Nah, any self-respecting red-baiting commie-hating paranoid isn't going to touch an open-source operating system (fear the viral licenses!) to begin with.
RedmondMag covered WebSideStory's stats catching up with OneStat's two months ago:
Two Web analytics companies that track usage of Web browsers now agree that Microsoft's Internet Explorer usage share is below 90 percent due to competition from the open-source Firefox browser.
The proportion of surfers using Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) has dropped to below 90%, say web analysts.
Net traffic monitor, OneStat.com, has reported that the open-source browser Firefox 1.0, released on 9 November, seems to be drawing users away from IE.
Yes, Dual Shock controllers came out with the first Gran Turismo, released on December 23, 1997.
Even though the infringed patents #6275213 and #6424333 were issued on August 14, 2001 and July 23, 2002 respectively, they're "submarine patents" originally filed on November 30, 1995.
Until 2003, US patent filers could request repeated continuations to intentionally delay issue of a patent for years, until a practical implementation of a technology appeared. Then they they let their submarine patent surface and collect royalties for 17 years from the issue date. (In 2003, the rules changed so that patents now last 20 years from the filing date.)
Remember back a few years ago here on/. there was that guy who had the "sore Hands" sig, which was his link to his "I hate you" page for his former employer? Part of his downfall was his employer made use of his website against him and used the trademarked references as a slander argument.
What downfall? http://sorehands.com/ documented William Silverstein's legal battle to get worker's compensation from Microsystems/Learning Company/Mattel. He won a 6-figure settlement. They made a groundless libel counterclaim over his website, which was dismissed.
He's still taking them to court to get it dismissed with prejudice, so they cannot later decide to refile.
Have somebody heard of anyone that have tried to sue Microsoft for loss of profit (or whatever) due to faulty products? Do Microsoft have some kind of protection from this?
The EULA distributed with Office 2000 specifically disclaims liability for "loss of profit":
"To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event shall Microsoft or its suppliers be liable for any special, incidental, indirect, or consequential damages whatsoever (including, without limitation, damages for loss of business profits, business interruption, loss of business information, or any other pecuniary loss) arising out of the use of or inability to use the SOFTWARE PRODUCT or the provision of or failure to provide Support Services, even if Microsoft has been advised of the possibility of such damages."
Under the USA's Uniform Commercial Code, there is by default an implied warranty that any product sold is "merchantable", meaning fit for the customary use that the product is put to. Unless the terms of sale change that implied warranty, a buyer could sue over dysfunctional software.
Software licenses generally disclaim those implied warranties, an innovation that began with VisiCalc's "as is" license. If you read the fine print of Microsoft EULAs, you will find a capitalized sentence like "TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, MICROSOFT AND ITS SUPPLIERS DISCLAIM ALL OTHER WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT, WITH REGARD TO THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT, AND THE PROVISION OF OR FAILURE TO PROVIDE SUPPORT SERVICES."
Whether the EULA has any legal weight is questionable. Software licenses are rarely presented at the time of sale. Installation programs try to impose them after the fact by demanding your agreement before installing the program on your computer.
Like many click-wrap agreements, Microsoft's EULAs are very one-sided, offering you nothing in return for restricting you from installing the software more than one computer, from making more than one backup copy, from lending the software to anyone else, from reverse-engineering the software, and sometimes even from reselling the software or from criticizing the product. Such "agreements" may not constitute valid contracts, and even if they were, may be invalid as "contracts of adhesion".
So, Microsoft and other software corporations lobby for UCITA (Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act) laws giving software the special ability to impose terms and restrictions after purchase. UCITA has already passed in Maryland and Virginia and has been introduced in the legislatures of many other states.
This isn't reality; this is the stuff of weird, weird dystopian fantasy.
No, if you tried to use Happy Birthday in a commercial enterprise like a restaurant, you'd see it's all too true.
Even nonprofit organizations get bitten. In 1996, the Wall Street Journal ran an article by Lisa Bannon entitled ASCAP Cautions the Girl Scouts: Don't Sing 'God Bless America'. Since we wouldn't want to violate the Wall Street Journal's copyright, here's a fair use excerpt:
A Stern Warning
Starting this summer, the American Society of
Composers, Authors & Publishers has informed camps
nationwide that they must pay license fees to use
any of the four million copyrighted songs written
or published by Ascap's 68,000 members. Those who
sing or play but don't pay, Ascap warns, may be
violating the law.
