For those annoyed with the 5-hour timeout in LispWorks Personal
Edition:

You can disable the time-out by using the library interposition
mechanism on your platform (LD_PRELOAD on linux, DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES
on Mac .. not sure about a mechanism on Windows).

Write your own implementation of gettimeofday() that:

Lets time proceed normally for the first N seconds (10 < N < 5*60*60).
This allows the startup
dialog boxes to time-out properly.

After N seconds have passed, the bogus gettimeofday() function should
freeze time to a
constant value.

This will prevent LispWorks from prompting you about the impending
timeout, and will allow
Lisp code to continue running past the 5-hour mark. Code running in
Lisp will, however, always get the bogus time - so code dependent on
proper clock values won't work right.
Depending on your application, you may be able to get around this by
avoiding LispWork's internal time functions and getting the time
through some other fashion.

Alternatively, you can constrain the time to some interval (with some
modulo arithmetic, for example), but when the clock first rolls back
LispWorks will prompt. Click continue, and you're all set. It won't
time out, and it doesn't appear to prompt again.

For those offended by the mildly unethical nature of this post, I
apologize. For those whom this helps in some small way, you're
welcome.

For those that can't write the small amount of C code needed to make
this work - I'm sorry, but I won't give you the code I use. That would
become slightly more unethical than I can comfortably just shrug off.
So please don't ask. The best I can do in that regard is to tell you
to research the LD_PRELOAD mechanism and learn how to use it.

To the LispWorks crew: a better way of managing this would be to
either statically link your own gettimeofday(), or at least draw in
the gettimeofday() function yourself, right from the system library
into your own function pointer so that it can't be hijacked as easily.

gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> writes:

> For those annoyed with the 5-hour timeout in LispWorks Personal
> Edition:
>
> You can disable the time-out by using the library interposition
> mechanism on your platform (LD_PRELOAD on linux, DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES
> on Mac .. not sure about a mechanism on Windows).
>
> Write your own implementation of gettimeofday() that:
>
> Lets time proceed normally for the first N seconds (10 < N < 5*60*60).
> This allows the startup
> dialog boxes to time-out properly.
>
> After N seconds have passed, the bogus gettimeofday() function should
> freeze time to a
> constant value.

A better way would be to slow down the clock.  If you make 1 s from
gettimeofday = 4 s real time, you get 20 hours of work, and everything
should still work well (as if the processor was four times faster,
from the point of view of Lispworks and your lisp programs).

It's slightly more ethical than stopping the clock, since you'd still
get the timeout once a work day.


While it might go against the spirit of the license, I don't think
they forbid relativistic time play.  If you find a black hole 100
Earth masses, and you can put yourself on a 1-meter orbit, then  you
would have a time dilation of about 4:1 that would give the equivalent
work time between timeouts.  Read the license closely, but I'd bet this
is not forbidden.


Another solution, would be to drink a lot of caffeine, and pack one
day work in 5 hours ;-)

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:

> While it might go against the spirit of the license, I don't think
> they forbid relativistic time play.  

LOL - good one :-) But if you bring your machine with you, you and the
machine are ticking away in concert, so what did you gain?  But of
course, instead of travelling to the next available black hole, you
could also buy one billion LispWorks licenses and still save a lot of
money...

Or, you could simply appreciate the good work the LispWorks guys do and
buy one Professional Edition License!
-- 
  (espen)

On Sep 25, 1:48=A0pm, gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> wrote:
> To the LispWorks crew: a better way of managing this would be to
> either statically link your own gettimeofday(), or at least draw in
> the gettimeofday() function yourself, right from the system library
> into your own function pointer so that it can't be hijacked as easily.

They could always be found ways to play with the primary time source
perceived by the software.

I once had an Allegro free edition past its expiry date in a Windogs
box
with no possible internet connection: One just had to twiddle the
taskbar clock
by one whole month or year back, and leave the clock widow opened to
do the reverse
once the software had started.

If you use a lisp system for lucrative purposes, buy the required
licences.
Its no money for any company.

Espen Vestre wrote:
> pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:
> 
>> While it might go against the spirit of the license, I don't think
>> they forbid relativistic time play.  
> 
> LOL - good one :-) But if you bring your machine with you, you and the
> machine are ticking away in concert, so what did you gain?  But of
> course, instead of travelling to the next available black hole, you
> could also buy one billion LispWorks licenses and still save a lot of
> money...
> 
> Or, you could simply appreciate the good work the LispWorks guys do and
> buy one Professional Edition License!

What does it matter? All any good Lisper needs is a C tool stack so they 
can write their own Lisp.

hth, kt

gnubeard wrote:
> For those annoyed with the 5-hour timeout in LispWorks Personal
> Edition:
> 
> You can disable the time-out by using the library interposition
> mechanism on your platform (LD_PRELOAD on linux, DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES
> on Mac .. not sure about a mechanism on Windows).
> 
> Write your own implementation of gettimeofday() that:
> 
> Lets time proceed normally for the first N seconds (10 < N < 5*60*60).
> This allows the startup
> dialog boxes to time-out properly.
> 
> After N seconds have passed, the bogus gettimeofday() function should
> freeze time to a
> constant value.
> 
> This will prevent LispWorks from prompting you about the impending
> timeout, and will allow
> Lisp code to continue running past the 5-hour mark. Code running in
> Lisp will, however, always get the bogus time - so code dependent on
> proper clock values won't work right.
> Depending on your application, you may be able to get around this by
> avoiding LispWork's internal time functions and getting the time
> through some other fashion.

Or, you can get around this by avoiding using crippleware. There are 
plenty of truly free Lisps out there -- ABCL, SBCL, and others among 
Common Lisps, at least one free Scheme, and Clojure.

On Sep 26, 12:15=A0am, kodifik <kodi...@eurogaran.com> wrote:
> On Sep 25, 1:48=A0pm, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > To the LispWorks crew: a better way of managing this would be to
> > either statically link your own gettimeofday(), or at least draw in
> > the gettimeofday() function yourself, right from the system library
> > into your own function pointer so that it can't be hijacked as easily.
>
> They could always be found ways to play with the primary time source
> perceived by the software.
>
> I once had an Allegro free edition past its expiry date in a Windogs
> box
> with no possible internet connection: One just had to twiddle the
> taskbar clock
> by one whole month or year back, and leave the clock widow opened to
> do the reverse
> once the software had started.

Yes, such naive methods are easy to defeat. There are ways to do
fairly effective time-locking for the case of a 5-hour run time.
Nothing is unbeatable, of course - but that usually isn't the goal
anyhow. Usually you aren't interested in a nearly unbeatable security
system. Rather you are satisfied with a security system which is
difficult enough to defeat to be a deterrent.

For the $1k+ price tag, if I were LispWorks, I'd want a security
mechanism which would require about a weeks worth of serious hacking
to defeat - not 15-20 minutes of casual playing around. Then again,
the market for people interested in LispWorks is small enough that
they don't really need to worry about serious cracking / piracy.

My only reason for wanting to circumvent the 5-hour limit is that I
use LispWorks to do some audio processing - I've been toying with
writing some custom audio filter stuff. On some evenings and certainly
on weekends, I go back and forth between coding and playing guitar -
for far longer than 5 hours at a time.

It is super annoying to finally be getting through a difficult guitar
passage flawlessly, only to have lispworks pause or time out on me and
screw everything up..

>
> If you use a lisp system for lucrative purposes, buy the required
> licences.
> Its no money for any company.

Nope. I'm not a professional programmer, nor a professional musician.
Just a geek who spends more than 5-hours at a time mixing up two
enjoyable hobbies.

On 26 Sep., 08:17, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 26, 12:15=A0am, kodifik <kodi...@eurogaran.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Sep 25, 1:48=A0pm, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > To the LispWorks crew: a better way of managing this would be to
> > > either statically link your own gettimeofday(), or at least draw in
> > > the gettimeofday() function yourself, right from the system library
> > > into your own function pointer so that it can't be hijacked as easily=
..
>
> > They could always be found ways to play with the primary time source
> > perceived by the software.
>
> > I once had an Allegro free edition past its expiry date in a Windogs
> > box
> > with no possible internet connection: One just had to twiddle the
> > taskbar clock
> > by one whole month or year back, and leave the clock widow opened to
> > do the reverse
> > once the software had started.
>
> Yes, such naive methods are easy to defeat. There are ways to do
> fairly effective time-locking for the case of a 5-hour run time.
> Nothing is unbeatable, of course - but that usually isn't the goal
> anyhow. Usually you aren't interested in a nearly unbeatable security
> system. Rather you are satisfied with a security system which is
> difficult enough to defeat to be a deterrent.
>
> For the $1k+ price tag, if I were LispWorks, I'd want a security
> mechanism which would require about a weeks worth of serious hacking
> to defeat - not 15-20 minutes of casual playing around. Then again,
> the market for people interested in LispWorks is small enough that
> they don't really need to worry about serious cracking / piracy.

The LispWorks Personal edition is not the same as a full LispWorks
with a 5 hours limit. Defeating the time limit of the Personal Edition
does not get you the LispWorks Professional or Enterprise product.

> My only reason for wanting to circumvent the 5-hour limit is that I
> use LispWorks to do some audio processing - I've been toying with
> writing some custom audio filter stuff. On some evenings and certainly
> on weekends, I go back and forth between coding and playing guitar -
> for far longer than 5 hours at a time.
>
> It is super annoying to finally be getting through a difficult guitar
> passage flawlessly, only to have lispworks pause or time out on me and
> screw everything up..
>
>
>
> > If you use a lisp system for lucrative purposes, buy the required
> > licences.
> > Its no money for any company.
>
> Nope. I'm not a professional programmer, nor a professional musician.
> Just a geek who spends more than 5-hours at a time mixing up two
> enjoyable hobbies.

What would be a price where you would start thinking of buying
LispWorks for your hobby? Actually quite a lot hobbyists bought
LispWorks, because it is easy to use and has extensive GUI
capabilities.

Btw., LispWorks 6 beta has just been announced. Major new features:
multiprocessing, GTK+ support and a port for Solaris/Intel.

gnubeard wrote:
> On Sep 26, 12:15 am, kodifik <kodi...@eurogaran.com> wrote:
>> On Sep 25, 1:48 pm, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> To the LispWorks crew: a better way of managing this would be to
>>> either statically link your own gettimeofday(), or at least draw in
>>> the gettimeofday() function yourself, right from the system library
>>> into your own function pointer so that it can't be hijacked as easily.
>> They could always be found ways to play with the primary time source
>> perceived by the software.
>>
>> I once had an Allegro free edition past its expiry date in a Windogs
>> box
>> with no possible internet connection: One just had to twiddle the
>> taskbar clock
>> by one whole month or year back, and leave the clock widow opened to
>> do the reverse
>> once the software had started.
> 
> Yes, such naive methods are easy to defeat. There are ways to do
> fairly effective time-locking for the case of a 5-hour run time.
> Nothing is unbeatable, of course - but that usually isn't the goal
> anyhow. Usually you aren't interested in a nearly unbeatable security
> system. Rather you are satisfied with a security system which is
> difficult enough to defeat to be a deterrent.
> 
> For the $1k+ price tag, if I were LispWorks, I'd want a security
> mechanism which would require about a weeks worth of serious hacking
> to defeat - not 15-20 minutes of casual playing around. Then again,
> the market for people interested in LispWorks is small enough that
> they don't really need to worry about serious cracking / piracy.
> 
> My only reason for wanting to circumvent the 5-hour limit is that I
> use LispWorks to do some audio processing - I've been toying with
> writing some custom audio filter stuff. On some evenings and certainly
> on weekends, I go back and forth between coding and playing guitar -
> for far longer than 5 hours at a time.
> 
> It is super annoying to finally be getting through a difficult guitar
> passage flawlessly, only to have lispworks pause or time out on me and
> screw everything up..

How much did your guitar cost?



Pascal

-- 
My website: http://p-cos.net
Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org
Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/

Le Sat, 26 Sep 2009 10:06:01 +0200,
Pascal Costanza a =C3=A9crit :

> How much did your guitar cost?

I guess nothing... He probably cracked eBay to get it for free... :-)

--=20
Jacques.

gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> writes:

> My only reason for wanting to circumvent the 5-hour limit is that I
> use LispWorks to do some audio processing

I suspect Lispwork's only reason for offering the 5-hour limited
edition is to allow you to come to a determination of whether or
not the product is suitable to your needs, so you can decide if
you're willing to purchase it or not.  YOUR reasons for circumventing
such limit are utterly irrelevant.

> It is super annoying to finally be getting through a difficult guitar
> passage flawlessly, only to have lispworks pause or time out on me and
> screw everything up..

