Patrik,
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to accuse you of advocating this behavior, but
I clearly did that. Sorry. I was trying to explain why people would feel
slighted by what has happened. Mark A is right, the license is very open
and liberal, and if that's not the intent of the original developers, it
should be changed. I would also vote for a GPL license, as you have
pointed out the flaws in what's there. As I stated in my original post,
laws are needed where people refuse to regulate themselves. There is
clearly a lack of decency in what this developer has done, and I seriously
doubt the integrity of the few "good" comments in the App Store extolling
the software, which only serves to further my suspicions.
I'm also not suggesting we sit idly by. Though I rarely comment on this
list, I follow the discussions and this one caught my attention. I
immediately wrote to Apple, a company that itself is fighting what they see
as unethical copying of their work. I also grabbed the software when it
was free, so that I could comment and warn potential clients that they were
about to pay for something they could get for free (and the free product is
likely better in this case). Were I in the developer's shoes, I would find
the part of the license that I think is being violated and ask Apple to
force compliance on the "developer" of the PDF Reader in the App Store.
-peter-
On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 2:20 PM, Patrik Jonsson <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi Peter,
>
> On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 3:33 PM, Peter Rich <[email protected]> wrote:
> > The reason that so many of us find this "developer's" behavior to be
> > despicable is that he clearly is trying to profit off of someone else's
> > hard-earned work without so much as a nod to those who did the work.
> Their
> > reason for making the software "free" is so that it can be the best
> software
> > possible (that's my guess, anyhow), and anyone who wants to contribute to
> > its progress may do so. When this developer can't be bothered to so
> much as
> > change the graphic, it communicates that the evolution of the product is
> not
> > what's on his mind. It then becomes incumbent upon us to warn anyone who
> > would purchase such software that the developer has behaved
> unscrupulously.
> > If I suspected a developer had done next to nothing with a product s/he
> is
> > selling, I would run away quickly, as I would doubt any concerns or
> support
> > needs would be met, should they arise in the future.
> >
> > I find Patrik's comments to be both enlightening and problematic. They
> are
> > enlightening because it highlights that there are a lot of enterprising
> > folks out there that don't believe there is a problem with such behavior
> if
> > the law allows it. Surprisingly, these people often make what many see
> as
> > "good" businessmen. This is problematic because it is exactly that
> attitude
> > that leads to the decline of civilization. Some believe their morals
> need
> > only go so far as what society deems to be ethical and puts into law.
> That
> > is a dangerous attitude because it suggest that we need to depend on
> > government to regulate all our rights and wrongs. Laws are clearly
> needed,
> > as people's beliefs about what is right/wrong are going to differ, and we
> > need a clear protocol for how to operate in and regulate society so
> people
> > know what to expect and how to interact with each other. But if we go no
> > further in our treatment of each other, society quickly degenerates into
> a
> > "me-first" society. Laws are only needed to regulate people who refuse
> to
> > regulate themselves. I tell this to my children all the time. If they
> > cannot control their temper toward each other, someone else will have to
> > control it for them—and that just introduces restrictions, the opposite
> of
> > freedom.
> >
> > So, yes, Patrik, you are right; there are people who will take advantage
> of
> > others. In my experience living in 4 different countries, though, I have
> > seen entire societies that believe if you can take advantage of another
> and
> > you don't, then you are a fool. Funny thing is, those are the societies
> > that I never see progress. They end up in a constant cycle of corruption
> > and the introduction of stricter laws and enforcement. Morality
> transcends
> > laws and leads to greater freedom. Abuse of trust leads to more
> > restrictions and slows progress.
>
> Please be careful in what opinions you attribute to me. Nowhere did I
> say that I agreed with this behavior. In fact, I think it's clearly on
> the sleazy side even if he had complied with the license terms. What I
> said was that it was not unexpected and not worth getting upset about.
> People do things I disagree with all the time, behave as assholes when
> driving, taking advantage of the situation, etc, but I have no control
> over them and the only thing that happens if I get upset over it is
> that I raise my blood pressure and heighten my stress level. Nothing
> positive will happen. The same applies here. We take action to the
> copyright violation, decide if the license should be changed, and move
> on. (This is an appropriate place to insert a well-known XKCD link:
> http://xkcd.com/386/)
>
> I also disagree with your opinion that people should be bound by the
> feelings of the original authors. I'm not even close to libertarian,
> but in this instance I agree with Stallman: Software is not free (as
> in freedom) if the users are implicitly bound by whatever feelings the
> original authors have (and when such feelings are not spelled out in
> the license it's even impossible to expect that people should know
> what they are).
>
> As for whether we want the license to be changed, I think a common
> complaint from free software advocates is that the BSD license
> *allows* redistribution without source and under different terms. This
> exactly means that you can "profit off of someone else's hard-earned
> work" in a completely different way compared to for example the GPL
> where you can only redistribute the software under the same license.
> For this reason, the software that I've put countless hours into is
> GPL, precisely because while I want people to use it, I do not want
> them to change the terms so that their enhancements will not benefit
> others. For this reason, if there is a discussion about changing the
> license, my vote is for the GPL.
>
> Regards,
>
> /Patrik
>
>
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--
Peter Rich, PhD
peter_rich [at] byu [dot] edu
Instructional Psychology & Technology
Brigham Young University
Provo, Ut 84602
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