Like restaurants, hotels, bars, stores and clubs, which already pay fees to use copyrighted music, camps -- including nonprofit ones such as those run by the Girl Scouts -- are being told to ante up. The demand covers not only recorded music but also songs around the campfire.
"They buy paper, twine and glue for their crafts -- they can pay for the music, too," says John Lo Frumento, Ascap's chief operating officer. If offenders keep singing without paying, he says,
"we will sue them if necessary."
No more "Edelweiss" free of charge. No more "This Land Is Your Land." An Ascap spokesman says "Kumbaya" isn't on its list, but "God Bless America" is.
Another Group Set to Go
Diablo, an all-volunteer day camp that charges girls $44 a week to cover expenses, would owe Ascap $591 this year, based on the camp's size and how long it runs. Another composer group, Sesac Inc., which owns copyrights to such popular tunes as Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," says it plans to ask camps for another set of royalties this fall.
So far, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., the national
organization based in New York, isn't playing
along with royalty demands. But the American
Camping Association, in Martinsville, Ind., which
includes many Scout camps, advises members to
comply. Diablo's regional Girl Scout Council in
Oakland is low on cash and decided its 20 area
camps can't afford the extra expense. Rather than
risk a lawsuit, the council told all the camps to
scratch copyrighted songs from their programs even
though only a few received warning letters.
"At first I thought, 'You guys have got to be
kidding,'" says Sharon Kosch, the council's director of program services. "They can't sing the songs? But it's pretty threatening. We were told the penalty can be $5,000 and six days in jail."
So, the camp's directors have scrutinized its official "Elf Manual" and, in the section headed "Favorite Songs at Diablo Day Camp," have crossed out the most popular copyrighted tunes with black Magic Marker. The Scouts know about only a few of the banned songs because Ascap hasn't mailed out a complete list; it comprises four million songs and runs 70,000 pages. Ascap says it has, however, put a list on the Internet.
...
The Hunt for Violators
The federal copyright act allows composers and music publishers to demand royalty payments for any public performance of copyrighted material. The law defines a public performance as "where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered." Although the law has been on the books since 1909, Ascap began notifying large music users, such as hotels, only a little over a decade ago and more recently has worked its way down to small users, such as rodeos and funeral homes. This year, it negotiated a reduced annual fee of $257 with camps enrolled in the American Camping Association. For camps, such as Diablo, that aren't association members, the fees are higher,
ranging from $308 to $1,439 a year. Small camps that last two weeks or less get a special rate of $77.
Penalties for noncompliance can be stiff. The law sets fines up to $25,000 or a year in prison, or both, for major infringements. Ascap, which sends monitors around the country, has successfully sued restaurants, retailers and private clubs, Mr. Lo Frumento says. While the law hasn't been tested on camps, copyright attorneys say even little girls would lose.
"If you make an exception for the Girl Scouts, you could set a practical precedent," says Russell Frackman, a Los Angeles copyright lawyer. "You give the impression that a particular use is not an infringement, and that can be used against you in the future."
>> She just didn't get it and even said that Disney should get perpetual copyright protection.
My favorite example of the absurdity of perpetual copyright is the song "Happy Birthday to You", composed by Kentucky schoolteacher Mildred Hill in 1859. Her sister Patty wrote lyrics and first published it as "Good Morning to All" in "Song Stories of the Kindergarten" in 1893. Mildred died penniless in 1916.
In 1924, Robert H. Coleman republished the song without permission, adding a second "Happy Birthday to You" verse. The surviving Hill sisters sued and the song was finally copyrighted in 1935.
Of course, the sisters aren't collecting royalties any longer. The copyright is now owned by AOL/Time Warner, and still garnerting about $2 million in royalties each year as of about 5 years ago (which is why television programs usually resort to "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" instead). If Disney continues to get copyright extension bills passed every 20 years, the copyright on this simple 19th century folksong will never expire.
The Constitution originally intended "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". But death plus 95 years? To what end, encouraging Mildred Hill to compose more songs?
>> I knew that she had totally lost it when I suggested that the heirs of William Shakespear might complain and demand royalties for plays written by the great bard. She thought it was a good idea and was trying to decide how we should go about paying those royalties...
Good job getting your mother to think about the logistics of awarding Shakespeare's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-gr andchildren. However, if Shakespeare's works were still covered under death plus 315 year copyrights, surely a media conglomerate would be collecting the royalties now, not the putatively deserving 10th generation heirs.