I'd even bet that if you could make a convincing case to them that
you need a 10 hour limited edition to make such a determination, the
helpful folks at Lispwork would accommodate you.  But I'm starting
to get the impression that you could not make such a convincing case.

> Nope. I'm not a professional programmer, nor a professional musician.
> Just a geek who spends more than 5-hours at a time mixing up two
> enjoyable hobbies.

Ah.  Well, then, you've determined that you don't want to shell out
the money for that software for the purposes of your hobby, right?
Then it seems pretty clear to me that you should simply stop using
it---trying to manipulate the software into accomodating your needs
without you accomodating the needs of the authors seems... well... 
dishonest.

I'm kind of amazed that anyone would have have the audacity to discuss
how to defeat the meagre circumvention devices in that software, which
are clearly there just as a reminder to "be honest".

You ARE aware that there are high quality Free (as in libre) lisps
out there, right?

On Sep 26, 6:02=A0pm, Rainer Joswig <jos...@lisp.de> wrote:
> On 26 Sep., 08:17, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Sep 26, 12:15=A0am, kodifik <kodi...@eurogaran.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Sep 25, 1:48=A0pm, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > To the LispWorks crew: a better way of managing this would be to
> > > > either statically link your own gettimeofday(), or at least draw in
> > > > the gettimeofday() function yourself, right from the system library
> > > > into your own function pointer so that it can't be hijacked as easi=
ly.
>
> > > They could always be found ways to play with the primary time source
> > > perceived by the software.
>
> > > I once had an Allegro free edition past its expiry date in a Windogs
> > > box
> > > with no possible internet connection: One just had to twiddle the
> > > taskbar clock
> > > by one whole month or year back, and leave the clock widow opened to
> > > do the reverse
> > > once the software had started.
>
> > Yes, such naive methods are easy to defeat. There are ways to do
> > fairly effective time-locking for the case of a 5-hour run time.
> > Nothing is unbeatable, of course - but that usually isn't the goal
> > anyhow. Usually you aren't interested in a nearly unbeatable security
> > system. Rather you are satisfied with a security system which is
> > difficult enough to defeat to be a deterrent.
>
> > For the $1k+ price tag, if I were LispWorks, I'd want a security
> > mechanism which would require about a weeks worth of serious hacking
> > to defeat - not 15-20 minutes of casual playing around. Then again,
> > the market for people interested in LispWorks is small enough that
> > they don't really need to worry about serious cracking / piracy.
>
> The LispWorks Personal edition is not the same as a full LispWorks
> with a 5 hours limit. Defeating the time limit of the Personal Edition
> does not get you the LispWorks Professional or Enterprise product.

Agreed. I don't need professional/enterprise. The heap-size limit, for
example is of no concern to me.

> What would be a price where you would start thinking of buying
> LispWorks for your hobby? Actually quite a lot hobbyists bought
> LispWorks, because it is easy to use and has extensive GUI
> capabilities.

At a sub-$300 price point, I'd buy right away. Limit the heap size if
you like, just give me the ability to build and distribute freeware
apps if I want.. and of course, no nags or timeouts. Drop SQL support,
probably a few other things. I'd consider up to $500, depending on
what I actually get on my chosen platform.

On Sep 26, 8:17=A0pm, Kojak <nntp...@janville.Borg.invalid> wrote:
> Le Sat, 26 Sep 2009 10:06:01 +0200,
> Pascal Costanza a =E9crit :
>
> > How much did your guitar cost?
>
> I guess nothing... He probably cracked eBay to get it for free... :-)
>
> --
> Jacques.

That is actually somewhat offensive. Circumventing limitations in a
piece of software that I am able to download freely, and which - after
circumvention - in no way affects the ability of anyone else to use
the software -- is VERY different, both conceptually and ethically,
from theft - which, among other things, denies the ability of others
to use it properly since it is in my possession.

I don't steal.

gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sep 26, 8:17�pm, Kojak <nntp...@janville.Borg.invalid> wrote:
>> Le Sat, 26 Sep 2009 10:06:01 +0200,
>> Pascal Costanza a �crit :
>>
>> > How much did your guitar cost?
>>
>> I guess nothing... He probably cracked eBay to get it for free... :-)
>>
>> --
>> Jacques.
>
> That is actually somewhat offensive. Circumventing limitations in a
> piece of software that I am able to download freely, and which - after
> circumvention - in no way affects the ability of anyone else to use
> the software -- is VERY different, both conceptually and ethically,
> from theft - which, among other things, denies the ability of others
> to use it properly since it is in my possession.
>
> I don't steal.

There's a copyright.  The owner of the copyright has the right to
determine who may copy or not their software, and of course, they're
allowed to put additionnal constraints against this right of copy they
give you, such as that of not using their software for more than five
hours in a row.  That's their right, and if you're not happy with it,
you have two choices:

- lobby your representant to have him repeal the copyright laws (good
  luck!).

- use software whose owner allows you to copy against a better set of
  constraints.  For example, clisp has a GPL license, which let you do
  whatever you want it, as long as you pass along the sources.  There
  are even other owners who let you do whatever you want with their
  software.


-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

On Sep 27, 10:40=A0am, Alain Picard <Dr.Alain.Pic...@gmail.com> wrote:

> I suspect Lispwork's only reason for offering the 5-hour limited
> edition is to allow you to come to a determination of whether or
> not the product is suitable to your needs, so you can decide if
> you're willing to purchase it or not. =A0YOUR reasons for circumventing
> such limit are utterly irrelevant.

To you, clearly, my reasons are irrelevant. To me, naturally, my
reasons ARE quite relevant. I fail to see how this has any bearing on
the discussion.

Also consider that the LispWorks offers a personal edition - not an
evaluation, or demo. It is a limited copy of their software for
personal use. And it is NOT just a time limited enterprise or
professional version. There are other limitations (lack of application
delivery, heap size, maybe some others I'm not even aware of) besides
the timeout.

I don't need a larger heap size. I don't need to deliver applications.
I just need the software to run a bit longer.


> > Nope. I'm not a professional programmer, nor a professional musician.
> > Just a geek who spends more than 5-hours at a time mixing up two
> > enjoyable hobbies.
>
> Ah. =A0Well, then, you've determined that you don't want to shell out
> the money for that software for the purposes of your hobby, right?

I've determined that I don't want to shell out over a $1000 dollars,
yes. If they offered a product more in line with what I'm willing to
pay, I'd be happy to purchase it. While I don't NEED application
delivery - it might be come in handy a few times. I don't need a
larger heap, but it would be nice to know that I don't really have to
worry about hitting the ceiling.

But it isn't worth $1000 to me.

> I'm kind of amazed that anyone would have have the audacity to discuss
> how to defeat the meagre circumvention devices in that software, which
> are clearly there just as a reminder to "be honest".

What amazes me is that people like you believe that your moral code is
in some way absolute, and clearly when other people act according to a
different code it elicits an emotional response from you. A
superiority complex, perhaps. Mild autism, maybe. I don't know you so
I can't really tell. Suffice it to say, I am not bothered by writing a
bit of code to circumvent dumb limitations. You're right that the
protection is meager - and considering how easy it is to make
it more difficult to circumvent, if Lispworks was serious about me not
using it for more than 5 hours at a time - they could have easily done
so probably by investing as much time, or less, that I spent writing
the code to work around it.

I've spent more time responding to you, for instance, than it took me
to write that work-around.

Lispworks has lost no money directly because of me. I won't pay the
high price tag, and I wont distribute code to crack their software. If
they offered a package that met my needs, for a price I'm willing to
pay, I'd pay for it.

They DO _ALMOST_ offer such a package. It is called LispWorks
Personal. Using this package on my machine is ALMOST what I want. I've
modified MY machine (I haven't modified the Lispworks package AT ALL)
to work the way I want.

If you're offended by that, as I said in my original post - I'm sorry.

> You ARE aware that there are high quality Free (as in libre) lisps
> out there, right?

Yes, of course.  How is that relevant to LispWorks?

On Sep 26, 6:06=A0pm, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:

> How much did your guitar cost?

About $200 USD for the guitar. I built my own amp, and I've dropped a
total of probably another $150-200 on a couple of used pedals, cables
and such.

The whole rig is much less than a LispWorks license, if that is what
you're asking.

On Sep 27, 11:17=A0am, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
wrote:

> There's a copyright. =A0The owner of the copyright has the right to
> determine who may copy or not their software, and of course, they're
> allowed to put additionnal constraints against this right of copy they
> give you, such as that of not using their software for more than five
> hours in a row. =A0That's their right, and if you're not happy with it,
> you have two choices:
>
> - lobby your representant to have him repeal the copyright laws (good
> =A0 luck!).
>
> - use software whose owner allows you to copy against a better set of
> =A0 constraints. =A0For example, clisp has a GPL license, which let you d=
o
> =A0 whatever you want it, as long as you pass along the sources. =A0There
> =A0 are even other owners who let you do whatever you want with their
> =A0 software.


Sorry, still not theft. I have neither pirated, modified, or otherwise
TOUCHED the Lispworks software. I installed their software, as they
gave it to me. I modified MY system to make the
whole thing work the way I want. If they don't want this to have
happened, they should inspect the environment for LD_PRELOAD and
refuse to run on this "unsupported platform".

I could have kludged this a different way, and scripted my system to
roll back the system date/time as needed to prevent time out. In
effect, that is all that has happened. Neither the Lispworks
copyright, nor EULA, has any bearing on how I configure my own system.
If that configuration in some way changes how their code works, tough
shit, really. I'm an unsupported user. If my config hinders me, thats
my problem. I have no right to support. If it hinders them, equally
so.

On Sep 27, 11:17=A0am, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
wrote:

> There's a copyright. =A0The owner of the copyright has the right to
> determine who may copy or not their software, and of course, they're
> allowed to put additionnal constraints against this right of copy they
> give you, such as that of not using their software for more than five
> hours in a row. =A0

Yes, but the 5-hour limit is not referenced at all in the LispWorks
SLA. Therefore it is a technical limitation, and not a contractual
one. The contractual obligation laid out in the SLA is that LispWorks
Personal is not to be used for commerical purposes. The various
limitations in Personal Edition are technical attempts to enforce
this. Circumventing one, of even ALL, of those limitations, would not
violate the SLA unless it is ACTUALLY used in a commercial
environment, OR the modified edition is redistributed to a third
party.

Furthermore, I've quoted section 5 of that SLA here with emphasis on a
particularly interesting
sentence. It would seem, from this section, that I am explicitly
entitled to hack up my own copy of LispWorks Personal any way I
choose. I am, however, forbidden to distribute that modified version.

While I would argue that I have not modified LispWorks, even if the
counter point is taken and the claim is made that a run-time preloaded
library constitutes modification, that is A-OK by the terms of the
license, for my own use.

From the SLA (emphasis is my own):

5. Copying, Modification and Distribution. You may not
copy the Software except as necessary to exercise your
rights under this Agreement and to make one (1) copy of
the Software in machine readable form for back-up or
archival purposes only. You may not translate, reverse
engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify or create
derivative works based on the materials, except as
expressly permitted by the law of this Agreement.

**** You may modify the Software and/or merge it into another
program solely for your use in accordance with this
Agreement.  *****

  Any portion of the Software merged into
another program will continue to be subject to the terms
and conditions of this Agreement.  Except for the
distribution of runtime versions of the software
("Runtimes") in accordance with the following paragraph,
this license does not permit the distribution of the
Software, or any part thereof, to any third party.

On Sat, 26 Sep 2009 18:39:52 -0700, gnubeard wrote:

> On Sep 27, 11:17 am, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
> wrote:
> 
>> There's a copyright.  The owner of the copyright has the right to
>> determine who may copy or not their software, and of course, they're
>> allowed to put additionnal constraints against this right of copy they
>> give you, such as that of not using their software for more than five
>> hours in a row.  That's their right, and if you're not happy with it,
>> you have two choices:
>>
>> - lobby your representant to have him repeal the copyright laws (good
>>   luck!).
>>
>> - use software whose owner allows you to copy against a better set of
>>   constraints.  For example, clisp has a GPL license, which let you do
>>   whatever you want it, as long as you pass along the sources.  There
>>   are even other owners who let you do whatever you want with their
>>   software.
> 
> 
> Sorry, still not theft. I have neither pirated, modified, or otherwise
> TOUCHED the Lispworks software. I installed their software, as they gave
> it to me. I modified MY system to make the whole thing work the way I
> want. If they don't want this to have happened, they should inspect the
> environment for LD_PRELOAD and refuse to run on this "unsupported
> platform".
> 
> I could have kludged this a different way, and scripted my system to
> roll back the system date/time as needed to prevent time out. In effect,
> that is all that has happened. Neither the Lispworks copyright, nor
> EULA, has any bearing on how I configure my own system. If that
> configuration in some way changes how their code works, tough shit,
> really. I'm an unsupported user. If my config hinders me, thats my
> problem. I have no right to support. If it hinders them, equally so.

