"the fact that such software does not operate under copyright law, but under contract law."
Not really. And not a fact.
What we're seeing is a combination of bluff and wishful thinking. Proprietary software vendors wish that such software operated under contract law.
For contract law to come into effect, you first need a contract. That is why software vendors also wish that UCITA had been voted in and made clickthrough "agreements" binding. I quote the word "agreements", because under the state laws and the laws in the European Union, they do not constitute "agreements". Contract law is old and well-established and clicking simply fails the tests, including the one of "consent".
By the way, the individual American states refused to implement UCITA (except for one of the Virginia's).
"Except for Free software, it's accepted that users need valid licenses for their software."
Law professor Eben Moglen has exactly and convincingly argued the opposite: using software does not require a licence. Both law as case law support his argument.
Your argument, however, has no basis in law or case law, no matter how much you want to "accept" that it would.
Ok. I buy a copy of a copyrighted work. Later on I hear that the distribution thereof infringed on someone's intellectual rights, be it, trademarks, copyrights, patents, first-sale contracts, trade secrets, whatever. Am I liable? (I am explicitly not referring to SCO/IBM).
Now the second case. I buy a copy of a copyrighted work for which I know or reasonably could have known that the distribution thereof infringes on someone's intellectual rights. Does it change anything to your answer to the first question, from the point of view of the receiver of such copyrighted work?
Is there any concept in law that does something about the legal uncertainty related to these cascading liabilities? I mean, all of this could develop in a propensity not to buy or otherwise acquire any copyrighted works at all -- which would defeat the object of copyrights in the first place.
Users won't take action and move to more secure systems, unless they realize that 1. insecurity is a builtin feature in Windows. 2. Microsoft requires their systems to be insecure. 3. they experience serious problems because of it.
I see corporate users understand this quicklier and take action quicklier. The home user, however... he is simply not sufficiently knowledgeable on these issues; and the press that caters for them and that should explain this to them, is under control of Microsoft and their minions.
The Free software community somehow does manage to reach the general public, but not as easily as M$. Money *is* a factor in marketing success/failure.
That's what I used to think, but it's not really true.
For example, try printing to a HP720C printer from NT or WIN2K, without administrative privilege? The HP720C printer driver creates its temporary files in such a wrong places, that you are forced to assume root privilege, just to use the printer.
Another fact you forget, is that Windows relies on the ability for a program to surreptitiously install stuff without the knowledge of the user. Shareware does it, to prevent you from installing again. Microsoft themselves need it all the time and DRM is simply based on it.
The user may be at fault, but certainly not through his own negligence. His true mistake is to trust Microsoft and proprietary vendors, who have encouraged and even required this behaviour in order to take advantage from it to the point that they even brought UCITA along, which would give them the legal permission to disable software remotely. Insidiously hiding the facts and what is really running on the computer is a way of life for Microsoft and its minions. The user is simply being misled.
In order to install a keystroke logger, it seems to me that you would need root permission to do it on linux or else be able to (re-)boot such linux terminal from floppy or CD.
By taking out floppy/CD drive and simply applying user privileges, I can't imagine that anybody would be able to pull this off on linux terminals.
Therefore, isn't this typically a windows problem? Insecurity by design?
How does the DOJ distinguish between IP disputes between parties, as opposed to cases in which they feel that the resources of the department would be well-spent investigating the matter?
There must be some kind of rule, or otherwise the DOJ would already have invested the offices of IBM and re-possessed all disputed copies of the alledgedly infringing AIX operating system.
Is the DOJ sure that these rules do not favour the larger corporate parties? Is the DOJ sure that their services are not misused in cases where ordinary contract dispute resolution methods or civil procedures would be more appropriate?
VB6 is a good example where sharecropping can lead to. Not very much of a programming language anyway, any skills or sources in VB6 are becoming useless rapidly. How much money is being lost now? By all the sharecroppers who used to work on VB6-land?
And puhlease don't tell me you are going to port all of it to C#. You'll be just sharecropping again.
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"the fact that such software does not operate under copyright law, but under contract law."
Not really. And not a fact.
