>>I fail to see what the Confidentiality Agreement
>> really protects, considering that
>>
>> A) ROMs are already being distributed on warez sites (as someone
reported).
>> B) Since it is (very nearly) impossible to trace the source of a ROM
that
>> has been spread, no one will ever be charged with having broken the
>> agreement.
>> C) Anyone who has a Palm device can get the ROMs without having to sign
>> anything.
>
>I can't believe you are making this argument. "Because you can get it
>illegally, Palm should just give up" ?!!
I think you are missing my point. It just seemed strange to have to go
through all this trouble to protect the confidentiality of something that is
not confidential --- in the sense that anyone can obtain it by either
downloading it from a warez site, downloading it from their Palm device or
signing a confidentiality agreement (note that only one of these methods is
illegal).
I guess what Palm really wants to prevent (which I have full sympathy for)
is someone making a Palm clone that runs PalmOS unlicensed. I understand now
that in some countries a NDA is necessary to claim copyright and that a
regular copyright notice dictating how the data may be used and
redistributed is not enough. So I guess we'll have to live with the delays.
It just goes to show the legal systems have a lot of catching up to do.
>There's always going to be people who break the rules. Does that mean we
>should all start lying and cheating? I hope not.
No... but when a rule doesn't stop the bad guys, but only makes life harder
for the good guys, it is not a very good rule.
// Niklas