Nice try, but that kind of hair splitting wouldn't hold up in court.

You are still stealing, but you are getting away with it since they
are not very likely to go to court over this; so you feel safe and
brag about how you disabled a simple limitation which was clearly
there just to remind people that this is a trial version.  Kind of
like a cable lock on a bike: it is very easy to cut with simple hand
tools, but is still OK in a small community when people are basically
honest.  You are not.

The software vendor plays really, really nice in this case by allowing
you to try their software even for extended periods and decide whether
you want it.  You are just abusing this, then whine how they didn't
make it even more convenient for you.  WTF?

Tamas

PS.: I hope that the first 3 letters of your nick are referring to the
animal, not the organization, because you certainly don't comply with
their principles.

On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:19:13 -0700, gnubeard wrote:

> On Sep 27, 11:17 am, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
> wrote:
> 
>> There's a copyright.  The owner of the copyright has the right to
>> determine who may copy or not their software, and of course, they're
>> allowed to put additionnal constraints against this right of copy they
>> give you, such as that of not using their software for more than five
>> hours in a row.
> 
> Yes, but the 5-hour limit is not referenced at all in the LispWorks SLA.
> Therefore it is a technical limitation, and not a contractual one. The
> contractual obligation laid out in the SLA is that LispWorks Personal is

You mean that if I don't post a note on my apartment door stating that
"No one shall circumvent the safety mechanisms of this door either by
picking the lock, utilizing crowbars, excessive physical force, or any
other means.", burglars are free to enter?  Sorry, didn't know that.  We 
live and learn.

Gee, I know it is not gonna happen, but now I really wish that LW went
after you.  I would like to see the face of the judge when you are
explaining this in court.

Tamas

* Kenneth Tilton in article <4abcd3a9$0$5013$607ed4bc@cv.net>
Wrote on Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:29:11 -0400:

| What does it matter? All any good Lisper needs is a C tool stack so
| they can write their own Lisp.

Another new one, with an old name now available at http://armedbear.org/

--
Madhu

On Sep 27, 5:32=A0pm, Tamas K Papp <tkp...@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Nice try, but that kind of hair splitting wouldn't hold up in court.

I haven't broken any law, nor violated copyright (they let me copy and
download it), nor violated the EULA. How should the courts respond?
Tamas and some folks on c.l.l don't like what you're doing - ergo
you're guilty? LOL

> The software vendor plays really, really nice in this case by allowing
> you to try their software even for extended periods and decide whether
> you want it. =A0You are just abusing this, then whine how they didn't
> make it even more convenient for you. =A0WTF?

I'm not whining about a damn thing, actually. If LW had made it very
difficult to circumvent the limitations, I'd keep using it, and still
wouldn't pay a high price for features I don't need. I would just be
inconvenienced more than I need to be.

Nor am I bragging. If I were going for bragging rights, I'd probably
do better by posting the software all patched up on a torrent site or
something, ready for people to use. Except most people on torrent
sites probably don't care about using LW. Instead I post here, because
some other annoyed LW Personal users might see it and be able to
figure it out too. But I didn't post code, because that skates too
close for my taste of distributing a "crack".

On Sep 27, 5:40=A0pm, Tamas K Papp <tkp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:19:13 -0700, gnubeard wrote:
> > Yes, but the 5-hour limit is not referenced at all in the LispWorks SLA=
..
> > Therefore it is a technical limitation, and not a contractual one. The
> > contractual obligation laid out in the SLA is that LispWorks Personal i=
s
>
> You mean that if I don't post a note on my apartment door stating that
> "No one shall circumvent the safety mechanisms of this door either by
> picking the lock, utilizing crowbars, excessive physical force, or any
> other means.", burglars are free to enter? =A0Sorry, didn't know that. =
=A0We
> live and learn.

Clearly your thinking is muddled. You see, there are things called
laws which prohibit breaking into your apartment.

There is no *law* against configuring my machine the way I choose,
even if that configuration screws up the intended execution of someone
else's code.

By downloading and using LW, I do however accept a license - which is
a type of contract. That contract sets out the acceptable use policy
of their code. That contract MIGHT have said that I am only allowed to
use LW on an acceptably configured computer, with no mechanisms in
place that might adversely effect the execution of the LW, etc. But
the contract doesn't say that.

A better analogy would be: "You mean if I enter into a contract to
sublet my apartment to someone for a year and don't explicitly say
"Dont smoke in the apartment" then the person is free to smoke a pack
a day in the apartment?"

Yes, that is exactly right. If you don't lay out the terms of your
contract correctly, you can get screwed. Even if you are a vegan
hippie with rainbows and unicorns all over the apartment - even if you
have books and literature about how smoking can kill you in the
apartment -- if you don't lay down the rules IN THE CONTRACT saying
"DONT SMOKE" - the person is free to do so.

That's life.

I'll wager you're an academic and never needed to negotiate a real
contract before?

>
> Gee, I know it is not gonna happen, but now I really wish that LW went
> after you. =A0I would like to see the face of the judge when you are
> explaining this in court.
>
> Tamas

So would I. "Tamas, let me get this straight - you're trying to tell
this man not to smoke in your apartment just because you have hippie
unicorns in it, despite the fact that the contract as signed says
nothing about smoking?"

"Yes, that is exactly right sir!"

"Case dismissed."

gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> writes:

> For the $1k+ price tag, if I were LispWorks, I'd want a security
> mechanism which would require about a weeks worth of serious hacking
> to defeat - not 15-20 minutes of casual playing around. Then again,
> the market for people interested in LispWorks is small enough that
> they don't really need to worry about serious cracking / piracy.

As a paying Lispworks customer, I would prefer them to continue working
on enhancing a great product rather than play these silly games with a
cracker who obviously isn't interested in buying the product.

-- 
[The beginner] should not be discouraged [...] if he finds that he does not
have the prerequisites for reading the prerequisites.         Paul Halmos

On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 01:53:46 -0700, gnubeard wrote:

> There is no *law* against configuring my machine the way I choose, even
> if that configuration screws up the intended execution of someone else's
> code.

Literal interpretations have little consequence in this case.  You
seem clearly aware that the time limit is placed on the product for a
reason, and you are circumventing it knowingly.

That said, I have no further interest in arguing with you.  If it
pleases you to be a dishonest person and convince yourself that these
tricks are clever, there is nothing I can do about that.  Go ahead and
play with the machine clock all day if that is what you want.

There are two kinds of people: those who can create intellectual
value, and those who can't.  The former have the freedom of deciding
what to do with it, the while latter have to be satisfied with
thinking up ways to steal it and justifying their actions.

Tamas

Tamas K Papp <tkpapp@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:19:13 -0700, gnubeard wrote:
>
>> On Sep 27, 11:17�am, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> There's a copyright. �The owner of the copyright has the right to
>>> determine who may copy or not their software, and of course, they're
>>> allowed to put additionnal constraints against this right of copy they
>>> give you, such as that of not using their software for more than five
>>> hours in a row.
>> 
>> Yes, but the 5-hour limit is not referenced at all in the LispWorks SLA.
>> Therefore it is a technical limitation, and not a contractual one. The
>> contractual obligation laid out in the SLA is that LispWorks Personal is
>
> You mean that if I don't post a note on my apartment door stating that
> "No one shall circumvent the safety mechanisms of this door either by
> picking the lock, utilizing crowbars, excessive physical force, or any
> other means.", burglars are free to enter?  Sorry, didn't know that.  We 
> live and learn.

No, but it's an interesting legal point.  IANAL (much less a USA
lawyer).  While I wouldn't have a law that would make software a
binding contract (for the simple reason that it's not open source
software, therefore the recipient cannot read the "contract" before
using it), it seems that DRM are made legal contract by the WTC and
enacted by the various laws such as DMCA (USA) and DADVSI (France).
Therefore even if it's not explicitely state in the SLA, as a DRM
device, the 5-hour limit is probably binding (depending on the country
where the OP uses LispWorks).

But who am I to say anything, my vote is worth only 1/62e6, and
politicians just lie and do whatever they want.

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:02:09 +0200, Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:

> Tamas K Papp <tkpapp@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:19:13 -0700, gnubeard wrote:
>>
>>> On Sep 27, 11:17 am, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> There's a copyright.  The owner of the copyright has the right to
>>>> determine who may copy or not their software, and of course, they're
>>>> allowed to put additionnal constraints against this right of copy
>>>> they give you, such as that of not using their software for more than
>>>> five hours in a row.
>>> 
>>> Yes, but the 5-hour limit is not referenced at all in the LispWorks
>>> SLA. Therefore it is a technical limitation, and not a contractual
>>> one. The contractual obligation laid out in the SLA is that LispWorks
>>> Personal is
>>
>> You mean that if I don't post a note on my apartment door stating that
>> "No one shall circumvent the safety mechanisms of this door either by
>> picking the lock, utilizing crowbars, excessive physical force, or any
>> other means.", burglars are free to enter?  Sorry, didn't know that. 
>> We live and learn.
> 
> No, but it's an interesting legal point.  IANAL (much less a USA
> lawyer).  While I wouldn't have a law that would make software a binding
> contract (for the simple reason that it's not open source software,
> therefore the recipient cannot read the "contract" before using it), it
> seems that DRM are made legal contract by the WTC and enacted by the
> various laws such as DMCA (USA) and DADVSI (France). Therefore even if
> it's not explicitely state in the SLA, as a DRM device, the 5-hour limit
> is probably binding (depending on the country where the OP uses
> LispWorks).
> 
> But who am I to say anything, my vote is worth only 1/62e6, and
> politicians just lie and do whatever they want.

IANAL either.  For me, the issue is not primarily legal.  LW is a nice
company, they let you try the product first for an extended period,
with limitations for sure, but they let you decide whether you want to
fork out all that cash after testing the product first.  In my
experience, suppliers of similarly priced software are nowhere near
that nice to their customers.

And with all the high quality open source CL implementations around,
it is hard to justify stealing their product from the "I am poor but
want to program in CL" perspective either.

Tamas

On Sep 27, 7:50=A0pm, Tamas K Papp <tkp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 01:53:46 -0700, gnubeard wrote:
> > There is no *law* against configuring my machine the way I choose, even
> > if that configuration screws up the intended execution of someone else'=
s
> > code.
>
> Literal interpretations have little consequence in this case. =A0You
> seem clearly aware that the time limit is placed on the product for a
> reason, and you are circumventing it knowingly.

And I am aware of the reason for the existence of the limitation,
while you are not. From the Personal Edition release notes:

LispWorks Personal Edition has several limitations designed to prevent
commercial exploitation of this free product. These are:

    * A heap size limit
    * A time limit of 5 hours for each session.
    * The functions save-image , deliver , and load-all-patches are
not available.
    * Initialization files are not available.
    * Professional and Enterprise Edition module loading is not
included.

....

The limitation is NOT there to convince me to buy the professional or
enterprise editions.

> There are two kinds of people: those who can create intellectual
> value, and those who can't. =A0The former have the freedom of deciding
> what to do with it, the while latter have to be satisfied with
> thinking up ways to steal it and justifying their actions.
>
> Tamas

I feel sad for you. It must be terrible to live in a world where
people are as easily divided as bits; a world with no vagaries or
shades of meaning. I imagine it must be a desolate, lonely place. You
should try getting out of the house/lab/office more.

On Sep 27, 7:20=A0pm, Lieven Marchand <m...@wyrd.be> wrote:

> As a paying Lispworks customer, I would prefer them to continue working
> on enhancing a great product rather than play these silly games with a
> cracker who obviously isn't interested in buying the product.

Indeed. But, I'd *LOVE* to buy LW - you're completely, 100% wrong on
that point. But, the pro and enterprise editions are pricey, and dont
offer me *ANY* features that help me and instead only include stuff
that I don't want. I'd pay $100 right now, for a Personal Edition
minus the time-lock (keep the heap size and other limitations in
place). Thats $100 just so that my Lisp code could get the correct
system time/date easily.

In effect, I'm just trading one limitation for another. Instead of
timing out after 5-hours, (get-decoded-time) and friends don't work.

You know, if LW would have done something to maintain/distribute the
SigLab sources with their product *THAT* would represent significant
value to me, and I'd pay the $1500, possibly even more depending on
how much effort was put into it. Or even their own audio/signal
libraries and visualization tools.

