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Slashback: Epson, AbiWord, Justification
It was the least they could do. Last week, AbiWord's PayPal account for donations was lightened to the tune of several hundred dollars. Now, an anonymous reader writes "According to this posting, PayPal has succumbed to the pressure. They have agreed to reimburse the AbiWord team for the money that was stolen from their account last week. I still want to know how the AbiWord account was broken into..."
Because licenses matter. specht writes "I am a bit surprised that nobody has reported this yet. EPSON KOWA made their scanner and printer software available for downloading again after they had to pull it because of a GPL violation (see the previous Slashdot story). More information about this (and why it had to be removed in the first place) are here . Kudos to EPSON KOWA and EPSON for working with the FSF to resolve these issues."
No, that's "Gorilla marketing." akiaki007 writes "As many might have noticed, Friday most of Manhattan was covered with butterflies. This article on CNN that states that NYC fined MS $50.00 and the cost of cleaning up the static-cling plastic ads. On a side note, most other companies probably would have been fined per ad, though somehow MS got off, pretty much scot-free."
Priceless -- which is nice when you're paying. Digital Soldier writes "HERE is an article from Government Executive Magazine justifying, from a security perspective, the use of open source software in government. In short, the article makes the point that open source software allows security administrators to be pro-active rather than purely reactive in their work. I guess they don't like waiting for service packs."
Lovely spam, lovely spam ah ah ah ah ... ghostrider_one writes "Australian IT is reporting that notorious Australian spammers T3 direct have appealed the recent dismisssal of their lawsuit against the person they blame for being blacklisted in SPEWS."
PayPal is not a bank. It's not run like a bank, it's not regulated like a bank, and deposits are not insured like a bank.
- Have a picture
I'm enjoying the idea of a handful of Microsoft PR employees rubbing these static-cling butterfly ads over their heads, vigorously no doubt, to achieve the desired sticky effect.
Average middle class person with $100,000 positive net worth (being generous to avergae of course) = $0.01 / $100,000 = 0.0000001
Microsoft with $40 billion in cash = $50 / $40 bil = 0.00000000125
Of course the marketers knew what they were doing with the ads. Did they not realize they were breaking the law? Of course they knew. They were counting on it, and by making waves, they were counting on getting on CNN and maybe others (/.). If they didn't make a fuss and apologize and such, then I, who am not a New Yorker, would never have known or seen the photo of the campaign. It worked. That's why they did it, and took the risk. So what if they have to pay a few dollars, even per butterfly. Its cheaper than running an add, most likely!
I am certain that high-profile news stories on Slashdot, The Register, and elsewhere had nothing to do with PayPal's decision to refund the money to the Abiword account. Now if any of us loses hundreds of dollars off of PayPal, we can be comfortable in the knowledge that PayPal will refund the amount we lost.
I think it's pretty funny that Micro$oft would choose a bug as it's logo.
And Microsoft had to pay $50 and clean up the garbage?!?!?!
Typical case of American Blind Justice, I think!
--
Evan "Ah, the classics..."
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Two facts:
1. I've never used PayPal.
2. I've never lost any money to PayPal.
Somehow these seem connected.
Here's my question: did Pay Pal give AbiWord the information about the transaction so they can track down the thieves who did this?
If not, why not? Maybe there's NOT a security problem... and the thieves work at PayPal?
OK, it's ridiculous... but so is the idea that Pay Pal wouldn't help AbiWord with such info...
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
One, I hate it when /. refuses a post just to use it from someone else later. Besides, my copy was much better than this.
Two: This is pure bullshit. IBM does something similar in San Fran with the "peace love Linux" logos and gets hurt for over $100,000 in fines. They did it in Chicago and they got assesed an $18,000 fine to the person who actually laid chalk on concrete and community service.
Why the hell did they only hit them up with a $50 fine? For a multibillion dollar corporation, headed by the world's richest man, this is lunacy. Per ad would have been better; a whopping huge fine would've been best.
Maybe Mayor Rich^H^H^H^HBloomberg didn't want to rock the boat and piss off a potential contributor.... then again, IIRC he _did_ run in '01 out of his pocket....
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
what about the countless other people that haven't resolved problems with Paypal? It seems the only way to get a response from them is to have someone post a story on Slashdot so they'll buckle under the pressure :)
How about giving M$ a taste of their own medicine? NT users have to pay per server and per license fee, so why not charge charge M$ per square meter and per pedestrian that walked by at the time?
... unsatisfying resolutions.
Paypal will resolve a problem with a prominent customer after a big fuss has been made about it. Otherwise, of course, no change.
Epson makes the smallest possible change to a license (not to forbid reverse engineering), so as to use an LGPLed library legally. It looks like Epson tried it on; it didn't work out, but it was worth a try.
Microsoft was almost certain to gain more by the stunt than it would lose in fines. $50 per "decal" would have been cheap, but it wasn't even fined that much.
I don't work for paypal and don't know anyone who does.
1. I've never had a problem.
2. Been a customer "since day one"
3. I've done a few grand through paypal and while they don't have phone support, i've never had an un-answered email request.
I only deal with ebay sellers +5, i only take payments from verified paypal account holders and i keep a seperate checking account established for just linking to such accounts.
Paypal is a godsend for those who push money, goods and materials. I don't treat it like a bank, and i respect it for what is is.
Change your passwords, don't be "gullible" deal with good people.
Common sense people.