Forums Archive -> Message Board

immigration 2000-02-09 14:26:00
by marasmus
Where exactly do we find our congresspeople and local representatives?? Just take a look at this, and ask yourself... "Is My State Legislation going to pass this?" I'm not sure if all or many of you even care, but here's my personal rundown of the major problems with the bill:
  • Software Liscenses can be made irrevokable by any means. Software can be made non-refundable at the point of the liscense, before you've even installed it (or found out that the installer doesn't work and you can't use it).
  • Software will be allowed to check (send data about your computer to a server without your knowledge or choice) if you have kept up on your liscensing agreements. This doesn't just mean to check if you bought your copy of WinZip... This also works for recurring liscenses (yearly, monthly) and business liscenses (site). I don't know about you, but I have an opinion about why my computer is MINE... because I built it!
  • If software checks to see if you are up on your liscense for the software, and finds that you aren't , the software can be disabled remotely without your permission or notification.
  • Software Companies can put themselves in a position of no liability for information from/about your computer that gets released. If their software takes your name and registration information and somehow makes it available for any number of people, I foresee a mailing list nightmare coming from this one.
  • "Permission Marketing" (when a company asks if they can use this information to contact you about deals/etc) can be made coercive and inescapable. It sort-of takes the "Permission" out of the name.
It looks like time to drop every commercial product I use and grab a GPL-Liscensed (or similarly liscensed) application that does the same thing. That way I can at least take a look at the source to see if this kind of big-brother bullshit is going on.

You'd think it was good enough to write a morally-stable installation and registration process that would simply require a liscense check (via network) before installing. I guess Corporate Whitey can never get enough of himself lodged in your ass.