On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 08:49:47PM -0600, Richard Greenwood wrote: > I would encourage you to share your your documentation of the MBX > format. Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Information are held up as > corner stones of democracy and civil liberties. ...
But where do you stand on the issue of free speech when such speech endamgers or hurts others? Like shouting "FIRE!" in a crowded theater, or slandering someone to damage their reputation, or simply lying for personal gain. Surely those examples are universally recognized as a reasonable limit on the freedom of speech. On the other end of the spectrum, there are plenty of cases when an individual should be allowed to say what they want in public, such as protesting the actions of an arrogant authority abusing their power. It gets interesting in the middle. Should a political party be allowed to teach a doctrine of hate and violence toward another group of people? Should anyone be allowed to write a book on bomb-building? Should a book like that be allowed in a children's library? The idea of spreading knowledge on how to build a decompiler for MBX excites and interests the hacker in me, but at the same time that knowledge in the wrong hands could easily damage my business if any of my programs were reverse engineered or worse, my clients lost faith in MapBasic development and stopped offering me contracts. However, I think this knowledge should get out eventually -- indeed it would be naive to think that it won't -- but I'd like some time to get ready for it. Say, about three to six months. This would give developers some time to implement some measure of protection for their commercial MBX applications while not closing the door on the possibilities that a decompiler could offer. _______________________________________________ MapInfo-L mailing list [email protected] http://www.directionsmag.com/mailman/listinfo/mapinfo-l
