BitMover's license allows this, so long as they weren't reverse engineering his protocol. He allows anyone to connect to his server if you honor his license.
So someone refuses the BK license on the grounds that it forbids reverse engineering. They instead proceed to reverse engineer the protocol using legal methods (you stated yourself that what Tridge did was legal). However by doing so they then implicitly have agreed (not on legal grounds, but moral ones no less) to the license they already explicitly refused? It seems that you're really arguing that BK ought to be allowed to arbitrarily outlaw reverse engineering of its product in any way, shape, or form. Have we now moved to the point where it is OK to outlaw reverse engineering just because Linus happens to be a party to these proceedings?
As an aside, if we extend your logic above what happens if MS changes the IIS license terms to include onerous conditions on client connections. Are we all then bound by those conditions? Is the fact that MS currently freely grants client access the only thing saving the rest of us from Tridge's supposed moral morass? In this fairy tale scenario I would maintain that I'm not bound by the terms even if I'm aware of them and knowingly visit an IIS based site. I maintain that consent to a license is something that is explicitly given by rather than implicitly extracted from a user.
On top of all of this there is the question of whether anti-reverse-engineering clauses are even enforceable in the first place. I don't have the resources to research the issue, but it seems at first glance that such clauses are likely not enforceable. For instance this source indicates here that:
Although a few cases have enforced anti-reverse-engineering clauses in negotiated licenses between sophisticated parties, no court has yet enforced a mass-market license restriction on reverse engineering and at least two courts have refused to do so.
To be fair though this isn't iron clad. The same source notes that:
While the case law on anti-reverse-engineering clauses of mass-market licenses is relatively sparse, a substantial number of legal commentators have recommended courts not enforce such clauses.
This is all diversionary though. Your main argument is that what Tridge did was not ethical. IMO the only way this is valid is if it can be shown that the ideals, values, decisions, and so forth held by Linus ought to "outweigh" those held by Tridge. I've seen no one present such an argument. The closest thing I have seen is your contention that Tridge was morally bound to accept the terms of the BK license he explicitly refused, and clearly that's a contention that I'm not buying.
Lastly, (because I can't resist poking holes in analogies) let us revisit your sinking boat. In this case the captain was warned by substantial portions of the crew that there would be certain trouble ahead if they left port. The captain responded by assuring everyone that once they were out to sea the crew would see that he was right, and that the engines were fine for everyone's purposes, and they'd all live happily ever after. If one must assign blame, there is plenty to go around for both the captain and the crew. Also, the ship isn't sinking but rather is partially disabled while it awaits replacement engines.
I have no omnisence, i've only stated facts that been claimed by the parties involved (including tridge).
Funny that. I missed the part where Tridge claimed that he was acting out of spite (and not principle), and I also missed the part where he claimed his goal was to force his principles onto others. Those are, after all, two of the 'facts' you stated.
Tridge is bound by Linus's decision because he accepted the Bitkeeper license by *USING* the Bitkeeper server software when he retrieved data from it using his software.
That's an absurd notion that's already been soundly rebutted elsewhere in this thread. Everything else in your reply is merely your opinion (which of course you are entitled to) or ad hominem attacks which don't warrant reply (and which incidentally weaken rather than strenghten your argument -- you might take note of this since you have resorted to the ad hominem in just about every post you made in this thread).
When something happens that effections millions of people in a negative way. It's WRONG.
Yeah, I'm sure the Jedis are really gonna feel this one.
Although you neglected to answer the question I posed (twice), you did manage to:
1) Define the limits of what Tridge's principles are allowed to be and attribute ill intent and coercion to his actions. (Where do you get your omniscience from, and might some of the rest of us also partake?) 2) Compile a list of tenuous arguments that have already been adequately rebutted in other posts. 3) For good measure I suppose, you throw in an impertinent and incendiary straw man.
Perhaps you'd care to actually strengthen your argument by responding to my question?
Just because you believe something is right, doesn't mean it *IS* right.
While on the other hand just because you believe something is wrong, does mean it is wrong? Clearly you feel passionate about this issue, and my arguments are not going to change your mind. However IMO you are not making well reasoned arguments on behalf of your position.
Apparently you have a different idea of "ethical" than I do.
That's OK. We're allowed to have differing opinions. I don't feel it is unethical for one to stand by one's principles. Sometimes when you stand up for your principles you offend others (including possibly your friends). If someone is really your friend they will respect that fact that you stood by your principles, even if they are offended.
The *ONLY* person wrong here is Tridge
I disagree. IMO no one is 'wrong here'. I don't fault Linus for choosing BK, and I wouldn't fault him for being upset with Tridge. I also don't fault McVoy for terminating the license, as he is perfectly within his rights to do so (although I find his reasoning suspect, as is my prerogative). Where we seem to differ is that I also don't fault Tridge for standing by his principles. A great man once said, "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition."
So I ask again, why is it that Tridge ought to be bound by Linus' decisions and principles any more or less than Linus be bound by Tridge's?
Suppose you gain access to a conference room, under the condition that you keep the noise down and clean up after yourself. Now, you invite some friends and they are noisy and messy. You can fix the messy yourself (even though that's also disrespectful) but you can't mute them, and you lose access to the space because of it. Who's at fault?
Duh! Obviously you are at fault for inviting your noisy, messy friends. You made a poor choice, realized the unintended consequenses, and deal with it by making due without use of said conference room. Similarly Linus made a choice, realized the unintended/unexpected/unwanted consequenses, and now must make do. It's not the end of the world (no matter whose side one subjectively chooses to be on).
Also (to address your main point), why should Tridge be obligated to respect Linus' decisions/wishes regarding BK any more or less than Linus is obligated to respect Tridge's decision to choose another (perfectly legal and ethical) option?
It reduces the argument to absurdity IMO since one would presume that if Google wanted to improve the page rank of Google owned sites on Google's own search engine that they wouldn't exactly have to resort to cloaked keyword stuffing (against their own bot) to accomplish the task. In the original article it was heavily suggested that the purpose of this keyword stuffing was to trick 'search engines' in general. The (unmentioned) fact that search engines other than Googlebot weren't supposed to be indexing the site in the first place goes a long way toward refuting that notion at least.
I agree that it could have been an overzealous newbie, or it could have been a regional marketing department gone awry, or it could have been for research, or for testing, or for QA purposes, or it could have been because Milton's A-Hole supervisor swiped his sweet Red Swingline Stapler, or it could have been for any number of other reasons (including the 'evil' ones). It's the rush to judgment (by some) to presume that there must be some ill intent that makes me question whether people use critical reasoning. I also thought the way Google handled it was subtly amusing though.
The first two paragraphs in the conclusion of said TH article:
We've said it before, and we'll say it again, ATi's R8500 has potential. Drawing any definite conclusions is hard at this point, since the drive issue is still looming large, and ATi needs to create some level of comfort for reviewers in this area. Instead of SmoothVision, the driver employs the slower SuperSampling FSAA method and consequently falls noticeably behind the GeForce 3 - at least in OpenGL. The Windows XP driver was also far from convincing, causing numerous crashes and offering much lower performance than its Windows 98 counterpart.
This fickle behavior stands in stark contrast to very compelling performance in some cases - Evolva, for example. In the Polygon and Vertex Shader tests of 3DMark2001, the Radeon 8500 is able to clearly outperform Nvidia's youngest offering, the Ti500. In the Nature test it lags behind, though. Finally, the Radeon's performance in Giants is utterly disappointing.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry to reply to myself, but I may have misrepresented your view. What you said was So you did not unequivocally express that what Tridge did was legal. Sorry if I misrepresented your views.
...being a simputer in a manbot's manputer's world?
So someone refuses the BK license on the grounds that it forbids reverse engineering. They instead proceed to reverse engineer the protocol using legal methods (you stated yourself that what Tridge did was legal). However by doing so they then implicitly have agreed (not on legal grounds, but moral ones no less) to the license they already explicitly refused? It seems that you're really arguing that BK ought to be allowed to arbitrarily outlaw reverse engineering of its product in any way, shape, or form. Have we now moved to the point where it is OK to outlaw reverse engineering just because Linus happens to be a party to these proceedings?
As an aside, if we extend your logic above what happens if MS changes the IIS license terms to include onerous conditions on client connections. Are we all then bound by those conditions? Is the fact that MS currently freely grants client access the only thing saving the rest of us from Tridge's supposed moral morass? In this fairy tale scenario I would maintain that I'm not bound by the terms even if I'm aware of them and knowingly visit an IIS based site. I maintain that consent to a license is something that is explicitly given by rather than implicitly extracted from a user.
On top of all of this there is the question of whether anti-reverse-engineering clauses are even enforceable in the first place. I don't have the resources to research the issue, but it seems at first glance that such clauses are likely not enforceable. For instance this source indicates here that:To be fair though this isn't iron clad. The same source notes that: This is all diversionary though. Your main argument is that what Tridge did was not ethical. IMO the only way this is valid is if it can be shown that the ideals, values, decisions, and so forth held by Linus ought to "outweigh" those held by Tridge. I've seen no one present such an argument. The closest thing I have seen is your contention that Tridge was morally bound to accept the terms of the BK license he explicitly refused, and clearly that's a contention that I'm not buying.
Lastly, (because I can't resist poking holes in analogies) let us revisit your sinking boat. In this case the captain was warned by substantial portions of the crew that there would be certain trouble ahead if they left port. The captain responded by assuring everyone that once they were out to sea the crew would see that he was right, and that the engines were fine for everyone's purposes, and they'd all live happily ever after. If one must assign blame, there is plenty to go around for both the captain and the crew. Also, the ship isn't sinking but rather is partially disabled while it awaits replacement engines.
I have made no such arguments.
Technically you are correct. I should have used the more specific term, ad hominem abusive, or more simply personal attacks.
Further, you've not rebutted anything i've said
Then perhaps you should elevate your discourse to a level that warrants rebuttal.
I have no omnisence, i've only stated facts that been claimed by the parties involved (including tridge).
Funny that. I missed the part where Tridge claimed that he was acting out of spite (and not principle), and I also missed the part where he claimed his goal was to force his principles onto others. Those are, after all, two of the 'facts' you stated.
Tridge is bound by Linus's decision because he accepted the Bitkeeper license by *USING* the Bitkeeper server software when he retrieved data from it using his software.
That's an absurd notion that's already been soundly rebutted elsewhere in this thread. Everything else in your reply is merely your opinion (which of course you are entitled to) or ad hominem attacks which don't warrant reply (and which incidentally weaken rather than strenghten your argument -- you might take note of this since you have resorted to the ad hominem in just about every post you made in this thread).
When something happens that effections millions of people in a negative way. It's WRONG.
Yeah, I'm sure the Jedis are really gonna feel this one.
Although you neglected to answer the question I posed (twice), you did manage to:
1) Define the limits of what Tridge's principles are allowed to be and attribute ill intent and coercion to his actions. (Where do you get your omniscience from, and might some of the rest of us also partake?)
2) Compile a list of tenuous arguments that have already been adequately rebutted in other posts.
3) For good measure I suppose, you throw in an impertinent and incendiary straw man.
Perhaps you'd care to actually strengthen your argument by responding to my question?
Just because you believe something is right, doesn't mean it *IS* right.
While on the other hand just because you believe something is wrong, does mean it is wrong? Clearly you feel passionate about this issue, and my arguments are not going to change your mind. However IMO you are not making well reasoned arguments on behalf of your position.
Apparently you have a different idea of "ethical" than I do.
That's OK. We're allowed to have differing opinions. I don't feel it is unethical for one to stand by one's principles. Sometimes when you stand up for your principles you offend others (including possibly your friends). If someone is really your friend they will respect that fact that you stood by your principles, even if they are offended.
The *ONLY* person wrong here is Tridge
I disagree. IMO no one is 'wrong here'. I don't fault Linus for choosing BK, and I wouldn't fault him for being upset with Tridge. I also don't fault McVoy for terminating the license, as he is perfectly within his rights to do so (although I find his reasoning suspect, as is my prerogative). Where we seem to differ is that I also don't fault Tridge for standing by his principles. A great man once said, "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition."
So I ask again, why is it that Tridge ought to be bound by Linus' decisions and principles any more or less than Linus be bound by Tridge's?
Suppose you gain access to a conference room, under the condition that you keep the noise down and clean up after yourself. Now, you invite some friends and they are noisy and messy. You can fix the messy yourself (even though that's also disrespectful) but you can't mute them, and you lose access to the space because of it. Who's at fault?
Duh! Obviously you are at fault for inviting your noisy, messy friends. You made a poor choice, realized the unintended consequenses, and deal with it by making due without use of said conference room. Similarly Linus made a choice, realized the unintended/unexpected/unwanted consequenses, and now must make do. It's not the end of the world (no matter whose side one subjectively chooses to be on).
Also (to address your main point), why should Tridge be obligated to respect Linus' decisions/wishes regarding BK any more or less than Linus is obligated to respect Tridge's decision to choose another (perfectly legal and ethical) option?
It reduces the argument to absurdity IMO since one would presume that if Google wanted to improve the page rank of Google owned sites on Google's own search engine that they wouldn't exactly have to resort to cloaked keyword stuffing (against their own bot) to accomplish the task. In the original article it was heavily suggested that the purpose of this keyword stuffing was to trick 'search engines' in general. The (unmentioned) fact that search engines other than Googlebot weren't supposed to be indexing the site in the first place goes a long way toward refuting that notion at least.
I agree that it could have been an overzealous newbie, or it could have been a regional marketing department gone awry, or it could have been for research, or for testing, or for QA purposes, or it could have been because Milton's A-Hole supervisor swiped his sweet Red Swingline Stapler, or it could have been for any number of other reasons (including the 'evil' ones). It's the rush to judgment (by some) to presume that there must be some ill intent that makes me question whether people use critical reasoning. I also thought the way Google handled it was subtly amusing though.
...as critical thinking. Didn't anyone see this posting from the March 8 comments?