they could reclaim significant compensation from any coder; a minor is not much different in this case from a 19 year old college student.

What next - proof of $500,000 in liquid assets before you can contribute code?

what does this have to do with darwin?

[nibs]

is this even an issue of him committing to the repositories?

from reading that article i get the idea that nothing has changed on that, and his work as a darwin developer/committer can continue.

his issue was solely with the adc program, and the fact that apple requires even online members to agree to an nda; and the fact that you need to be an adc member to download the dev tools. this is where the age issue applies, this has nothing to do with darwin.

reading the article, he decided to give up on the darwin project because of his issues with adc.

that's what his article says.

what it doesn't say is who exactly made the decision to follow-through with the decision to revoke his adc privileges.

he mentions darwin a whole lot, but this is apparently an adc issue and not a darwin issue. for all we know the "darwin people" at ï£ might have gone to bat for him [and struck out] or simply not known, or had no say in the matter.

we don't know what happened in that regard.

imho his article portrays the darwin project unfairly.

and yes i agree with him that apple shouldn't require an nda to download the dev tools.
apple shouldn't require an nda for online members because online members and student devs (for the most part) don't get any pre-release software.

but finlay is well respected on the darwin lists, and it seems people are trashing the darwin projects unnecessarily here.

nibs

Re:Wow. Talk about your cutting-edge journalism.

[Muggin]

Or perhaps in YOUR limited hindsight you could offer a solution that forces minors to lie to participate in something they view as both fun and interesting. In the previous posts above one such person suggested that Apple rewrite the contract to allow a legal guardian to sign.

Yes this is acceptable. In most states the parent or legal guardian can do such things, and they are legally binding, as that person is responsible in making decisions for that child. So instead of firing, or whatever you would call giving a volunteer the boot, they should have asked that boy's parents for approval and sent them a contract.

I have always been a proponent of setting up things, legal things, children that age can participate in without having to lie about their age. Apple should have taken the time to think that through instead of assuming that only PhDs would be the only ones that would want to hack Apple source.

So you don't misunderstand me, YES he lied, but to participate in something that obviously he enjoyed (yeah a kid can have fun coding, I did)that was legal and would teach him valuble work related skills. Sorry, but McDonald's or any other stereotypic blue collar job that most kids are "privledged" to work in is only going to enforce a poor work ethic, as their experience is going to be unpleasant. They need to realize, just like us adults we should do something we enjoy as a career. Yeah at the end of the day we need to clothe ourselves and our families, but that shouldn't also come at the expense of our personal fullfillment. If you come home miserable and bitch about how you hate your job you are just going to make yourself and family miserable.

MY Contemptous Atittude?

[softsign]

Those are some quality inferences... You're absolutely right. I am anti-democracy and pro-slavery (oh, and lazy and cowardly). Go status quo!

I never said I didn't think the kid should be allowed to contribute if he wants to... I was making the point that it's irresponsible of /. to post a story that is so obviously one-sided (and by the kid's own admission, incomplete). At the end of the day, thousands of eyes have seen "Evil corporation smacks down poor kid" rather than "Cautious/Lawyer-filled corporation covers its ass". There's a world of difference. All it would have taken is an email to follow-up with Finlay.

It's also irresponsible of Finlay and his ADC account-sharing friends to think that surreptitiously circumventing a legal agreement is going to produce the desired result... That's where the "real world" comment comes in... In this world, you can expect repercussions when you break contracts. And that's what he and his friend did.

God forbid an opposing viewpoint...

Re:MY Contemptous Atittude?

[@madeus]

Oh FWIW, I don't actually have anything against the main content of your post.

I also happen to think Apple is simply cover it's ass, though are being a bit lazy, from there persepective it's almost certainly not worth the $$$ in lawer's fees to get a special contract drawn up (unless of course he is contributing bucket loads of code).

I just happen to have a thing about people saying "that's life" and "welcome to the real world" as it's at the very least partly what we (as a society) make it.