You can fault ICANN for many reasons but telling the.web and.biz squatters to take a long walk off a short pier is not one of them.
The wildcat squatters were told when they began that they would not be recognized.
The application by IOD, a current operator of.web, received an inaccurate assessment and was rejected. However, because of the dispute, ICANN also avoided giving.web to
Afilias, and assigned them.info instead.
ICANN wasn't entirely dismissive of IOD, perhaps because IOD actually paid the exorbitant $50,000 fee and applied for it. IOD has also demonstrated a willingness to fight for.web in their Federal lawsuit against CORE, another.web operator, for unfair competition and trademark infringement.
Inconsistently, ICANN ignored a similar conflict with.biz, and gave it to NeuLevel, ignoring Pacific Root's operation of the legitimate.biz domain for the past six years.
When TSR's Indiana Jones RPG, miniatures, and related products came out, much was made of the "Nazi(tm)" trademarks, used under authorization of LucasFilm. However, the trademark actually applied to the word in conjunction with specific artwork.
I once joked to my friend Steve Pearl that God resets the universe's divide by zero errors. He wittily remarked, "So you're saying when we are thrown, God catches us?"
Since TV news coverage in the US is little better than entertainment programming, it's only fitting that an entertainment program should outdo the corporate news outlets.
but couldn't someone... say, like slashdot? just as easily take over the DNS root by soliciting major companies to look this way for domain name information instead of ICANN? And if so, why don't ya?
Check out YouCANN.org and find out about non-ICANN top level domains (TLDs).
Many of those independent TLDs are organized into the Open Root Server Confederation, whose website has a lot of information about how the system operates.
There's nothing intrinsically special about Network Solutions's DNS servers. All that annual registration fee pays for, really, is a couple lines in a BIND configuration file. You could get your DNS from the ORSC's servers or anywhere else if you choose.
The hard part is getting all those institutions using Network Solutions' DNS to query the ORSC's DNS as well.
You can find many non-competitive games suitable for both children and adults in a book called "Playfair: Everybody's Guide to Noncompetitive Play", by Matt Weinstein. If your library doesn't have it, it can also be ordered from Playfair.com, Weinstein's company which runs keynote programs and team-building seminars.
In addition to various original games, the book has many suggestions for turning competitive games into non-competitive ones and the lessons Playfair has learned about designing them.
A good example is Ameba Tag. Ameba Tag turns the game of Tag into a cooperative game-- everyone caught by "it" links arms and becomes part of "it". The game ends when all the players are absorbed. To remove the advantage that faster runners have, the game is played with everyone running in 'slow motion'.
> Have a look at JunkScience.com for more on this.
...
> Perhaps some skepticism is in order.
Skepticism is always in order when something appears in JunkScience.com. JunkScience.com is a PR mouthpiece for anti-environmential propaganda by the biochemical, pesticide, fossil fuel, and nuclear power industries.
Have a look at this <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/prw_issues/1999-Q4/av ery.html#milloy">PR Watch article</a> for more about lobbyist Steve Milloy's news articles and his web sites JunkScience.com and Consumer Distorts.
Or order Intellivision Lives! for the PC or Mac, or Intellivision Classics for the PlayStation.
While you're at it, check out intellivisionlives.com's history section. I found reading the stories of the development of the games and programming for those darn disc/keypad controllers quite nostalgic.
> For instance, if a page has "sheit" on it (like many posts on/.) it would place ---- instead and let the page go through.
That reminds me of one of the winners of DFN's Foil the Filters contest, a former science teacher's website with a filtered forum. When postings starting showing up spelling "class" as "cl***", he removed the filtering software and hasn't used it since.
The winner of the contest was Carroll High School's library, whose censorware blocked the high school's own website for using the word "high".
--
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of s***ch, or the right of the people peaceably to ***emble, and to pe***ion the government for a redress of grievances.
Some people just don't get the point of writing for Web is writing content that adapts to all manner of users instead of trying to make the users adapt to your content.
Still, I wouldn't worry unduly about too many webmasters sharing this lack of insight. Their readership will dwindle simply because of a very important readership that doesn't use the Big Two: search engines.
So let them lock out Gulliver and Scooter and Mercator and LinkWalker and InfoSeek Sidewinder and other web crawling user agents which aren't MSIE or Mozilla. Such sites deserve to drop off the radar while the search engines send users to sites with information that anyone can view.
