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Woz, Others Ask Apple To Go Easy On Tiger Leak
tabkey12 writes "Drunkenbatman posts this impressive article with a pointed quote from Apple co-creator Steve Wozniak and 24 others from all parts of the Apple Software world, criticising Apple's stance against a 23-year-old pre-med student, desicanuk, who distributed a pre-release Tiger build over a popular Mac Bittorrent site. There's also an interview with desicanuk on drunkenbatman's site. (Original Slashdot article here.)"
And given that he *must* have been aware of the
i) illegality
ii) traceability
of his leaks, he's a particularly stupid adult.
Spare your sympathy for people who deserve it.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
This would be a great place to see them settle for an "undisclosed sum" (like a dollar), on condition that neither party discuss the matter further. Everyone wins; Apple doesn't publicly "back down", and the guy gets his life back.
Or they could grind his bones to make their bread, whatever. I don't know him.
yes, but that's not the point, the point is that if you continue doing this kind of shit then people will see straight through your companys intentions and when your company is largely dependandt on very zealous fans that buy anything you make because it is from you it's a bad thing to piss them off.
and then you have a company kick started on money made from making (_black_ hat)hacking tools for the phone system suing some kid that just posts things that people email to him- obviously if they had some values once about freedom to do things they don't have them now.
like, hello, wtf? if that's not spineless from a company that's trying to act 'better' than the competition then what is..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Also, bankruptcy is ceasing to be much of an option for anything except perhaps large companies. Banks and credit card companies have managed to get the laws changed, I think you can't dissolve all, or at least most, of credit card debt anymore so a bankruptcy isn't helpful even if you're drowning in debt. Kinda sad, I'm sure there were some deadbeats who filed it just to avoid paying, but I really doubt _all_ of bankruptcies were like that.
People are not fans of Apple because Jobs is a nice guy. He's not. He's infamous for his absurdly hot temper.
People are not fans of Apple because they are warm and fuzzy towards those who they see as a threat to their interests. They're not. This goes all the way back to the Apple ][ and the lawsuits over the Frankline computers which were designed to mimic them.
People are fans of Apple because they keep cranking out impressive innovations to the way humans and computers interact, and when at their best, sell really spiffy hardware that takes advantage of these innovations.
As long as they do that, most of us are fine with them being asshats.
If someone gives respect because of my name and not what I have to say, then I don't really care if they're not listening; they're not the type of person I want to associate with.
How many /.ers didn't even blink while reading the intro?
At least this one.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
So yes, there does seem to be some truth in the claim. Funny, people seem to get mighty upset when it's hinted that maybe Steve Jobs is not that great of a guy. Personality-cult, perhaps?
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
No kidding. We need a law for this kind of stuff similar to the federal truth in lending laws that require you to basically put the gist of an agreement, the important details, at the top of the contract in plain english.
...which, I guess, means it'll never happen :)
Better yet, since I'm sure there will still be loopholes in that sort of thing, it could be interesting if there were some sort of universal file format for legal documents (and I don't mean word perfect, har, har) where I could have one generic agreement that I read in detail once and check what I agree with, will and won't do, then when I get a new one from a manufacturer it can show me how they differ. I'd like that...
Defamation is defamation. Free speech is free speech. The boundary between the two has been an ongoing debate since before the founding of this country. Take out "megacorps" and insert "Nobility" or "Celebrity" and you have the same cases going back for centures.
Trade marks are another item that are government registered and widely published. And like free speech, debate over common usage versus the trade mark owner goes back to the beginning of case law.
As far as trade secrets go, a trade secret can be between 2 people, or 2 million. The size of the distribution doesn't matter. What the law cares about is a) do you own the material and b) did you attempt to limit the distribution of it. Don't bitch at me, that is what case law dictates.
And as far as monetary damage goes, if someone takes your product and starts minting a cheap copies, that hurts your bottom line. This is Econ 101. This is why there are Patent and Trademark laws on the books. This is why there is a civil court system. That is why we have Copyrights.
One of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, was, after all, a retired printer.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming