The Sputnik guys suggest you check your ISP's terms of service before signing up. They're definitely *not* encouraging people to risk getting dumped by their ISPs, and far be it for me to suggest anything different.
My understanding is that this would violate some TOSes, but not others. As always, your mileage may vary.
As for keeping out bad users, every user has to sign up with Sputnik to access a Sputnik affiliate. So a spammer starts abusing your bandwidth, you report them, and Sputnik shuts them down. Not a perfect solution, but that's the way it works elsewhere, right?
In the story, the Linuxcare founders talk about also selling a partly proprietary version of this software to large companies. Basically, same concept with several more security add-ons to sell to corporations worried about firewalling their data away from other wireless users.
Is that enough of a business model to support a cool project? To me, it makes as much sense as most Open Source business models, but only time will decide.
I'm am nowhere close to a lawyer, here's how I understand that the choice of law issue would work as explained by Delegate Barve:
Generally, if states pass consumer protection laws, then that state's law applies in a lawsuit in which a Maryland resident would sue Microsoft. If Microsoft is suing a Maryland resident over Passport, I *believe* Washington law would apply.
What changes under Maryland's UCITA, Barve says, is the choice of venue provisions, allowing Maryland residents to keep their lawsuits at home if a judge so rules.
"Thats a lousy way for the developers to put it "better gaming console", since their underlying job is to bring out a gaming console,
and when you have little by way of revenue, going up against heavy hitting marketing teams like that of MS' xbox is a killer in
itself."
Acutally, the developers didn't use the words "better gaming console," the writer of the story (that's me) did.
"Sigh... Going up against a heavy hitter such as Playstation is way far fetched. Even mentioning them when your first project wen
to shit makes the whole project laughable. They need to focus on their own product, get it up and running. Talk is cheap."
Again, same issue. You're putting words in the developers' mouths. I used Playstation as an example of their big competition, they didn't actually mention Playstation.
Slashdot Mirror
My understanding is that this would violate some TOSes, but not others. As always, your mileage may vary.
As for keeping out bad users, every user has to sign up with Sputnik to access a Sputnik affiliate. So a spammer starts abusing your bandwidth, you report them, and Sputnik shuts them down. Not a perfect solution, but that's the way it works elsewhere, right?
Grant
NewsForge
Is that enough of a business model to support a cool project? To me, it makes as much sense as most Open Source business models, but only time will decide.
Grant
NewsForge
Generally, if states pass consumer protection laws, then that state's law applies in a lawsuit in which a Maryland resident would sue Microsoft. If Microsoft is suing a Maryland resident over Passport, I *believe* Washington law would apply.
What changes under Maryland's UCITA, Barve says, is the choice of venue provisions, allowing Maryland residents to keep their lawsuits at home if a judge so rules.
-- Grant, NewsForge
Acutally, the developers didn't use the words "better gaming console," the writer of the story (that's me) did.
"Sigh... Going up against a heavy hitter such as Playstation is way far fetched. Even mentioning them when your first project wen to shit makes the whole project laughable. They need to focus on their own product, get it up and running. Talk is cheap."
Again, same issue. You're putting words in the developers' mouths. I used Playstation as an example of their big competition, they didn't actually mention Playstation.