Re:Changing the EULAs on Windows software
on
EULA In Games
·
· Score: 1
> Getting rid of the EULA would probably qualify as "reverse engineering", stupid as it may sound.
"Reverse engineering" is recreating a design by analyzing a final product. I don't see how editing a file called "license.txt" is even remotely similar. I'm not decompiling or disassembling the software.
Changing the EULAs on Windows software
on
EULA In Games
·
· Score: 1
With most Windows software, you can get rid of the EULA without reverse engineering.
InstallShield and Wise Installer programs uncompress their contents into the directory your TEMP environment variable points to before beginning the setup process.
The license is usually easy to find. It may be in a file named something like "license.txt". Sometimes all the files are named something like "0e31827a.tmp", but I can usually pick the license out quickly by checking the 1K and 2K files first. In any case, it's just a plain text file editable in Notepad.
So I Alt-Tab from Setup to Notepad and edit the file before I get to the Agree/Disagree dialog, and change the text to say something like "You have purchased this program, and have all the rights and privileges associated with ownership." If the original license attempts something especially repressive like saying I can't resell, reverse engineer, or criticize the product, I explictly change it to say the reverse. Then I initial the changes as one would when striking out and inserting text in a paper contract.
Then I Alt-Tab back to Setup and when the next dialog box presents my amended license agreement and asks if I agree that I own the software and can do whatever I like with it, I select "I Agree". Piece of cake, no reverse engineering required.
Personally, I don't think clickwrap licenses are binding in the first place, but if the law decides that "I Agree" gives them force, I'm covered.
NSI has screened George Carlin's seven dirty words for years.
In 1998, Jeff Gold raised a fuss because NSI automatically rejected the domain name shitakemushrooms.com.
Fortunately, NSI is no longer the only registrar around. However, using another agency is no guarantee that NSI won't censor your domain name. For example, NSI unilaterally cancelled the registration of www.vote-auction.com, registered with a company in Germany.
Slashdot Mirror
Nah, any self-respecting red-baiting commie-hating paranoid isn't going to touch an open-source operating system (fear the viral licenses!) to begin with.
RedmondMag covered WebSideStory's stats catching up with OneStat's two months ago:
Yes, Dual Shock controllers came out with the first Gran Turismo, released on December 23, 1997.
Even though the infringed patents #6275213 and #6424333 were issued on August 14, 2001 and July 23, 2002 respectively, they're "submarine patents" originally filed on November 30, 1995.
Until 2003, US patent filers could request repeated continuations to intentionally delay issue of a patent for years, until a practical implementation of a technology appeared. Then they they let their submarine patent surface and collect royalties for 17 years from the issue date. (In 2003, the rules changed so that patents now last 20 years from the filing date.)
If you want a good interview of Jon Stewart lambasting the press, watch how he tells off Howard Kurtz in his November 2, 2002 interview on "Reliable Sources". Now I'd like a video of that.
In my opinion, the American Dialect Society should ignore this mickey mouse complaint.
What downfall? http://sorehands.com/ documented William Silverstein's legal battle to get worker's compensation from Microsystems/Learning Company/Mattel. He won a 6-figure settlement. They made a groundless libel counterclaim over his website, which was dismissed.
He's still taking them to court to get it dismissed with prejudice, so they cannot later decide to refile.
Have somebody heard of anyone that have tried to sue Microsoft for loss of profit (or whatever) due to faulty products? Do Microsoft have some kind of protection from this?
The EULA distributed with Office 2000 specifically disclaims liability for "loss of profit":
Under the USA's Uniform Commercial Code, there is by default an implied warranty that any product sold is "merchantable", meaning fit for the customary use that the product is put to. Unless the terms of sale change that implied warranty, a buyer could sue over dysfunctional software.
Software licenses generally disclaim those implied warranties, an innovation that began with VisiCalc's "as is" license. If you read the fine print of Microsoft EULAs, you will find a capitalized sentence like "TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, MICROSOFT AND ITS SUPPLIERS DISCLAIM ALL OTHER WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT, WITH REGARD TO THE SOFTWARE PRODUCT, AND THE PROVISION OF OR FAILURE TO PROVIDE SUPPORT SERVICES."
Whether the EULA has any legal weight is questionable. Software licenses are rarely presented at the time of sale. Installation programs try to impose them after the fact by demanding your agreement before installing the program on your computer.