I just really don't like those particular phrases because I've always been an alkward bastard who likes to solve problems rather than learn to live with them (which is usually the situation when someone is uttering one of those phrases, which people do because they are lazy and dumb, unlike good programmers who are lazy and smart and fix the problems simply so they and nobody else ever has to deal with them again).

To summerize:

Fixing problems - Good.
Suggesting to a younger gerneration that they learn to live with problems (like bad legislation) - _*BAD*_

Re:Wow. Talk about your cutting-edge journalism.

[softsign]

Hey, I'm not against the kid coding and contributing. Quite to the contrary.

Or perhaps in YOUR limited hindsight you could offer a solution that forces minors to lie to participate in something they view as both fun and interesting.

Que?

In the previous posts above one such person suggested that Apple rewrite the contract to allow a legal guardian to sign.

I am all for this.

Look the point is, he lied and got caught. There are some consequences. Pretty damned minor if you compare with someone like Jon Johansen. Apple legal has to cover ass because this kid is clearly not bound by any license agreement. Hopefully they'll work something out where he can contribute.

Re:Gotta love contract law-GPL

[AxelBoldt]

Actually, the GPL is a contract.

The GPL is a license which allows you to do things with a copyrighted work you would not otherwise be allowed to do. A contract is an agreement where two parties exchange something of value; both parties have to explicitly agree to the contract and have to be over 18. You don't have to agree to the GPL, and you don't have to give anything in value, and you don't have to be over 18. If you do anything with a copyrighted work that is not allowed by the GPL license, you are breaking copyright law.

What about download access?

[mlilback]

Yes, Apple has the rights to restrict access to their source code, yadda yadda yah.

But somone under 18 can get the developer tools by purchasing Mac OS X. They can have software updates automatically installed by the system. This then breaks the develooper tools, and they can't download the new ones without an ADC membership.

This is a problem Apple can fix. No agreement is required to use the tools, especially since they include gcc and other open source code under the GPL.

Apple is basically telling those under 18 they can't develop with Apple's tools.

Re:Revenge...

[SkyLeach]

BTW mods: thanks for bouncing me redundant dispite my post being there before any of the others along this line.

:P

John Adams quote in sig

[grouchomarxist]

This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it. -- John Adams

Your John Adams quote is a bit misleading. The full quote, found here, is:
Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!"

But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell.

As an atheist I found that quote surprising because John Adams was a very religious man. There is more about that quote here.

warrenty disclaimers?

[kesuki]

Does this mean that a minor can revoke the EULA and Sue say Microsoft for selling them a 'broken' product? This could be pure gold. Computers are most popular with teenagers anyways, even though it's generally the parents who own them. If anyone under 18 can revoke EULA fitness protection then there could be multi-billion dollar class action for companies selling broken software.

Re:Wow. Talk about your cutting-edge journalism.

[Muggin]

Don't know why I am even dignifying this with a response.

I doubt you could possibly take my comment out of context even further. People that are truly capable of real debate take these things into consideration. So to help you out here is the full quote which QUALIFIES the response I gave.

"So you don't misunderstand me, YES he lied, but to participate in something that obviously he enjoyed (yeah a kid can have fun coding, I did)that was legal and would teach him valuble work related skills."

Now that would be severly illegal. Or am I wrong?

Go take someone else's comments out of context.

Maybe it's also

[epepke]

I know that it's heretical to point this out, but the fact that 16-year-olds are worse drivers than 18-year-olds is at least in part because they don't have two years' experience.

The guy was wrong, though. If it were just restrictions (which already exist), it wouldn't be that big a deal. Many states are considering raising the driving age to 18, period. This seems to be based on two assumptions:

1. On your 18th birthday, the magic Good Driving Gene all of a sudden gets expressed.
2. It's much safer to make someone's first experience behind the wheel of a car happen without any parental supervision at all, especially if they're in a fraternity at college.