On Mon, Jan 22, 2001 at 10:22:17AM -0800, David Fedor wrote:
> >> If you find a problem with the ROM, please do bring it up on this forum
> >> without delay, so that we are able to address it before 4.0 is finished.
> >
> >You can only get there if you have an NDA in place, which I do, but
> >part of that and other text says I shouldn't say anything about things
> >on the other side of that virtual wall in public. And this is a
> >public forum.
> >
> >Now I am confused. Am I supposed to discuss these ROMs here or not?
>
> This confused me too, when I was working with the lawyers to get the
> license set up. Read the license for the full details, but (only from
> memory, not guaranteed to be accurate) there is language in there saying
> that if we have not officially disclosed something, then you can not talk
> about it, but if we have talked about something, then you can too.
But what have you talked about and what haven't you talked about?
DR3's existence or functions?
Are your messages here an "official disclosure" or not? If function
XYZ was not gone into detail at PalmSource can I discuss it here or
not? If I remember the charter of the forum, this isn't for Official
support by Palm, though I suppose a message can say so.
If you've officially disclosed DR3, then why can't anyone without the
license access it? The license's purpose seems to be designed to keep
the details secret.
I have to guess at the checkerboard of what might or might not have
been "officially disclosed", and what does "officially disclosed"
mean? When are you officially speaking for Palm (when you don't
specifically indicate that you are)? If the SDK or ROM image appeared
in a public place on palmos.com (or where it didn't require the
prototype license) it would be clear.
> So it isn't an NDA; it is a license that might apply to confidential
> materials but also applies to things that aren't secret, but still
> shouldn't be distributed and/or aren't finished and so forth. In short it
> makes it so that you don't have to keep accepting different licenses for
> each different thing we seed in that area; you just do the one and you're
> set.
But there is no note that DR3 is "officially disclosed", at least not
there. And you aren't part of Palm's legal department AFAIK, and a
lot of the other (prerelease) rom images said to report bugs to
devsupp, not here.
> At PalmSource in December we gave full details about 4.0's features and
> such. So go ahead and talk about it. If there's something that needs
> fixing in 4.0, we need to know soon.
I can talk about the features and such disclosed at palmsource. A bug
in a specific ROM image isn't something that is officially disclosed
by definition (or I would assume you would have already fixed it).
I understand you are trying to be helpful, but from my perspective, I
don't know when you "officially disclose" something unless YOUR LEGAL
DEPARTMENT says so, or the item in question itself is posted by Palm
in a public area, or the item downloaded has a note to that effect.
I don't have the legal background to decide if a bunch of slides about
features and functions is or is not a disclosure of specific details
about the operation of object code. So I am playing it
conservatively.
My purpose is to honor the prototype license agreement in both letter
and spirit. If I don't know if I should discuss something or think
there is a question, I'll ask, as I just did.
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