Like many click-wrap agreements, Microsoft's EULAs are very one-sided, offering you nothing in return for restricting you from installing the software more than one computer, from making more than one backup copy, from lending the software to anyone else, from reverse-engineering the software, and sometimes even from reselling the software or from criticizing the product. Such "agreements" may not constitute valid contracts, and even if they were, may be invalid as "contracts of adhesion".
So, Microsoft and other software corporations lobby for UCITA (Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act) laws giving software the special ability to impose terms and restrictions after purchase. UCITA has already passed in Maryland and Virginia and has been introduced in the legislatures of many other states.
No, if you tried to use Happy Birthday in a commercial enterprise like a restaurant, you'd see it's all too true.
Even nonprofit organizations get bitten. In 1996, the Wall Street Journal ran an article by Lisa Bannon entitled ASCAP Cautions the Girl Scouts: Don't Sing 'God Bless America'. Since we wouldn't want to violate the Wall Street Journal's copyright, here's a fair use excerpt:
>> She just didn't get it and even said that Disney should get perpetual copyright protection.
r andchildren. However, if Shakespeare's works were still covered under death plus 315 year copyrights, surely a media conglomerate would be collecting the royalties now, not the putatively deserving 10th generation heirs.
My favorite example of the absurdity of perpetual copyright is the song "Happy Birthday to You", composed by Kentucky schoolteacher Mildred Hill in 1859. Her sister Patty wrote lyrics and first published it as "Good Morning to All" in "Song Stories of the Kindergarten" in 1893. Mildred died penniless in 1916.
In 1924, Robert H. Coleman republished the song without permission, adding a second "Happy Birthday to You" verse. The surviving Hill sisters sued and the song was finally copyrighted in 1935.
Of course, the sisters aren't collecting royalties any longer. The copyright is now owned by AOL/Time Warner, and still garnerting about $2 million in royalties each year as of about 5 years ago (which is why television programs usually resort to "For He's A Jolly Good Fellow" instead). If Disney continues to get copyright extension bills passed every 20 years, the copyright on this simple 19th century folksong will never expire.
The Constitution originally intended "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". But death plus 95 years? To what end, encouraging Mildred Hill to compose more songs?
>> I knew that she had totally lost it when I suggested that the heirs of William Shakespear might complain and demand royalties for plays written by the great bard. She thought it was a good idea and was trying to decide how we should go about paying those royalties...
Good job getting your mother to think about the logistics of awarding Shakespeare's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-g
The application by IOD, a current operator of .web, received an inaccurate assessment and was rejected. However, because of the dispute, ICANN also avoided giving .web to
Afilias, and assigned them .info instead.
ICANN wasn't entirely dismissive of IOD, perhaps because IOD actually paid the exorbitant $50,000 fee and applied for it. IOD has also demonstrated a willingness to fight for .web in their Federal lawsuit against CORE, another .web operator, for unfair competition and trademark infringement.
Inconsistently, ICANN ignored a similar conflict with .biz, and gave it to NeuLevel, ignoring Pacific Root's operation of the legitimate .biz domain for the past six years.
When TSR's Indiana Jones RPG, miniatures, and related products came out, much was made of the "Nazi(tm)" trademarks, used under authorization of LucasFilm. However, the trademark actually applied to the word in conjunction with specific artwork.
> Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
I once joked to my friend Steve Pearl that God resets the universe's divide by zero errors. He wittily remarked, "So you're saying when we are thrown, God catches us?"
Since TV news coverage in the US is little better than entertainment programming, it's only fitting that an entertainment program should outdo the corporate news outlets.
I thought much of Indecision 2000's humor fell flat, but one of their more successful satires was their 'documentary', "George W. Bush: From Wealth to Riches" (RealMedia).
--Lynne Cheney (video clip): The justice system in Texas serves all the people.
Jon Stewart (adds): A tasty last meal.
When hacking into another computer system, make sure you disable cookies, lest they be compromised.
Don't run a file server when hacking into another system, lest they retaliate by hacking into yours.
If you run a file server anyway, don't keep your real name and address in a file named userdata.ini.
When you take over a system, encrypt the manual override command to make sure no one knows what it is.
Check out YouCANN.org and find out about non-ICANN top level domains (TLDs).
Many of those independent TLDs are organized into the Open Root Server Confederation, whose website has a lot of information about how the system operates.
There's nothing intrinsically special about Network Solutions's DNS servers. All that annual registration fee pays for, really, is a couple lines in a BIND configuration file. You could get your DNS from the ORSC's servers or anywhere else if you choose.
