Dear Peter Rich, Very well said. I concur and that's why I find the behavior of the pseudo-company Applest despicable to say the least. It seems clearly to be fraud, I suspect criminal intent behind it. Should we tolerate fraud and criminal intent only because it is not explicitly forbidden in exactly the manner it seems to have been done in this case?
On what observations do I root my suspicions? If one would wish to do a service to Skim users by offering the software via the Apple Store, indeed that may be a useful route to go for any open source software. But then one would offer it for free, one would not change the name, one would offer links to the home page of the software, here Skim, and the community/fora supporting it and the people making this effort would clearly have an identity. But in this case? The established name Skim was changed, a clear disservice. Second, a quite high fee of $39.99 at its max was charged. Third, who is Applest? I found no web site! No info is provided, no contact or background information. All inacceptable and a violation of all netiquette rules. In my view Apple should not have allowed the offer in the first place, alone for these reasons. So we have two problems: 1) The case Skim offered under changed name for sale at the App Store 2) Apple allowing fraud or pseudo-companies to make offers in the App Store Both need to be addressed appropriately. However, the concrete steps in these cases should not be discussed in this forum for obvious reasons. Regards, Andreas NOTE: I have a new mobile number! ETH Zurich Prof. Dr. Andreas Fischlin Systems Ecology - Institute of Integrative Biology CHN E 21.1 Universitaetstrasse 16 8092 Zurich SWITZERLAND [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> www.sysecol.ethz.ch<http://www.sysecol.ethz.ch> +41 44 633-6090 phone +41 44 633-1136 fax +41 79 595-4050 mobile Make it as simple as possible, but distrust it! ________________________________________________________________________ On 24/Jan/2012, at 21:33 , Peter Rich wrote: So, I've been a long-time Skim user and have experienced many ups and downs with the software, but I have to keep coming back to it as it has long been one of the best pdf annotation tools out there. Though I have found Christiaan's replies to often be somewhat put-offish, I have also found him to be an incredibly active developer and more than willing to respond to anyone's reply about the software. In light of the fact that he has done this for free, his dedication is commendable. 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. This is why I personally deplore this developer's actions. I am all for people being paid for their hard work. The Skim developers could use a good, business-minded PR-guy who can bring it to the fore. In my mind, though, Someone else mindlessly ripping off their product does little to benefit anyone but that developer. /soapbox -Peter- On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 12:57 PM, Patrik Jonsson <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 1:04 PM, Christiaan Hofman <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > There's also a small matter of behavior. The fact that, strictly speaking, > you;re allowed to does not mean you should take advantage of that. There's no > cost in asking, and he didn't. Not even in the most minimal and legally > required way. Quite frankly, this freeloading behavior I find the most > upsetting, and if we can punish him for that maximally for this by removing > it from the App Store I support that. With all due respect, I think you have an unrealistic view of humanity. To many people, "the fact that strictly speaking you are allowed to" means exactly that: you are allowed to, and expecting otherwise will just cause you to get upset. Moreover, apart from the fact that he's violating the terms of the license by not retaining the copyright, I really fail to see what this is about. The Skim license allows redistribution, commercial or not, and one of the fundamental rights given to users of free software is the right do do whatever they want with it, within the terms of he license, *without asking for permission*. If you look in chapter 8 of RMS's "free software, free society" (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fsfs/rms-essays.pdf) he says: "Many people believe that the spirit of the GNU project is that you should not charge money for distributing copies of software, or that you should charge as little as possible—just enough to cover the cost. Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can. If this seems surprising to you, please read on. The word “free” has two legitimate general meanings; it can refer either to freedom or to price. When we speak of “free software,” we’re talking about freedom, not price. Specifically, it means that a user is free to run the program, change the program, and redistribute the program with or without changes." It seems to me that this is *exactly* what he's talking about. cheers, /Patrik ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Keep Your Developer Skills Current with LearnDevNow! The most comprehensive online learning library for Microsoft developers is just $99.99! Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL - plus HTML5, CSS3, MVC3, Metro Style Apps, more. Free future releases when you subscribe now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/learndevnow-d2d _______________________________________________ Skim-app-users mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/skim-app-users -- Peter Rich, PhD peter_rich [at] byu [dot] edu Instructional Psychology & Technology Brigham Young University Provo, Ut 84602 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Keep Your Developer Skills Current with LearnDevNow! The most comprehensive online learning library for Microsoft developers is just $99.99! Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL - plus HTML5, CSS3, MVC3, Metro Style Apps, more. Free future releases when you subscribe now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/learndevnow-d2d_______________________________________________ Skim-app-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/skim-app-users ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Keep Your Developer Skills Current with LearnDevNow! The most comprehensive online learning library for Microsoft developers is just $99.99! Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL - plus HTML5, CSS3, MVC3, Metro Style Apps, more. Free future releases when you subscribe now! http://p.sf.net/sfu/learndevnow-d2d _______________________________________________ Skim-app-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/skim-app-users
