Avoiding LispWorks Personal annoyances
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From: gnubeard on 27 Sep 2009 04:53 On Sep 27, 5:40 pm, Tamas K Papp <tkp...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:19:13 -0700, gnubeard wrote: > > Yes, but the 5-hour limit is not referenced at all in the LispWorks SLA.. > > Therefore it is a technical limitation, and not a contractual one. The > > contractual obligation laid out in the SLA is that LispWorks Personal is > > You mean that if I don't post a note on my apartment door stating that > "No one shall circumvent the safety mechanisms of this door either by > picking the lock, utilizing crowbars, excessive physical force, or any > other means.", burglars are free to enter? Sorry, didn't know that. We > live and learn. Clearly your thinking is muddled. You see, there are things called laws which prohibit breaking into your apartment. There is no *law* against configuring my machine the way I choose, even if that configuration screws up the intended execution of someone else's code. By downloading and using LW, I do however accept a license - which is a type of contract. That contract sets out the acceptable use policy of their code. That contract MIGHT have said that I am only allowed to use LW on an acceptably configured computer, with no mechanisms in place that might adversely effect the execution of the LW, etc. But the contract doesn't say that. A better analogy would be: "You mean if I enter into a contract to sublet my apartment to someone for a year and don't explicitly say "Dont smoke in the apartment" then the person is free to smoke a pack a day in the apartment?" Yes, that is exactly right. If you don't lay out the terms of your contract correctly, you can get screwed. Even if you are a vegan hippie with rainbows and unicorns all over the apartment - even if you have books and literature about how smoking can kill you in the apartment -- if you don't lay down the rules IN THE CONTRACT saying "DONT SMOKE" - the person is free to do so. That's life. I'll wager you're an academic and never needed to negotiate a real contract before? > > Gee, I know it is not gonna happen, but now I really wish that LW went > after you. I would like to see the face of the judge when you are > explaining this in court. > > Tamas So would I. "Tamas, let me get this straight - you're trying to tell this man not to smoke in your apartment just because you have hippie unicorns in it, despite the fact that the contract as signed says nothing about smoking?" "Yes, that is exactly right sir!" "Case dismissed."
From: Lieven Marchand on 27 Sep 2009 05:20 gnubeard <gnubeard(a)gmail.com> writes: > For the $1k+ price tag, if I were LispWorks, I'd want a security > mechanism which would require about a weeks worth of serious hacking > to defeat - not 15-20 minutes of casual playing around. Then again, > the market for people interested in LispWorks is small enough that > they don't really need to worry about serious cracking / piracy. As a paying Lispworks customer, I would prefer them to continue working on enhancing a great product rather than play these silly games with a cracker who obviously isn't interested in buying the product. -- [The beginner] should not be discouraged [...] if he finds that he does not have the prerequisites for reading the prerequisites. Paul Halmos
From: Tamas K Papp on 27 Sep 2009 05:50 On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 01:53:46 -0700, gnubeard wrote: > There is no *law* against configuring my machine the way I choose, even > if that configuration screws up the intended execution of someone else's > code. Literal interpretations have little consequence in this case. You seem clearly aware that the time limit is placed on the product for a reason, and you are circumventing it knowingly. That said, I have no further interest in arguing with you. If it pleases you to be a dishonest person and convince yourself that these tricks are clever, there is nothing I can do about that. Go ahead and play with the machine clock all day if that is what you want. There are two kinds of people: those who can create intellectual value, and those who can't. The former have the freedom of deciding what to do with it, the while latter have to be satisfied with thinking up ways to steal it and justifying their actions. Tamas
From: Pascal J. Bourguignon on 27 Sep 2009 06:02 Tamas K Papp <tkpapp(a)gmail.com> writes: > On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:19:13 -0700, gnubeard wrote: > >> On Sep 27, 11:17�am, p...(a)informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) >> wrote: >> >>> There's a copyright. �The owner of the copyright has the right to >>> determine who may copy or not their software, and of course, they're >>> allowed to put additionnal constraints against this right of copy they >>> give you, such as that of not using their software for more than five >>> hours in a row. >> >> Yes, but the 5-hour limit is not referenced at all in the LispWorks SLA. >> Therefore it is a technical limitation, and not a contractual one. The >> contractual obligation laid out in the SLA is that LispWorks Personal is > > You mean that if I don't post a note on my apartment door stating that > "No one shall circumvent the safety mechanisms of this door either by > picking the lock, utilizing crowbars, excessive physical force, or any > other means.", burglars are free to enter? Sorry, didn't know that. We > live and learn. No, but it's an interesting legal point. IANAL (much less a USA lawyer). While I wouldn't have a law that would make software a binding contract (for the simple reason that it's not open source software, therefore the recipient cannot read the "contract" before using it), it seems that DRM are made legal contract by the WTC and enacted by the various laws such as DMCA (USA) and DADVSI (France). Therefore even if it's not explicitely state in the SLA, as a DRM device, the 5-hour limit is probably binding (depending on the country where the OP uses LispWorks). But who am I to say anything, my vote is worth only 1/62e6, and politicians just lie and do whatever they want. -- __Pascal Bourguignon__
From: Tamas K Papp on 27 Sep 2009 06:19
On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:02:09 +0200, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote: > Tamas K Papp <tkpapp(a)gmail.com> writes: > >> On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:19:13 -0700, gnubeard wrote: >> >>> On Sep 27, 11:17 am, p...(a)informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) >>> wrote: >>> >>>> There's a copyright. The owner of the copyright has the right to >>>> determine who may copy or not their software, and of course, they're >>>> allowed to put additionnal constraints against this right of copy >>>> they give you, such as that of not using their software for more than >>>> five hours in a row. >>> >>> Yes, but the 5-hour limit is not referenced at all in the LispWorks >>> SLA. Therefore it is a technical limitation, and not a contractual >>> one. The contractual obligation laid out in the SLA is that LispWorks >>> Personal is >> >> You mean that if I don't post a note on my apartment door stating that >> "No one shall circumvent the safety mechanisms of this door either by >> picking the lock, utilizing crowbars, excessive physical force, or any >> other means.", burglars are free to enter? Sorry, didn't know that. >> We live and learn. > > No, but it's an interesting legal point. IANAL (much less a USA > lawyer). While I wouldn't have a law that would make software a binding > contract (for the simple reason that it's not open source software, > therefore the recipient cannot read the "contract" before using it), it > seems that DRM are made legal contract by the WTC and enacted by the > various laws such as DMCA (USA) and DADVSI (France). Therefore even if > it's not explicitely state in the SLA, as a DRM device, the 5-hour limit > is probably binding (depending on the country where the OP uses > LispWorks). > > But who am I to say anything, my vote is worth only 1/62e6, and > politicians just lie and do whatever they want. IANAL either. For me, the issue is not primarily legal. LW is a nice company, they let you try the product first for an extended period, with limitations for sure, but they let you decide whether you want to fork out all that cash after testing the product first. In my experience, suppliers of similarly priced software are nowhere near that nice to their customers. And with all the high quality open source CL implementations around, it is hard to justify stealing their product from the "I am poor but want to program in CL" perspective either. Tamas |