What we're seeing is a combination of bluff and wishful thinking. Proprietary software vendors wish that such software operated under contract law.
For contract law to come into effect, you first need a contract. That is why software vendors also wish that UCITA had been voted in and made clickthrough "agreements" binding. I quote the word "agreements", because under the state laws and the laws in the European Union, they do not constitute "agreements". Contract law is old and well-established and clicking simply fails the tests, including the one of "consent".
By the way, the individual American states refused to implement UCITA (except for one of the Virginia's).
"Except for Free software, it's accepted that users need valid licenses for their software."
Law professor Eben Moglen has exactly and convincingly argued the opposite: using software does not require a licence. Both law as case law support his argument.
Your argument, however, has no basis in law or case law, no matter how much you want to "accept" that it would.
This whole .NET thing may have its technical merits.
.NET? Yes, you can.
The truth is that we play by different rules. Can you make money pushing coke? Yes, you can. Can you build web applications with
Ok. I buy a copy of a copyrighted work. Later on I hear that the distribution thereof infringed on someone's intellectual rights, be it, trademarks, copyrights, patents, first-sale contracts, trade secrets, whatever. Am I liable? (I am explicitly not referring to SCO/IBM).
Now the second case. I buy a copy of a copyrighted work for which I know or reasonably could have known that the distribution thereof infringes on someone's intellectual rights. Does it change anything to your answer to the first question, from the point of view of the receiver of such copyrighted work?
Is there any concept in law that does something about the legal uncertainty related to these cascading liabilities? I mean, all of this could develop in a propensity not to buy or otherwise acquire any copyrighted works at all -- which would defeat the object of copyrights in the first place.
Users won't take action and move to more secure systems, unless they realize that 1. insecurity is a builtin feature in Windows. 2. Microsoft requires their systems to be insecure. 3. they experience serious problems because of it.
... he is simply not sufficiently knowledgeable on these issues; and the press that caters for them and that should explain this to them, is under control of Microsoft and their minions.
I see corporate users understand this quicklier and take action quicklier. The home user, however
The Free software community somehow does manage to reach the general public, but not as easily as M$. Money *is* a factor in marketing success/failure.
Point conceded. Linux has no defense against hardware loggers. I wouldn't know how to address those either.
That's what I used to think, but it's not really true. For example, try printing to a HP720C printer from NT or WIN2K, without administrative privilege? The HP720C printer driver creates its temporary files in such a wrong places, that you are forced to assume root privilege, just to use the printer. Another fact you forget, is that Windows relies on the ability for a program to surreptitiously install stuff without the knowledge of the user. Shareware does it, to prevent you from installing again. Microsoft themselves need it all the time and DRM is simply based on it. The user may be at fault, but certainly not through his own negligence. His true mistake is to trust Microsoft and proprietary vendors, who have encouraged and even required this behaviour in order to take advantage from it to the point that they even brought UCITA along, which would give them the legal permission to disable software remotely. Insidiously hiding the facts and what is really running on the computer is a way of life for Microsoft and its minions. The user is simply being misled.
In order to install a keystroke logger, it seems to me that you would need root permission to do it on linux or else be able to (re-)boot such linux terminal from floppy or CD.
By taking out floppy/CD drive and simply applying user privileges, I can't imagine that anybody would be able to pull this off on linux terminals.
Therefore, isn't this typically a windows problem? Insecurity by design?
How does the DOJ distinguish between IP disputes between parties, as opposed to cases in which they feel that the resources of the department would be well-spent investigating the matter?
There must be some kind of rule, or otherwise the DOJ would already have invested the offices of IBM and re-possessed all disputed copies of the alledgedly infringing AIX operating system.
Is the DOJ sure that these rules do not favour the larger corporate parties? Is the DOJ sure that their services are not misused in cases where ordinary contract dispute resolution methods or civil procedures would be more appropriate?
VB6 is a good example where sharecropping can lead to. Not very much of a programming language anyway, any skills or sources in VB6 are becoming useless rapidly. How much money is being lost now? By all the sharecroppers who used to work on VB6-land?
And puhlease don't tell me you are going to port all of it to C#. You'll be just sharecropping again.