On Sep 27, 8:02=A0pm, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
wrote:

> No, but it's an interesting legal point. =A0IANAL (much less a USA
> lawyer). =A0While I wouldn't have a law that would make software a
> binding contract (for the simple reason that it's not open source
> software, therefore the recipient cannot read the "contract" before
> using it), it seems that DRM are made legal contract by the WTC and
> enacted by the various laws such as DMCA (USA) and DADVSI (France).
> Therefore even if it's not explicitely state in the SLA, as a DRM
> device, the 5-hour limit is probably binding (depending on the country
> where the OP uses LispWorks).
>
> But who am I to say anything, my vote is worth only 1/62e6, and
> politicians just lie and do whatever they want.

IANAL either.. but yes, DMCA act provisions are interesting in this
context. It is too fine of a legal line for me to really be able to
draw.

However, my understanding is that the DMCA and similar laws
criminalize circumventing COPY PROTECTION - that is, circumventing
restrictions to access to the content itself.

I do, clearly, have a right to copy/download LW Personal.

From LW's license, I even have a right to modify if it for my own
use.

From LW Personal's notes the limitations are NOT copy protection
mechanisms, but are designed to make the product as delivered
unsuitable for commercial use - which is forbidden by their SLA.

I am not using it for commercial use, so the fact that I jump through
some hoops to loosen the 5-hour restriction is not against the SLA,
and I don't believe it would be a DMCA violation either, since I have
a right to the copy to begin with - and I'm allowed to modify my copy.

gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sep 27, 8:02�pm, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
> wrote:
>
>> No, but it's an interesting legal point. �IANAL (much less a USA
>> lawyer). �While I wouldn't have a law that would make software a
>> binding contract (for the simple reason that it's not open source
>> software, therefore the recipient cannot read the "contract" before
>> using it), it seems that DRM are made legal contract by the WTC and
>> enacted by the various laws such as DMCA (USA) and DADVSI (France).
>> Therefore even if it's not explicitely state in the SLA, as a DRM
>> device, the 5-hour limit is probably binding (depending on the country
>> where the OP uses LispWorks).
>>
>> But who am I to say anything, my vote is worth only 1/62e6, and
>> politicians just lie and do whatever they want.
>
> IANAL either.. but yes, DMCA act provisions are interesting in this
> context. It is too fine of a legal line for me to really be able to
> draw.
>
> However, my understanding is that the DMCA and similar laws
> criminalize circumventing COPY PROTECTION - that is, circumventing
> restrictions to access to the content itself.
>
> I do, clearly, have a right to copy/download LW Personal.
>
> From LW's license, I even have a right to modify if it for my own
> use.
>
> From LW Personal's notes the limitations are NOT copy protection
> mechanisms, but are designed to make the product as delivered
> unsuitable for commercial use - which is forbidden by their SLA.
>
> I am not using it for commercial use, so the fact that I jump through
> some hoops to loosen the 5-hour restriction is not against the SLA,
> and I don't believe it would be a DMCA violation either, since I have
> a right to the copy to begin with - and I'm allowed to modify my copy.

It sounds like they might have inavertently disabled legally their
DRM, but it will probably be up to a judge to decide wether SLA takes
precedence over DMCA or the inverse.  If there's a contradiction
between what they allow you to do with their software, and a DRM
device inside this software, perhaps USA judges will decide that the
DRM is prioritary, and that you still cannot modify it.  In any case,
I can see their lawyers arguing that they meant you were allowed to
modify lisp sources, and not the virtual machine.


-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

gnubeard wrote:
> On Sep 26, 6:06 pm, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
> 
>> How much did your guitar cost?
> 
> About $200 USD for the guitar. I built my own amp, and I've dropped a
> total of probably another $150-200 on a couple of used pedals, cables
> and such.

What would you do if you could buy such equipment only for a higher price?

> The whole rig is much less than a LispWorks license, if that is what
> you're asking.

No, that's not what I'm asking.


Pascal

-- 
My website: http://p-cos.net
Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org
Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/

On Sep 27, 9:45=A0pm, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
wrote:

> It sounds like they might have inavertently disabled legally their
> DRM, but it will probably be up to a judge to decide wether SLA takes
> precedence over DMCA or the inverse. =A0If there's a contradiction
> between what they allow you to do with their software, and a DRM
> device inside this software, perhaps USA judges will decide that the
> DRM is prioritary, and that you still cannot modify it. =A0In any case,
> I can see their lawyers arguing that they meant you were allowed to
> modify lisp sources, and not the virtual machine.

Yeah, that is certainly a possibility. But since I haven't actually
modified LW at all, that shouldn't be an issue either.

All I've done is to utilize an already present feature of the dynamic
linker. A standard feature on UNIX-ish OS's that they choose to
support. If anything is getting modified, it is my copy of the C
standard library, not LW.

Now if I were preloading a lib that interposed over LW's supplied
libraries, that would be a different issue.

On Sep 27, 9:53=A0pm, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
> gnubeard wrote:
> > On Sep 26, 6:06 pm, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
>
> >> How much did your guitar cost?
>
> > About $200 USD for the guitar. I built my own amp, and I've dropped a
> > total of probably another $150-200 on a couple of used pedals, cables
> > and such.
>
> What would you do if you could buy such equipment only for a higher price=
?

First I'll submit to your hypothetical: you've logically forced me to
either buy it for the higher price, or not play guitar. After all,
this is a non-existant world where used, tarnished, or broken guitars
don't exist. I can only buy new - so I must do so at a higher price.

Now back to reality:

LW is available for a higher price, and a lesser version is available
for free.  The irony is, that if LW Personal, as it exists, WITH the 5-
hour time out were only available for $300 -- I'd probably buy it.
Thats right. I like it that much above the other options. I'd buy the
crippleware, KNOWING I could patch it up and make it workable for my
uses. Kind of like buying one of those broken guitars I was telling
you about, and fixing up the bent tuning pegs or what-have-you.

You know, there seems to be this underlying assumption that because
I've defeated the time-lock on the personal edition, that I won't ever
buy the professional one. I'm not as certain of that as you all are,
apparently. I can say with a fair amount of certainty that if I had
$4000 or so more to throw into my hobbies, LW Pro would make the list.
But, you know, we'd all like more bread. I do more than just play
guitar and screw around with Lisp. Remember I mentioned that I built
my amp? Yeah, the parts for that still cost money, the used Tek oscope
and spectrum analyzer cost me money too. I keep a tight a budget on my
hobbies these days because when I didn't - I blew way too much money
on all sorts of shit, software included.

Probably some time in the next 6 months or so I'll end up buying a
copy, especially when I finish up my filters .. if some of my friends
like the sound, I might like to be able to build standalone apps for
them to use since they don't code and wouldn't want to deal with LW.

gnubeard wrote:
> On Sep 27, 9:53 pm, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
>> gnubeard wrote:
>>> On Sep 26, 6:06 pm, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
>>>> How much did your guitar cost?
>>> About $200 USD for the guitar. I built my own amp, and I've dropped a
>>> total of probably another $150-200 on a couple of used pedals, cables
>>> and such.
>> What would you do if you could buy such equipment only for a higher price?
> 
> First I'll submit to your hypothetical: you've logically forced me to
> either buy it for the higher price, or not play guitar. After all,
> this is a non-existant world where used, tarnished, or broken guitars
> don't exist. I can only buy new - so I must do so at a higher price.
> 
> Now back to reality:
> 
> LW is available for a higher price, and a lesser version is available
> for free.  The irony is, that if LW Personal, as it exists, WITH the 5-
> hour time out were only available for $300 -- I'd probably buy it.
> Thats right. I like it that much above the other options. I'd buy the
> crippleware, KNOWING I could patch it up and make it workable for my
> uses. Kind of like buying one of those broken guitars I was telling
> you about, and fixing up the bent tuning pegs or what-have-you.
> 
> You know, there seems to be this underlying assumption that because
> I've defeated the time-lock on the personal edition, that I won't ever
> buy the professional one. I'm not as certain of that as you all are,
> apparently. I can say with a fair amount of certainty that if I had
> $4000 or so more to throw into my hobbies, LW Pro would make the list.
> But, you know, we'd all like more bread. I do more than just play
> guitar and screw around with Lisp. Remember I mentioned that I built
> my amp? Yeah, the parts for that still cost money, the used Tek oscope
> and spectrum analyzer cost me money too. I keep a tight a budget on my
> hobbies these days because when I didn't - I blew way too much money
> on all sorts of shit, software included.
> 
> Probably some time in the next 6 months or so I'll end up buying a
> copy, especially when I finish up my filters .. if some of my friends
> like the sound, I might like to be able to build standalone apps for
> them to use since they don't code and wouldn't want to deal with LW.

This sounds reasonable to me. You could have saved yourself some effort 
if you had told this to the LispWorks guys. As far as I know, they are 
quite helpful in providing unlimited evaluation copies for a limited 
timeframe (of a couple of months, or so).

Pascal

-- 
My website: http://p-cos.net
Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org
Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/

Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> On Sep 26, 8:17 pm, Kojak <nntp...@janville.Borg.invalid> wrote:
>>> Le Sat, 26 Sep 2009 10:06:01 +0200,
>>> Pascal Costanza a �crit :
>>>
>>>> How much did your guitar cost?
>>> I guess nothing... He probably cracked eBay to get it for free... :-)
>>>
>>> --
>>> Jacques.
>> That is actually somewhat offensive. Circumventing limitations in a
>> piece of software that I am able to download freely, and which - after
>> circumvention - in no way affects the ability of anyone else to use
>> the software -- is VERY different, both conceptually and ethically,
>> from theft - which, among other things, denies the ability of others
>> to use it properly since it is in my possession.
>>
>> I don't steal.

Agreed.

> There's a copyright.  The owner of the copyright has the right to
> determine who may copy or not their software

True.

> and of course, they're allowed to put additionnal constraints against
> this right of copy they give you, such as that of not using their
> software for more than five hours in a row.

False. There is nothing in US copyright law to that effect. In fact 
there's an explicit denial of that: the right of first sale. Once you 
buy a copy, you can do as you please with that copy, or sell it or give 
it away, save that you need the copyright holder's permission to make 
and distribute new copies.

Simply using your copy, however you see fit, in privacy, is not 
constrained by copyright law.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/87/240803829_9212773615_o.png

gnubeard wrote:
> On Sep 26, 6:06 pm, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
> 
>> How much did your guitar cost?
> 
> About $200 USD for the guitar. I built my own amp, and I've dropped a
> total of probably another $150-200 on a couple of used pedals, cables
> and such.
> 
> The whole rig is much less than a LispWorks license, if that is what
> you're asking.

That's very interesting. Guitar + other equipment: $350-400. Marginal 
cost: $350-400. LispWorks license: north of $1000. Marginal cost: south 
of one buck.

What's up with that?

On 2009-09-27 12:48:52 -0400, Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> said:

> In fact there's an explicit denial of that: the right of first sale.

He's talking about the free trial version. Since there hasn't been any 
sale, it's difficult to invoke the right of first sale.

-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

P� Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:02:52 +0200, skrev gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com>:

> On Sep 27, 7:20 pm, Lieven Marchand <m...@wyrd.be> wrote:
> You know, if LW would have done something to maintain/distribute the
> SigLab sources with their product *THAT* would represent significant
> value to me, and I'd pay the $1500, possibly even more depending on
> how much effort was put into it. Or even their own audio/signal
> libraries and visualization tools.
>

You know I was just about to buy their product until I tested it under  
Linux.
It still runs under a Motif windows manager without mouse-wheel support.
Excuse me but I owe my customers more than that.
(Give me a decent GTK Linux interface and I'm right on it.)
I regret that since I love CAPI.


--------------
John Thingstad

On 27 Sep., 22:44, "John Thingstad" <jpth...@online.no> wrote:
> P=E5 Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:02:52 +0200, skrev gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com>=
:
>
> > On Sep 27, 7:20 pm, Lieven Marchand <m...@wyrd.be> wrote:
> > You know, if LW would have done something to maintain/distribute the
> > SigLab sources with their product *THAT* would represent significant
> > value to me, and I'd pay the $1500, possibly even more depending on
> > how much effort was put into it. Or even their own audio/signal
> > libraries and visualization tools.
>
> You know I was just about to buy their product until I tested it under =
=A0
> Linux.
> It still runs under a Motif windows manager without mouse-wheel support.
> Excuse me but I owe my customers more than that.
> (Give me a decent GTK Linux interface and I'm right on it.)
> I regret that since I love CAPI.
>
> --------------
> John Thingstad

LispWorks 6 beta has just been announced. One of the new features is
GTK+ support for CAPI and the LispWorks IDE.

http://www.lispworks.com/news/index.html#lw60beta

On Sep 28, 5:44=A0am, Raffael Cavallaro
<raffaelcavall...@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> On 2009-09-27 12:48:52 -0400, Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> s=
aid:
>
> > In fact there's an explicit denial of that: the right of first sale.
>
> He's talking about the free trial version. Since there hasn't been any
> sale, it's difficult to invoke the right of first sale.
>
> --
> Raffael Cavallaro

Yeah, there is a distinction to be made there -- but I think it would
be for the courts to decide (if they have not already) whether the
right of first sale is primarily the right of a person who has spent
money, or whether it is the right of a person who has obtained a
legitimate copy (whatever the cost, and whether it is free or not).