The hard part is getting all those institutions using Network Solutions' DNS to query the ORSC's DNS as well.
You can find many non-competitive games suitable for both children and adults in a book called "Playfair: Everybody's Guide to Noncompetitive Play", by Matt Weinstein. If your library doesn't have it, it can also be ordered from Playfair.com, Weinstein's company which runs keynote programs and team-building seminars.
In addition to various original games, the book has many suggestions for turning competitive games into non-competitive ones and the lessons Playfair has learned about designing them.
A good example is Ameba Tag. Ameba Tag turns the game of Tag into a cooperative game-- everyone caught by "it" links arms and becomes part of "it". The game ends when all the players are absorbed. To remove the advantage that faster runners have, the game is played with everyone running in 'slow motion'.
It's been done. Omri Schwartz wrote C to English to C perl scripts a/k/a DECSS (Descriptive English for C Statements and Subroutines).
An English version of css-auth.c produced with this program can be downloaded from Dr. David Touretzky's Gallery of CSS Descramblers.
> Have a look at JunkScience.com for more on this.
v ery.html#milloy">PR Watch article</a> for more about lobbyist Steve Milloy's news articles and his web sites JunkScience.com and Consumer Distorts.
...
> Perhaps some skepticism is in order.
Skepticism is always in order when something appears in JunkScience.com. JunkScience.com is a PR mouthpiece for anti-environmential propaganda by the biochemical, pesticide, fossil fuel, and nuclear power industries.
Have a look at this <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/prw_issues/1999-Q4/a
Or order Intellivision Lives! for the PC or Mac, or Intellivision Classics for the PlayStation.
While you're at it, check out intellivisionlives.com's history section. I found reading the stories of the development of the games and programming for those darn disc/keypad controllers quite nostalgic.
> For instance, if a page has "sheit" on it (like many posts on /.) it would place ---- instead and let the page go through.
That reminds me of one of the winners of DFN's Foil the Filters contest, a former science teacher's website with a filtered forum. When postings starting showing up spelling "class" as "cl***", he removed the filtering software and hasn't used it since.
The winner of the contest was Carroll High School's library, whose censorware blocked the high school's own website for using the word "high".
--
Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of s***ch, or the right of the people peaceably to ***emble, and to pe***ion the government for a redress of grievances.
Some people just don't get the point of writing for Web is writing content that adapts to all manner of users instead of trying to make the users adapt to your content.
Still, I wouldn't worry unduly about too many webmasters sharing this lack of insight. Their readership will dwindle simply because of a very important readership that doesn't use the Big Two: search engines.
So let them lock out Gulliver and Scooter and Mercator and LinkWalker and InfoSeek Sidewinder and other web crawling user agents which aren't MSIE or Mozilla. Such sites deserve to drop off the radar while the search engines send users to sites with information that anyone can view.
"Reverse engineering" is recreating a design by analyzing a final product. I don't see how editing a file called "license.txt" is even remotely similar. I'm not decompiling or disassembling the software.
With most Windows software, you can get rid of the EULA without reverse engineering.
InstallShield and Wise Installer programs uncompress their contents into the directory your TEMP environment variable points to before beginning the setup process.
The license is usually easy to find. It may be in a file named something like "license.txt". Sometimes all the files are named something like "0e31827a.tmp", but I can usually pick the license out quickly by checking the 1K and 2K files first. In any case, it's just a plain text file editable in Notepad.
So I Alt-Tab from Setup to Notepad and edit the file before I get to the Agree/Disagree dialog, and change the text to say something like "You have purchased this program, and have all the rights and privileges associated with ownership." If the original license attempts something especially repressive like saying I can't resell, reverse engineer, or criticize the product, I explictly change it to say the reverse. Then I initial the changes as one would when striking out and inserting text in a paper contract.
Then I Alt-Tab back to Setup and when the next dialog box presents my amended license agreement and asks if I agree that I own the software and can do whatever I like with it, I select "I Agree". Piece of cake, no reverse engineering required.
Personally, I don't think clickwrap licenses are binding in the first place, but if the law decides that "I Agree" gives them force, I'm covered.
NSI has screened George Carlin's seven dirty words for years.
In 1998, Jeff Gold raised a fuss because NSI automatically rejected the domain name shitakemushrooms.com.
Fortunately, NSI is no longer the only registrar around. However, using another agency is no guarantee that NSI won't censor your domain name. For example, NSI unilaterally cancelled the registration of www.vote-auction.com, registered with a company in Germany.