Subject: Re: Allegro CL 5.0 Win32
From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no>
Date: 2000/02/17
Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp
Message-ID: <3159819164039342@naggum.no>

* "Larry Elmore" <ljelmore@montana.campuscw.net>
| I simply stated that I think that something where the contract in
| question is merely implied rather than explicit, as in a shrinkwrap
| license, being able to legally forbid you from transferring the product
| to someone else under any conditions at all is in my view unreasonable
| and over the top.

  it's the willingness to break any licenses with which one does not agree
  that defines the criminal mind.  moreover, such criminal attitudes is
  what makes it necessary in the first place to tighten up the licenses.
  in the absence of the criminal mind, licenses are much shorter and much
  simpler.  if you conclude from this that Franz Inc in particular or the
  software industry in general has had a lot of contact with criminal
  minds, consider the attitude towards the "best" criminal mind around:
  Bill Gates.  large fractions of the population consider him a hero, yet
  he has zero respect for law, contract, or license, and breaks anything he
  thinks he can get away with.  this has led concerned people everywhere to
  become even more cautious about giving other criminal minds any leeway.

  the real target for your anger is Microsoft's business practices.  don't
  take it out on any single company that tries to live in a world where
  Microsoft would steal everything they did if they had the skills to know
  how good it is.  so if you retarget your complaints, maybe they'll have
  merit.

#:Erik