If I bought a piece of software at my expense, and then gave it to you
free of charge, would you have the right of first sale? I.e. - you are
the legitimate holder of the software now, you have the original
media, license agreement, and so on -- are you now allowed to use that
copy, in privacy, any way you like?

I imagine you would be. The fact that LW supplies a legitimate
perpetual-use license for LW Personal to me, free of charge, is the
main point.

On Sep 28, 1:07=A0am, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
> This sounds reasonable to me. You could have saved yourself some effort
> if you had told this to the LispWorks guys. As far as I know, they are
> quite helpful in providing unlimited evaluation copies for a limited
> timeframe (of a couple of months, or so).

I've seen this sort of thing mentioned a few times in this thread. It
is quite encouraging to know that the staff of LW is this helpful. It
certainly goes a ways toward encouraging me to buy a copy when the
time comes.

OTOH, this whole kludge was really very little effort. I really doubt
anyone at LW could have received my email, gone through whatever
process they have for supplying such an evaluation, and gotten back to
me about it in less time that it took to develop the replacement
gettimeofday().. I've spent an order of magnitude more time responding
in this thread, for instance :)

On 2009-09-27 20:13:22 -0400, gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> said:

> If I bought a piece of software at my expense, and then gave it to you
> free of charge, would you have the right of first sale? I.e. - you are
> the legitimate holder of the software now, you have the original
> media, license agreement, and so on -- are you now allowed to use that
> copy, in privacy, any way you like?
> 
> I imagine you would be.

In your hypothetical the free copy is obtained from a previous 
purchaser. In the case at hand the free copy is obtained from the 
copyright holder with specific license conditions.

> The fact that LW supplies a legitimate
> perpetual-use license for LW Personal to me, free of charge, is the
> main point.

Yes, but that license has conditions and those conditions must be 
obeyed or the license is void. Whether or not resetting one's system 
clock violates those conditions would be a question for the courts to 
decide, but it's distinctly possible they'd see it as deliberate 
circumvention of the terms of the license.


-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

On Sep 28, 11:01=A0am, Raffael Cavallaro
<raffaelcavall...@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> On 2009-09-27 20:13:22 -0400, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> said:
>
> > If I bought a piece of software at my expense, and then gave it to you
> > free of charge, would you have the right of first sale? I.e. - you are
> > the legitimate holder of the software now, you have the original
> > media, license agreement, and so on -- are you now allowed to use that
> > copy, in privacy, any way you like?
>
> > I imagine you would be.
>
> In your hypothetical the free copy is obtained from a previous
> purchaser. In the case at hand the free copy is obtained from the
> copyright holder with specific license conditions.
>
> > The fact that LW supplies a legitimate
> > perpetual-use license for LW Personal to me, free of charge, is the
> > main point.
>
> Yes, but that license has conditions and those conditions must be
> obeyed or the license is void. Whether or not resetting one's system
> clock violates those conditions would be a question for the courts to
> decide, but it's distinctly possible they'd see it as deliberate
> circumvention of the terms of the license.
>
> --
> Raffael Cavallaro

Agreed, but  the Personal Edition license doesn't mention the
limitations of that software compared to Professional or Enterprise at
all. The license restrictions, as set out in the text, are a
prohibition against commercial use, and a prohibition against
redistribution. Thats all.

If I don't violate those license terms, there is no violation..
regardless of what else I do to the software.

The release notes for the software make it clear that the limitations
in personal edition are there to enforce the non-commercial use of
Personal edition - by making it not a viable option for commercial use
(time outs in less than a work day, small heap size, no binary
creation).

It seems to me that you, and others, are thinking of LW Personal in
the same way as some other commercial evaluation packages that give
you a 30-day trial or something. Some of those packages probably
mention that the user is prohibited from using the software after 30-
days, and also put in time-out code to enforce that. If this technique
is applicable to such packages, using it would be in violation of the
license because the license itself mandates you are allowed to use it
only for a given period of time.

That is not the case with LW Personal. It is not an evaluation
licensed to me for a given amount of time. It is a full package,
licensed to me perpetually for non-commercial use with some technical
limitations designed to make it useless for commercial use.
Circumventing one, or all, of those limitations while continuing to
use it non-commercially is not in violation of the license agreement.

On 2009-09-27 22:48:10 -0400, gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> said:

> Circumventing one, or all, of those limitations while continuing to
> use it non-commercially is not in violation of the license agreement.

"You may not translate, reverse
engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify or create
derivative works based on the materials, except as
expressly permitted by the law of this Agreement."

Seems to me that your hack entailed some reverse engineering 
(admittedly simple, but reverse engineering nevertheless), which 
reverse engineering was not expressly permitted by the agreement. Seems 
to me like you've laid yourself open to section 16.

"16. Termination. The Vendor may terminate this Agreement
if you fail to comply with any of the terms and
conditions of this Agreement.  Upon termination, you
shall cease using the Software and shall destroy or
return to the Vendor all copies of the Software."

As a practical matter, I doubt LW would come after you. If you've no 
intention of ever buying, they can't be bothered as you don't represent 
a lost sale. If you might eventually buy, they'd be harassing a 
potential customer. Naturally I don't speak for LispWorks so it's 
completely possible that they take an entirely different view.

What does seem pretty clear is that you've violated the terms of the 
license by reverse engineering the time limitation and circumventing it.

-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

gnubeard wrote:
> For those annoyed with the 5-hour timeout in LispWorks Personal
> Edition:
> 
> You can disable the time-out by using the library interposition
> mechanism on your platform (LD_PRELOAD on linux, DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES
> on Mac .. not sure about a mechanism on Windows).
....

Whereas I think the trial versions of LispWorks and Allegro are overly 
restrictive, the moral way to avoid their annoyances is to use a 
different implementation.  There are plenty to choose from.

- Daniel

gnubeard wrote:
> On Sep 28, 1:07 am, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
>> This sounds reasonable to me. You could have saved yourself some effort
>> if you had told this to the LispWorks guys. As far as I know, they are
>> quite helpful in providing unlimited evaluation copies for a limited
>> timeframe (of a couple of months, or so).
> 
> I've seen this sort of thing mentioned a few times in this thread. It
> is quite encouraging to know that the staff of LW is this helpful. It
> certainly goes a ways toward encouraging me to buy a copy when the
> time comes.
> 
> OTOH, this whole kludge was really very little effort. I really doubt
> anyone at LW could have received my email, gone through whatever
> process they have for supplying such an evaluation, and gotten back to
> me about it in less time that it took to develop the replacement
> gettimeofday().. 

My experiences with the LispWorks crew is a lot more positive than you 
seem to expect.


Pascal

-- 
My website: http://p-cos.net
Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org
Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/

On Sep 28, 2:05=A0pm, Raffael Cavallaro
<raffaelcavall...@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> On 2009-09-27 22:48:10 -0400, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> said:
>
> > Circumventing one, or all, of those limitations while continuing to
> > use it non-commercially is not in violation of the license agreement.
>
> "You may not translate, reverse
> engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify or create
> derivative works based on the materials, except as
> expressly permitted by the law of this Agreement."
>
> Seems to me that your hack entailed some reverse engineering
> (admittedly simple, but reverse engineering nevertheless), which
> reverse engineering was not expressly permitted by the agreement. Seems
> to me like you've laid yourself open to section 16.

I'm baffled. How is creating my own implementation of a standard C
function reverse engineering, in any sense of the term? Or how is
loading said function with a standard ld feature reverse engineering?

I just read the entire wiki article on reverse engineering, thinking
that my understanding of the term might be the problem.. the thesis of
the article is thus:

Reverse engineering (RE) is the process of discovering the
technological principles of a device, object or system through
analysis of its structure, function and operation. It often involves
taking something (e.g., a mechanical device, electronic component, or
software program) apart and analyzing its workings in detail to be
used in maintenance, or to try to make a new device or program that
does the same thing without copying anything from the original.

I don't see how any of that that applies, at all.

On Sep 28, 4:42=A0pm, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
> gnubeard wrote:

> > I've seen this sort of thing mentioned a few times in this thread. It
> > is quite encouraging to know that the staff of LW is this helpful. It
> > certainly goes a ways toward encouraging me to buy a copy when the
> > time comes.

> My experiences with the LispWorks crew is a lot more positive than you
> seem to expect.
>
> Pascal


I didn't mean to suggest that I thought that the LW guys wouldn't
provide good service - I just mean that, from my reading of the
website, I didn't notice anything regarding time-limited evaluations
advertised, or even a statement that other options are available and
that I should contact someone, etc.

Then again, I admit I didn't look very hard .. I knew that LW offered
a personal edition, and I went there, looked around rather briefly,
downloaded the software and then spent most of my time in their
manuals, not on their website.

gnubeard wrote:
> I'm baffled. How is creating my own implementation of a standard C
> function reverse engineering, in any sense of the term? Or how is
> loading said function with a standard ld feature reverse engineering?

you found out how LW keeps track of the 5hr limit. that's reverse-engineering,
because you had to analyse LW's functioning and operating to do so.


-- 
Joost Kremers                                      joostkremers@yahoo.com
Selbst in die Unterwelt dringt durch Spalten Licht
EN:SiS(9)

gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sep 28, 2:05=A0pm, Raffael Cavallaro
> <raffaelcavall...@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
>> On 2009-09-27 22:48:10 -0400, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> said:
>>
>> > Circumventing one, or all, of those limitations while continuing to
>> > use it non-commercially is not in violation of the license agreement.
>>
>> "You may not translate, reverse
>> engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify or create
>> derivative works based on the materials, except as
>> expressly permitted by the law of this Agreement."
>>
>> Seems to me that your hack entailed some reverse engineering
>> (admittedly simple, but reverse engineering nevertheless), which
>> reverse engineering was not expressly permitted by the agreement. Seems
>> to me like you've laid yourself open to section 16.
>
> I'm baffled. How is creating my own implementation of a standard C
> function reverse engineering, in any sense of the term? Or how is
> loading said function with a standard ld feature reverse engineering?
>
> I just read the entire wiki article on reverse engineering, thinking
> that my understanding of the term might be the problem.. the thesis of
> the article is thus:
>
> Reverse engineering (RE) is the process of discovering the
> technological principles of a device, object or system through
> analysis of its structure, function and operation. It often involves
> taking something (e.g., a mechanical device, electronic component, or
> software program) apart and analyzing its workings in detail to be
> used in maintenance, or to try to make a new device or program that
> does the same thing without copying anything from the original.
>
> I don't see how any of that that applies, at all.

I agree with you.  However, I can imagine a lawyer arguing that
modifying the behavior of an external library function such as
gettimeofday that is called by the program in question is a kind of
probing, and thus you "analyzed" its workings with respect to time and
timeouts.  After all, before you didn't know how it would behave.
After having implemented  this new gettimeofday, you know how
Lispworks behaves.  So you analyzed it and reverse engineered this
part.  Granted, as a blackbox, without taking it apart, but still...


--=20
__Pascal Bourguignon__

On Sep 28, 9:43=A0pm, Joost Kremers <joostkrem...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> gnubeard wrote:
> > I'm baffled. How is creating my own implementation of a standard C
> > function reverse engineering, in any sense of the term? Or how is
> > loading said function with a standard ld feature reverse engineering?
>
> you found out how LW keeps track of the 5hr limit. that's reverse-enginee=
ring,
> because you had to analyse LW's functioning and operating to do so.

hmm, ok .. I suppose I can see the argument in a way. In actual point
of fact though, I didn't analyze a thing. I knew apriori that LW would
be using gettimeofday() because thats what C programs do: they use the
C standard library. But I could have been wrong about them having
written it in C though, so I guess I "learned" that too.

IMO this is pretty weak, though.. and certainly not clear cut. I can
imagine a judge throwing this out just as easily as I can see it being
considered.

On Sep 28, 9:55=A0pm, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
wrote:

> I agree with you. =A0However, I can imagine a lawyer arguing that
> modifying the behavior of an external library function such as
> gettimeofday that is called by the program in question is a kind of
> probing, and thus you "analyzed" its workings with respect to time and
> timeouts. =A0After all, before you didn't know how it would behave.
> After having implemented =A0this new gettimeofday, you know how
> Lispworks behaves. =A0So you analyzed it and reverse engineered this
> part. =A0Granted, as a blackbox, without taking it apart, but still...


