Below forwarded with permission. This is a response to my short essay: "A defense of Borland's license saying auditors may inspect your PC" http://www.politechbot.com/p-03029.html --- From: "T.J. Duchene" <linuxmanat_private> To: declanat_private Subject: Borland license Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 13:48:01 -0600 Hello Mr McCullagh: I am the author of the Freshmeat article in question. With your patient indulgence, I would like to point out "what is wrong" with the license. A friend sent me a copy of your comments concerning the license. I agree, your points are 100% perfectly valid. It is our choice to accept the license, or not. I also admit I made a few mistakes on the finer points of law. After all, I am a programmer, not a lawyer. I sent a corrected letter to Freshmeat, but it hasn't been posted yet. My concern stems from the fact that while software companies should have the right to ask terms, they should not have the right to enter someone's home. Granted again, when you agree, you are giving them that right. A choice. As we both know, working in the industry forces you to accept certain "de facto" products. When working with the desktop, you are forced "de facto" style to accept Windows for use by the common market. As a hypothetical example, if Windows were licensed under such a scheme, privacy would become a major issue in our society. Many people skip over license agreements. Millions of users' personal infomation would be open to scrutiny without a warrant. I know very few people who would find that acceptable - since we require it from our law wnforcement establishment. Granted, software development as an industry is what is considered a niche market from the general public. Software development is a highly confidental process. With Borland entering systems on a whim, there is no guarantee that intellectual, property, or patents rights will be protected from prying eyes. There is no way to ensure that Borland will not take advantage of the access to initiate designs on a competative product. The license doesn't name specifics as to what will be accessed or how. Any sane manager isn't just going to open up everything to them because they want to check one thing. What I think - in my opinion - is that companies should not be allowed to place those kind of clauses in their EULAs. Companies zealously protect and expand their rights - if one company is allowed to do it, others will eventually follow suit. To protect or at least inform others is a effort I find worthwhile, even at the risk of sounding like I'm out on the fringe. The goal is public discussion of these issues, so that everyone on both sides are honest and open. Warmest Regards, T.J. Duchene --- From: "T.J. Duchene" <linuxmanat_private> To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Subject: Re: Borland license Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2002 01:30:27 -0600 P.S. In case I forgot to mention it, the text of both the revised letter and the original are available at my site http://www.kewlness.net. Since I mentioned that I sent a corrected letter, I wanted to make sure you had it at your disposal. T.J. --- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Events: Congreso Nacional de Periodismo Digital in Huesca, Spain from Jan. 17-18 (http://www.congresoperiodismo.com) and the Second International Conference on Web-Management in Diplomacy in Malta from Feb. 1-3. (http://www.diplomacy.edu/Web/conference2/) -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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