Hal Merritt wrote:
Nope. Very common practice. When you buy a house, it very often comes with a long list of restrictions on what you can and cannot do.
These usually relate to what you do to them on the *outside* because it
has effect on the neighbourhood..
An auto has to be regularly licensed, inspected, and (in some areas) insured. You must be licensed to operate that auto.
I'm pretty sure I can buy a car, *never* license it, never have it
inspected and *never* insured .. As long as I don't drive on the road !
And on and on and on....
When you buy an IBM box, you no doubt sign an agreement of some sort that covers the situation. Even if not, then getting the enablement would require the provider to adhere to one or more legally binding instruments.
My point is, the analogies were all relating to how you use your
property to interact with the outside world... not what you are
intrinsically doing with it in the confines of your own premises.
Of course, if you buy a z10 and use it to *spam* the whole world, then
you may be liable because you did something illegal with it.
If I buy a car that is rated as xxHP, disassemble it, reverse engineer
it, boost it beyond its original specifications but *never* drive it on
a public road (and eventually don't try to use my warranty because it's
broken[1]), I'm not 100% sure how the law would apply.
Of course, in this case, we are talking *hardware* that has been
bought.. Now.. if we are talking about rent.. software or hardware -
this might be completely different ! And in the same vein, when we're
talking about hardware like a z10 - it also comes with some LIC.. which
may have other *licensing* restrictions - since you're not *buying* it -
but have been granted a (possibly revocable) privilege to use it in
conjunction with said hardware
.. and this last statement probably threw my whole prior argumentation
down the drain !
But then again..
IANAL !
--Ivan
[1] And the analogy here would be IBM support ;)
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