Yeah, I suppose I could see this being argued back and forth in a
court.

My argument to the judge in such a case would be that using such weak
criteria to establish "reverse engineering" would equally prohibit me
from using a replacement C library such as FreeVec (Altivec/SSE/etc
accelerated C library) in debug mode where it tells me what functions
are being called, SIMD registers, etc. My aim for such a thing might
be to simply debug FreeVec, and the fact that I learn about LW is
secondary only because it might be LW that triggers the trouble in
FreeVec.

Prohibition of an entire class of usage on the grounds that I might
secondarily learn something about LW would be dangerous precedent, and
I think most judges would rule that reverse engineering entails
primarily trying to establish the functioning and details of the
system in question, and not merely learning a bit about it by using
it.. even if that usage is out of the ordinary.

Interesting stuff, though :)

gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> writes:

> On Sep 28, 9:55=A0pm, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
> wrote:
>
>> I agree with you. =A0However, I can imagine a lawyer arguing that
>> modifying the behavior of an external library function such as
>> gettimeofday that is called by the program in question is a kind of
>> probing, and thus you "analyzed" its workings with respect to time and
>> timeouts. =A0After all, before you didn't know how it would behave.
>> After having implemented =A0this new gettimeofday, you know how
>> Lispworks behaves. =A0So you analyzed it and reverse engineered this
>> part. =A0Granted, as a blackbox, without taking it apart, but still...
>
>
> Yeah, I suppose I could see this being argued back and forth in a
> court.
>
> My argument to the judge in such a case would be that using such weak
> criteria to establish "reverse engineering" would equally prohibit me
> from using a replacement C library such as FreeVec (Altivec/SSE/etc
> accelerated C library) in debug mode where it tells me what functions
> are being called, SIMD registers, etc. My aim for such a thing might
> be to simply debug FreeVec, and the fact that I learn about LW is
> secondary only because it might be LW that triggers the trouble in
> FreeVec.
>
> Prohibition of an entire class of usage on the grounds that I might
> secondarily learn something about LW would be dangerous precedent, and
> I think most judges would rule that reverse engineering entails
> primarily trying to establish the functioning and details of the
> system in question, and not merely learning a bit about it by using
> it.. even if that usage is out of the ordinary.
>
> Interesting stuff, though :)

Of course it depends on the country.  In France, you'd have a case
about interoperability: you'd be allowed to reverse engineer
LispWorks, if need be, to make it run with your own libc.


--=20
__Pascal Bourguignon__

gnubeard wrote:

> Yeah, I suppose I could see this being argued back and forth in a
> court.

No, I think it would be very short. You have modified the libc, because you
don't want to pay for a good product. It is the intention that counts. 

There are other examples for this concept, e.g. involuntary manslaughter
and murder. Both have the same result, but the punishment is much
different, because the intention of the offender was different.

-- 
Frank Buss, fb@frank-buss.de
http://www.frank-buss.de, http://www.it4-systems.de

I've worked with the Lispworks people for many years. They're great
folks; produce a superb product worth every penny of its cost; and are
always willing to work with others on various exceptions to their
licensing policy.

However you want to rationalize this thing, it's unethical if nothing
else. What's more, you post your "achievement" for all to see.

Typical...

-- david

Frank Buss <fb@frank-buss.de> writes:

> gnubeard wrote:
>
>> Yeah, I suppose I could see this being argued back and forth in a
>> court.
>
> No, I think it would be very short. You have modified the libc, because you
> don't want to pay for a good product. It is the intention that counts. 
>
> There are other examples for this concept, e.g. involuntary manslaughter
> and murder. Both have the same result, but the punishment is much
> different, because the intention of the offender was different.

It may be an accessibility question then.

Perhaps the OP is too slow to use effectively his computers, so he get
it slowed down.  We did that to run legacy games on faster processors,
when they weren't programmed to use real-time but used processor
cycles for timing.   The intention would be not to go beyond the 5
psychological hours allowed, only that person need ten hours to think
and work what another person thinks and words in five hours.  So it
started from a "good" intention :-) Lawyers must have a lot of fun...

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

On 2009-09-28 08:41:54 -0400, gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> said:

> My argument to the judge in such a case would be that using such weak
> criteria to establish "reverse engineering" would equally prohibit me
> from using a replacement C library such as FreeVec (Altivec/SSE/etc
> accelerated C library) in debug mode where it tells me what functions
> are being called, SIMD registers, etc.

1. But you've already posted here in a public forum that your reason 
for using a different version of gettimeofday was an attempt to reverse 
engineer and modify the behavior of LW.

2. Using a debug library or tool to log calls made by LW in order to 
see how it works would quite likely also been seen as a violation of 
the no reverse engineering clause.

You seem to be thinking about LW as if it were Free (as in freedom) 
software, where your rights to modify, reverse engineer, etc. count as 
much as the rights of the copyright holder. That's not the case. The 
only rights you have wrt LW are those granted by LW in the license. 
That's what section 1 means when it says "This agreement ("Agreement") 
sets out
the terms and conditions..."
If you don't abide by these terms, LW can terminate your license.
-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

On Sep 28, 3:06=A0pm, david <youngde...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've worked with the Lispworks people for many years. They're great
> folks; produce a superb product worth every penny of its cost; and are
> always willing to work with others on various exceptions to their
> licensing policy.
>
> However you want to rationalize this thing, it's unethical if nothing
> else. What's more, you post your "achievement" for all to see.

It would have been unethical if the OP didn't say a thing, used the
"cracked" version of LispWorks, and maybe even shipped applications
with it, or published it on p2p. Instead he publicly disclosed the
"flaw" in LispWorks: its authors can fix it if they want to. If he has
violated the license and/or the law (I doubt he has), the LispWorks
guys can cite him in court if they want to.
So, I fail to see how this is unethical. Is it about him not paying
money to LW? He said he's willing to pay for a personal edition
without the time limit; in any case, LW would not have got more money
if he hadn't "cracked" their software.

Alessio

On 28 Sep., 13:42, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 28, 4:42=A0pm, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
>
> > gnubeard wrote:
> > > I've seen this sort of thing mentioned a few times in this thread. It
> > > is quite encouraging to know that the staff of LW is this helpful. It
> > > certainly goes a ways toward encouraging me to buy a copy when the
> > > time comes.
> > My experiences with the LispWorks crew is a lot more positive than you
> > seem to expect.
>
> > Pascal
>
> I didn't mean to suggest that I thought that the LW guys wouldn't
> provide good service - I just mean that, from my reading of the
> website, I didn't notice anything regarding time-limited evaluations
> advertised, or even a statement that other options are available and
> that I should contact someone, etc.

To know more about this, you need to get in direct contact with them.

LispWorks Ltd. has a sales address on this page: http://www.lispworks.com/b=
uy/index.html

Yes, the time-limited (on weeks or months, not in hours ;-) ) versions
of LispWorks for evaluation purposes have been available since many
many years. This is helpful for testing of the more advanced features,
compatibility with larger software (that needs more memory) and to
check out capabilities like compilation to shared libraries.

Franz Inc., btw., offers this too, AFAIK. One should be able to get
time-limited evaluation versions of Allegro Cl, too.

I would agree that these commercial Lisps are often too expensive for
hobbyist use, but at the same time I think both are offering
absolutely great value for their money. Corman Common Lisp (for
Windows) is quite a bit cheaper, you might want to check that out. Mac
users like me like that the LispWorks IDE is available for Mac OS X,
that's something that Allegro CL does not offer (its IDE is available
only for Windows and Linux) and Corman CL is Windows-only. A huge plus
for Allegro CL is that one can get a lot of the source code from them.
Also the 'professional version' of Allegro CL for $599 for academic
users is quite affordable. A big plus of LispWorks (compared to
Allegro CL) is that it allows to create applications with no
additional fees/royalties.

One additional thing, the 64bit version of LispWorks is really
expensive. But it is totally cool, IMHO. Currently it is in
combination with its IDE my favorite Lisp implementation. I'm not an
owner of it, but every Lisp user with deep enough pockets should check
it out.

What are the options for Windows users?

Open Source, free and no cost

* CLISP, SBCL : both should be popular
* ECL
* Clozure Common Lisp : Windows port is new, gets a Mac-compatible IDE
right now
* ABCL : using Java on Windows

Commercial and Proprietary

* Corman CL,  IDE
* LispWorks,  IDE
* Allegro CL, IDE

There are/were probably other offerings (like Golden Common Lisp and
Ufasoft Common Lisp). But I have no idea how much these are used these
days

>
> Then again, I admit I didn't look very hard .. I knew that LW offered
> a personal edition, and I went there, looked around rather briefly,
> downloaded the software and then spent most of my time in their
> manuals, not on their website.

On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:02:44 -0700, Alessio Stalla wrote:

> Is it about him not paying money to LW? He said he's willing to pay for
> a personal edition without the time limit; in any case, LW would not

Of course, such statements are unverifiable.  Also, they are very
common in these situations: people frequently argue that they are not
paying for X, but would "gladly" pay a "fair" price for X', which of
course not offered, what a pity.

But still, these highly ethical people tried their best, it is not
their fault that the company is not offering X', is it?  If the
company happens to offer that, maybe they realize that X' is not quite
what they need, but would most definitely pay a fair price for X'',
etc.

> have got more money if he hadn't "cracked" their software.

Again, this is a very common argument in these situations.  But as
most of the time the prospective buyers have a hard time of credibly
signaling that they would not have bought the software anyway, it is
quite vacuous -- this is a classical problem with asymmetric
information.

Notwithstanding the interesting legal arguments about
reverse-engineering or whether LW's lawyers have left a loophole in
there, for me the question is primarily a moral one.  Especially with
good-quality free implementations around.

Tamas

Tamas K Papp <tkpapp@gmail.com> writes:

> Notwithstanding the interesting legal arguments about
> reverse-engineering or whether LW's lawyers have left a loophole in
> there, for me the question is primarily a moral one.  Especially with
> good-quality free implementations around.

Hence the suggestion to place oneself at one meter above the surface
of a black hole ;-)


-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

On 2009-09-28, Joost Kremers <joostkremers@yahoo.com> wrote:
> gnubeard wrote:
>> I'm baffled. How is creating my own implementation of a standard C
>> function reverse engineering, in any sense of the term? Or how is
>> loading said function with a standard ld feature reverse engineering?
>
> you found out how LW keeps track of the 5hr limit. that's reverse-engineering,
> because you had to analyse LW's functioning and operating to do so.

How would this be argued in court?

SOme facts.

1. The user in question has not entered into any formal contract with the
copyright holder. The plantiff has no signed document saying that $$$ dollars
were exchanged, and the defendant has agreed to do such and such.

2. The user in question is simply operating his computer. The consumer has a
right to do whatever he wants with equipment he owns.

3. The user is not redistributing the copyrighted work, but only altering its
operation for his own use. Therefore he is not infringing copyright.

4. The plaintiff offered the the copyrighted work to the world for free
downloadd. In so doing, the plaintiff weakened their grasp on the copyright, by
giving up some of their rights. They have given up the distibution right,
meaning that anyone can redistribute their program. They have not given up
control over derived works though; not anyone isp permitted to redistribute
modified copies of the work.

The case would basically revolve around the plaintiff wanting to control what
the user does with the software on his own computer. IANAL, but I suspect it
would be thrown out faster than you can say ``silence in court''.

This is analogous to a car manufacturer wanting to stop owners (or independent
mechanics acting on their behalf) from poking around under the hood, so that
they are forced to use expensive dealer repair services from the manufacturer.

Basically, the licensing terms are invalid. LispWorks has given you the
software, and once you install it, you can do anything you wish.  Even sharing
binary patches with other users is completely fair game.  If I send you an
e-mails aying ``poke these three bytes at these locations in file X to fix the
following bug in a proprietary program ...'' there is absolutely nothing wrong
or illegal about that.  (Except in the imaginations of some software copyright
lawyers and their demented clients).  It's exactly like telling another Honda
owner where to find some component under the hood and how to substitute it with
another one.

On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:09:03 +0000, Kaz Kylheku wrote:

> 4. The plaintiff offered the the copyrighted work to the world for free
> downloadd. In so doing, the plaintiff weakened their grasp on the
> copyright, by giving up some of their rights. They have given up the

IANAL, but I don't think it works that way.  You can, for example,
post some code under the GPL and still retain copyright, it is not
"weakened".

