On Sep 2, 2009, at 12:30 PM, Meir Kriheli wrote:


A company which shuts down websites (to let their PR keep rolling on
launch),

How about a citation? This is to vague to be anything but FUD without one.

forces other to remove videos (wired),

That's simply wrong. Apple never forced Wired, they asked. They asked them to remove the video because it was a step by step tutorial on how to violate the Apple EULA. It was not a tutorial on how to install Darwin, a FOSS operating system on your PC, but a full out install the parts that are proprietary too video.

What that has to do with FOSS, I have no idea.


uses the DMCA to hold
down a wiki site (just to keep a format hidden) and much more are no
supporters of FOSS.

I looked that up. The website in question had pages which suggested that a user circumvent a DRM method. Telling people how to circumvent DRM is a DMCA viloation, telling them should do it, but not how, may have been. The law was unclear. Instead of embroiling the EFF and Apple in a long and lengthy lawsuit, Apple decided to fold on the side of public "freedom". It could have gone the other way, and due to the cost may have bankrupted the EFF.

IMHO Apple did the right thing in both cases, they moved to protect their intelectual property as was permitted by law (and may be required by securities law, being a publicy traded company) and when it came down to fighting the EFF in court, they left the EFF standing. It is important to note that there was no legal precident set by dropping the cases, it still is a gray area in the law, and someone else could (and possibly may have to) do it all over again.

The only victory for FOSS, if there was one at all, is Apple let the EFF live.

The "obligation to stockholders" is a lame excuse (just like, "it's a
company, they need to make money") for keeping a fake "FOSS"/"Cool" mask.


Why? They really do have both an ethical and a legal obligation to shareholders. It's the US, Meir, laws and ethics are different there than Israel.

BTW, don't you do exactly that? Push FOSS/Cool and then charge customers for your services? Oh I forgot, you need to make money.

Geoff.

--
geoffrey mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Jerusalem Israel geoffreymendel...@gmail.com






_______________________________________________
Linux-il mailing list
Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il
http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il

Reply via email to