> This is analogous to a car manufacturer wanting to stop owners (or

It appears that none of the participants in this discussion are
lawyers or sufficiently trained in law to answer these things, so we
resort to analogies and speculation (I did, too; don't think I am
pointing fingers, just stating a fact).  However, it seems that
analogies are not that informative, one can always make a different
counter-analogy and continue ad infinitum.  I myself always regret
when I make these analogies, ex post I always feel like a third grader
discussing quantum physics.

Tamas

On 2009-09-28 13:09:03 -0400, Kaz Kylheku <kkylheku@gmail.com> said:

> 1. The user in question has not entered into any formal contract with the
> copyright holder.

This is where you go wrong. It's only possible to install the software 
via the downloaded installer. The installer won't run until you click 
the "Agree" button, agreeing to the license (which I've been quoting 
from). US Federal courts have upheld the validity of these sorts of 
click through EULAs.
-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:51:44 -0700 (PDT), Rainer Joswig <joswig@lisp.de>
wrote:


>What are the options for Windows users?

Which of the following run on 64 bit hardware? Having, finally, upgraded
to a 64 bit machine and feeling, if not quite state-of-the-art, at least
respectably up-to-date for a home PC, for the first time in about five
years, I've discovered that many of the odd bits of sofware I've
collected over a long time are broken.

I don't regret the decsion: better to start the transition to 64 bit
now, rather than wait until it's forced on me... but I got the
impression 64 bit is still not widely supported yet. Not for Window
software anyway. (My impression is that 64 bit Linux is better.)

Incidentally, I hate the 3D folder preview in Vista. The one in XP was
actually useful. Googling reveals a few people asking how to revert the
view, but the only solution I've seen is "downgrade (upgrade?? <g>) to
XP". I'm tempted, but with Windows 7 due out.... Anyway, it's off-topic,
so I shouldn't have mentioned it (but if anyone knows a solution...?)

>Open Source, free and no cost
>
>* CLISP, SBCL : both should be popular
>* ECL
>* Clozure Common Lisp : Windows port is new, gets a Mac-compatible IDE
>right now
>* ABCL : using Java on Windows
>
>Commercial and Proprietary
>
>* Corman CL,  IDE
>* LispWorks,  IDE
>* Allegro CL, IDE
>
>There are/were probably other offerings (like Golden Common Lisp and
>Ufasoft Common Lisp). But I have no idea how much these are used these
>days

TIA,
  Jonathan

-- 
Never try to baptise a cat.

On 28 Sep., 22:15, s...@sofluc.co.uk.invalid (Jonathan L Cunningham)
wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:51:44 -0700 (PDT), Rainer Joswig <jos...@lisp.de>
> wrote:
>
> >What are the options for Windows users?
>
> Which of the following run on 64 bit hardware? Having, finally, upgraded
> to a 64 bit machine and feeling, if not quite state-of-the-art, at least
> respectably up-to-date for a home PC, for the first time in about five
> years, I've discovered that many of the odd bits of sofware I've
> collected over a long time are broken.
>

> ...

From what I know at least Clozure CL, LispWorks and Allegro CL have
64bit versions for Windows.

Tamas K Papp wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:02:44 -0700, Alessio Stalla wrote:
>> have got more money if he hadn't "cracked" their software.
> 
> Again, this is a very common argument in these situations.  But as
> most of the time the prospective buyers have a hard time of credibly
> signaling that they would not have bought the software anyway, it is
> quite vacuous -- this is a classical problem with asymmetric
> information.

Oh, get off your high horses. A company tried to charge a monopoly price 
on a product; someone managed to get it at marginal cost. Nobody 
actually lost money on the transaction; one side merely gained less than 
they hoped to.

You might as well flame everyone in sight because something you sold on 
eBay didn't get bid up to as high a price as you'd have liked.

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-09-27 12:48:52 -0400, Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> 
> said:
> 
>> In fact there's an explicit denial of that: the right of first sale.
> 
> He's talking about the free trial version. Since there hasn't been any 
> sale, it's difficult to invoke the right of first sale.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter if it's an actual sale, so long as it 
wasn't a rental. If you got a copy that the copyright holder said you 
can keep, you can keep it, and the copyright holder isn't allowed to 
revoke it or change it from a sale to a rental (or from a gift to a 
rental) after the fact.

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:48:02 -0700 (PDT), gnubeard
<gnubeard@gmail.com> wrote:

>For those annoyed with the 5-hour timeout in LispWorks Personal
>Edition:
> 

This is simply stealing somebody's property. 

A.L.

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-09-27 20:13:22 -0400, gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> said:
>> The fact that LW supplies a legitimate
>> perpetual-use license for LW Personal to me, free of charge, is the
>> main point.
> 
> Yes, but that license has conditions and those conditions must be obeyed 
> or the license is void. Whether or not resetting one's system clock 
> violates those conditions would be a question for the courts to decide, 
> but it's distinctly possible they'd see it as deliberate circumvention 
> of the terms of the license.

This seems to be a common theory, but it looks legally deficient. You 
need a copyright holder's permission to make and distribute copies. In 
the case of software, that means whoever hosts it on a server or stamps 
out the discs in a duplication factory and ships them out in a fleet of 
trucks needs the copyright holder's permission. Yes, it's clearly 
artificial scarcity but it's the law, at least for now.

On the other hand, no further permission is needed to USE those discs, 
according to the law, any more than to read or reread a book or play a 
music CD or a taped movie or whatever.

The law also has a specific exemption (Title 17 Section 117 (a) (1); 
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#117) on copies "created as 
an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in 
conjunction with a machine [and] ... that ... is used in no other 
manner". Therefore, even though installation makes a copy from the CD to 
the hard drive, and running makes a transient copy in RAM, further 
permission from a computer program's copyright holder is NOT required to 
use software.

Read the above again twice, and carefully. The whole concept of a 
"software license", except in cases where an actual contract is 
negotiated in advance and signed (as often occurs with B2B software 
sales), is predicated on the notion that even after lawfully obtaining a 
copy of a computer program, each USE requires continued permission of 
the copyright holder and therefore the copyright holder can grant that 
permission conditionally, and thus can specify conditions of use.

In actual fact, it just ain't so. The enforceability of most so-called 
"end user license agreements" has no legal leg to stand on, due to Title 
17 Section 117 (a) (1). Unless "license terms" are agreed to in advance 
in a legally-formed contract, the only ones that appear to legitimately 
apply are those that grant conditional permission to duplicate or adapt 
the software (e.g., the terms and conditions in licenses like the GPL, 
which have to do with how and when you can distribute copies and 
derivative works of the software, rather than how and when you can 
merely use it) and ones that don't restrict the user, but merely specify 
the terms under which the user might get something extra or not (e.g. 
limitations of warranty and things like that).

Of course, I am not a lawyer, but Title 17 Section 117 seems pretty darn 
clear on the matter.

On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:30:20 -0700 (PDT), Rainer Joswig <joswig@lisp.de>
wrote:

>On 28 Sep., 22:15, s...@sofluc.co.uk.invalid (Jonathan L Cunningham)
>wrote:
>> On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:51:44 -0700 (PDT), Rainer Joswig <jos...@lisp.de>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >What are the options for Windows users?
>>
>> Which of the following run on 64 bit hardware? Having, finally, upgraded
>> to a 64 bit machine and feeling, if not quite state-of-the-art, at least
>> respectably up-to-date for a home PC, for the first time in about five
>> years, I've discovered that many of the odd bits of sofware I've
>> collected over a long time are broken.
>>
>
>> ...
>
>From what I know at least Clozure CL, LispWorks and Allegro CL have
>64bit versions for Windows.

Thanks.

I think I'll try Clozure first. I thought I'd looked at them, and there
wasn't a 64 bit version and/or there wasn't support for
multi-threading[*]... but looking again, I see that I was mistaken! :-/

I tried LispWorks many years ago (at work), and didn't like it (probably
so long ago that my prejudice is unfair), and have been using a very old
version of Allegro... also so old it probably says little/nothing about
the current version.

I've also used Macintosh Common Lisp, back in the 68K days before
PowerPC... but that was a long time ago too! ;-)

  [*] None of my existing code is multi-threaded, but given multi-core
processors nowadays, that seems an important issue. At least, for some
of the stuff I'm interested in.

Jonathan

-- 
Never try to baptise a cat.

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-09-28 13:09:03 -0400, Kaz Kylheku <kkylheku@gmail.com> said:
> 
>> 1. The user in question has not entered into any formal contract with the
>> copyright holder.
> 
> This is where you go wrong. It's only possible to install the software 
> via the downloaded installer. The installer won't run until you click 
> the "Agree" button, agreeing to the license (which I've been quoting 
> from).

There are at least two problems with considering this act to form a 
contract.

1. It's an affirmation to a fairly stupid piece of computer code, not a
    person, and there are no witnesses to say you didn't manually extract
    the binary and manually install it without even running the
    installer. The main point, though, is that an installer or other
    piece of software can't enter into a binding contract with a human
    being, even if it apes the action of doing so.
2. By the time you even HAVE the installer you ALREADY have a
    lawfully-obtained copy of the software. The copyright holder has no
    legal basis for being able to prohibit or attach conditions to
    installation after that fact, explicitly under Title 17 Section 117
    (a) (1) of the US Code. Which means the "contract" has no
    consideration -- you already have a right to install it as soon as
    you lawfully obtained a copy, and the right to install it is all that
    is being offered in exchange for accepting a bunch of restrictions
    that otherwise would not apply.
    That's like if I "contracted" to let you keep (i.e. to not steal)
    jewelry you already owned in exchange for your paying me some money.
    Where I come from there's a name for that: extortion. It's called
    the protection racket. And it sure as hell ain't legal.

P� Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:35:39 +0200, skrev A.L. <alewando@aol.com>:

> On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:48:02 -0700 (PDT), gnubeard
> <gnubeard@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> For those annoyed with the 5-hour timeout in LispWorks Personal
>> Edition:
>>
>
> This is simply stealing somebody's property.
>
> A.L.

You seem to have some very delusional ideas about what constitutes  
stealing.
I might recommend going with Clozure CL instead, but...
If he thwarted the licensing system (With a license generator or the like)  
and distributed that, that would be a clear violation.
Messing with the system time and at the same time making all the time  
functionality useless is silly, but hardly criminal.
Your black and white interpretation of the world just makes you sound like  
a idiot.. (In my eyes.)

--------------
John Thingstad

On 28 Sep., 23:56, s...@sofluc.co.uk.invalid (Jonathan L Cunningham)
wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:30:20 -0700 (PDT), Rainer Joswig <jos...@lisp.de>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> >On 28 Sep., 22:15, s...@sofluc.co.uk.invalid (Jonathan L Cunningham)
> >wrote:
> >> On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 07:51:44 -0700 (PDT), Rainer Joswig <jos...@lisp.d=
e>
> >> wrote:
>
> >> >What are the options for Windows users?
>
> >> Which of the following run on 64 bit hardware? Having, finally, upgrad=
ed
> >> to a 64 bit machine and feeling, if not quite state-of-the-art, at lea=
st
> >> respectably up-to-date for a home PC, for the first time in about five
> >> years, I've discovered that many of the odd bits of sofware I've
> >> collected over a long time are broken.
>
> >> ...
>
> >From what I know at least Clozure CL, LispWorks and Allegro CL have
> >64bit versions for Windows.
>
> Thanks.
>
> I think I'll try Clozure first. I thought I'd looked at them, and there
> wasn't a 64 bit version and/or there wasn't support for
> multi-threading[*]... but looking again, I see that I was mistaken! :-/
>
> I tried LispWorks many years ago (at work), and didn't like it (probably
> so long ago that my prejudice is unfair), and have been using a very old
> version of Allegro... also so old it probably says little/nothing about
> the current version.
>
> I've also used Macintosh Common Lisp, back in the 68K days before
> PowerPC... but that was a long time ago too! ;-)
>
> =A0 [*] None of my existing code is multi-threaded, but given multi-core
> processors nowadays, that seems an important issue. At least, for some
> of the stuff I'm interested in.

all three (Clozure CL, Allegro CL and LispWorks) are supporting
multiple threads.
Only Clozure CL currently supports multiple concurrent (!) Lisp
threads.
Allegro CL will do that with version 9.0. LispWorks will do that with
version 6.0, which is currently in beta.

If you have a Mac and you are a bit old-fashioned, MCL is now open
source and recently a version surfaced that runs (emulated) on Intel
Macs.

P� Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:32:22 +0200, skrev Tamas K Papp <tkpapp@gmail.com>:

>
> The software vendor plays really, really nice in this case by allowing
> you to try their software even for extended periods and decide whether
> you want it.  You are just abusing this, then whine how they didn't
> make it even more convenient for you.  WTF?
>

They are marketing it as a Personal edition, not trial software.
There is no time limit to how long you can use it.
The hope is of course that they will eventually use it professionally.
For personal use 1200 dollars is too expensive, not worth every penny.
It's not like you are making money using it.
I find the limit of what people are willing to invest for personal use is  
about 300$.
I too would pay 300$ for a version without the ability to create  
executables so long as
I had CAPI and no time or space limits.
I also think they would be better off getting those 300$ than getting  
nothing..

--------------
John Thingstad

On Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:40:18 +0200, "John Thingstad"
<jpthing@online.no> wrote:

>P� Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:35:39 +0200, skrev A.L. <alewando@aol.com>:
>
>> On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:48:02 -0700 (PDT), gnubeard
>> <gnubeard@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> For those annoyed with the 5-hour timeout in LispWorks Personal
>>> Edition:
>>>
>>
>> This is simply stealing somebody's property.
>>
>> A.L.
>
>You seem to have some very delusional ideas about what constitutes  
>stealing.
>I might recommend going with Clozure CL instead, but...
>If he thwarted the licensing system (With a license generator or the like)  
>and distributed that, that would be a clear violation.
>Messing with the system time and at the same time making all the time  
>functionality useless is silly, but hardly criminal.
>Your black and white interpretation of the world just makes you sound like  
>a idiot.. (In my eyes.)
>
>-

This is your interpretation. It is amazing how many people represent
Bolshevik mentality.

Posting advice how to break manufacturer's protection is more or less
the same like posting advice how to drive neighbor's Mercedes using
screwdriver.

Well.... For iPod generation even wives will be common. As Vladimir
Ilych Lenin predicted.

If you don't like break after 5 hours, porchase full version. If not,
not be surprised if after some time manufacturer will go belly up.
They pay their espenses selling software. No income, no software. This
is that easy.

A.L.

On Mon, 28 Sep 2009 20:39:41 -0500, A.L. <alewando@aol.com> wrote:

>On Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:40:18 +0200, "John Thingstad"
><jpthing@online.no> wrote:
>
>>P� Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:35:39 +0200, skrev A.L. <alewando@aol.com>:
>>
>>> On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:48:02 -0700 (PDT), gnubeard
>>> <gnubeard@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> For those annoyed with the 5-hour timeout in LispWorks Personal
>>>> Edition:
>>>>
>>>
>>> This is simply stealing somebody's property.
>>>
>>> A.L.
>>
>>You seem to have some very delusional ideas about what constitutes  
>>stealing.
>>I might recommend going with Clozure CL instead, but...
>>If he thwarted the licensing system (With a license generator or the like)  
>>and distributed that, that would be a clear violation.
>>Messing with the system time and at the same time making all the time  
>>functionality useless is silly, but hardly criminal.
>>Your black and white interpretation of the world just makes you sound like  
>>a idiot.. (In my eyes.)
>>
>>-
>
>This is your interpretation. It is amazing how many people represent
>Bolshevik mentality.
>
>Posting advice how to break manufacturer's protection is more or less
>the same like posting advice how to drive neighbor's Mercedes using
>screwdriver.
>
>Well.... For iPod generation even wives will be common. As Vladimir
>Ilych Lenin predicted.
>
>If you don't like break after 5 hours, porchase full version. If not,
>not be surprised if after some time manufacturer will go belly up.
>They pay their espenses selling software. No income, no software. This
>is that easy.
>
>A.L

P.S. Opss... I forgot. Quote: "Your black and white interpretation of
the world just makes you sound like  a idiot.. (In my eyes)"

The same about you

A.L.

On 2009-09-28 17:57:34 -0400, Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> said:

> There are at least two problems with considering this act to form a contract.

Federal Courts have considered these "problems" and rejected them. 
Click-through  EULAs have been held to be valid, enforceable, licenses.
-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

On 2009-09-28 17:47:48 -0400, Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> said:

> Of course, I am not a lawyer

Which may explain why, despite 5 paragraphs of writing, you fail to 
mention the one pertinent legal fact, that US Federal courts have held 
click-through EULAs to be valid, enforceable, licenses.

Raffael Cavallaro

On 2009-09-28 17:30:24 -0400, Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> said:

> I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter if it's an actual sale

1. It isn't a sale, since, by definition, a sale involves compensation 
of some sort.

2. I'm pretty sure that the click through EULA is a binding license 
because courts have held them to be just that. The terms of the license 
allow LW to terminate the license if the use violates the terms of the 
license.
-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

On Sep 29, 3:39=A0am, A.L. <alewa...@aol.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:40:18 +0200, "John Thingstad"
>
>
>
> <jpth...@online.no> wrote:
> >P=E5 Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:35:39 +0200, skrev A.L. <alewa...@aol.com>:
>
> >> On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:48:02 -0700 (PDT), gnubeard
> >> <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>> For those annoyed with the 5-hour timeout in LispWorks Personal
> >>> Edition:
>
> >> This is simply stealing somebody's property.
>
> >> A.L.
>
> >You seem to have some very delusional ideas about what constitutes =A0
> >stealing.
> >I might recommend going with Clozure CL instead, but...
> >If he thwarted the licensing system (With a license generator or the lik=
e) =A0
> >and distributed that, that would be a clear violation.
> >Messing with the system time and at the same time making all the time =
=A0
> >functionality useless is silly, but hardly criminal.
> >Your black and white interpretation of the world just makes you sound li=
ke =A0
> >a idiot.. (In my eyes.)
>
> >-
>
> This is your interpretation. It is amazing how many people represent
> Bolshevik mentality.
>
> Posting advice how to break manufacturer's protection is more or less
> the same like posting advice how to drive neighbor's Mercedes using
> screwdriver.

Hmm, and how is posting such advice "simply stealing somebody's
property"? Do you believe that posting how to build a bomb is the same
as using a bomb to kill people?

> Well.... For iPod generation even wives will be common. As Vladimir
> Ilych Lenin predicted.

I don't follow you.

> If you don't like break after 5 hours, porchase full version. If not,
> not be surprised if after some time manufacturer will go belly up.
> They pay their espenses selling software. No income, no software. This
> is that easy.

It's amazing in my eyes how people - even if experienced in software
as presumably are most people in this NG - manage to reason completely
differently about the same concepts, if those concepts are applied to
software and the Internet instead of the "real world" (as if software
wasn't real). Imagine if e.g. Ford gave away cars that automatically
stop after 5 hours, and you discovered and applied a technique to
circumvent this limitation, do you really believe that you would have
committed a crime in this case? People have been using their
intelligence to circumvent the limitations of devices for a very long
time, and this has never been illegal - and it would be a bad, bad
idea to render it illegal.

If you don't think it's a crime, but that it merely damages Ford -
Ford can change their business model if so they decide, and stop
giving away free limited cars or increase the limitations or whatnot.
It's not under the responsibility of the end user. You can argue that
it's not sensible for end users to push the manufacturer of a product
into stopping to give away free samples of the product, and I can
agree to this, but that's all.

Alessio

"John Thingstad" <jpthing@online.no> writes:

> For personal use 1200 dollars is too expensive, not worth every penny.

It depends. I remember I purchased Expertelligence ExperLisp for $1000
as a student around 1984 (adjust it for inflation over the past 25
years). Still I was worth it since I learned Lisp and had the joy of
using it to write my compiler in Lisp as well as a small expert system
to analyze transistor circuits. 

Petter
-- 
A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

On Tue, 29 Sep 2009 01:44:07 +0200, John Thingstad wrote:

> På Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:32:22 +0200, skrev Tamas K Papp
> <tkpapp@gmail.com>:
> 
> 
>> The software vendor plays really, really nice in this case by allowing
>> you to try their software even for extended periods and decide whether
>> you want it.  You are just abusing this, then whine how they didn't
>> make it even more convenient for you.  WTF?
>>
>>
> They are marketing it as a Personal edition, not trial software. There
> is no time limit to how long you can use it. The hope is of course that
> they will eventually use it professionally. For personal use 1200
> dollars is too expensive, not worth every penny. It's not like you are
> making money using it. I find the limit of what people are willing to
> invest for personal use is about 300$.
> I too would pay 300$ for a version without the ability to create
> executables so long as
> I had CAPI and no time or space limits. I also think they would be
> better off getting those 300$ than getting nothing..

That is possible.  But it is also possible that there are people who
are currently paying $1000+ for the commercial version but would
happily buy the $300 version, too, and they would have less revenue if
they sold that.  This is a classic problem, and a source of
inefficiency present in many markets.  Some companies try to solve it
partially by allowing customers to identify themselves with signals
that are harder to fake (eg "student" editions, etc).

Of course I don't know what the situation is and whether selling a
$300 version would be a net gain or net loss of revenue for LW, but
lacking further information, I would assume that they have thought
about pricing decisions, they don't look like a stupid company.

Tamas

Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com>
writes:

> On 2009-09-28 17:57:34 -0400, Dave Searles
> <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> said:
>
>> There are at least two problems with considering this act to form a
>> contract.
>
> Federal Courts have considered these "problems" and rejected
> them. Click-through EULAs have been held to be valid, enforceable,
> licenses.

For the benefit of everyone's education, do you by any chance have the
citations to the relevant decisions to hand?

Thanks in advance,

                                             Peter

-- 
Peter Brett <peter@peter-b.co.uk> Remote Sensing Research Group Surrey
Space Centre

On 2009-09-29 06:55:34 -0400, Peter Brett <peter@peter-b.co.uk> said:

> For the benefit of everyone's education, do you by any chance have the
> citations to the relevant decisions to hand?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProCD_v._Zeidenberg>

from the ruling:

"He had no choice, because the software splashed the license on the 
screen and would not let him proceed without indicating acceptance."

which is precisely the situation with LW Personal.

For shrink-wrap and click-wrap licenses which have been held to be 
invalid, see also:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_license_agreement#Shrink-wrap_and_click-wrap_licenses>

The 

key distinctions are when the license is presented (pre or post sale), 
and whether it is possible to install and/or use the software without 
agreeing to the license. That's why almost all such licenses now 
require presentation and acceptance of the license before installation 
can begin. Some vendors have even moved to encrypting the software so 
that any attempt to circumvent the agreement step and install the 
software without accepting the license would constitute a DMCA 
violation.

-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

P� Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:20:36 +0200, skrev Tamas K Papp <tkpapp@gmail.com>:

>
> That is possible.  But it is also possible that there are people who
> are currently paying $1000+ for the commercial version but would
> happily buy the $300 version, too, and they would have less revenue if
> they sold that.  This is a classic problem, and a source of
> inefficiency present in many markets.  Some companies try to solve it
> partially by allowing customers to identify themselves with signals
> that are harder to fake (eg "student" editions, etc).
>
> Of course I don't know what the situation is and whether selling a
> $300 version would be a net gain or net loss of revenue for LW, but
> lacking further information, I would assume that they have thought
> about pricing decisions, they don't look like a stupid company.
>
> Tamas

I believe they are programmers, not market analyst.

--------------
John Thingstad

On 2009-09-29 03:47:02 -0400, Alessio Stalla <alessiostalla@gmail.com> said:

> Imagine if e.g. Ford gave away cars that automatically
> stop after 5 hours, and you discovered and applied a technique to
> circumvent this limitation, do you really believe that you would have
> committed a crime in this case?

Imagine if Zipcar allowed you to drive one of their cars that 
automatically stopped after 5 hours which you were licensed to use only 
if you agreed to a license which prohibited reverse engineering. Do you 
think they could terminate your license if you reverse engineered and 
disabled the 5 hour limitation?

Analogies only work if you include all the relevant details in your 
parallel. LW is not giving you LW personal - they're licensing you to 
use it. In particular, you cannot be said to own something if you can't 
dispose of it as you wish, if you can't give it to another person. You 
can't transfer your copy of LW personal to another person, read the 
license. The LW Personal situation is akin to being allowed to use a 
car, not owning it.

Moreover, you don't even get to use it unless you agree to the license 
which specifically states that LW can terminate the license if you 
don't abide by it.


-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

Tamas K Papp wrote:
> That is possible.  But it is also possible that there are people who
> are currently paying $1000+ for the commercial version but would
> happily buy the $300 version, too, and they would have less revenue if
> they sold that.  This is a classic problem, and a source of
> inefficiency present in many markets.

The market inefficiency in this instance is being caused by a monopoly 
able to charge vastly more than marginal cost for its goods.

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-09-28 17:57:34 -0400, Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> 
> said:
> 
>> There are at least two problems with considering this act to form a 
>> contract.
> 
> [says I'm a liar]

No, you are.

Peter Brett wrote:
> Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com>
> writes:
> 
>> On 2009-09-28 17:57:34 -0400, Dave Searles
>> <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> said:
>>
>>> There are at least two problems with considering this act to form a
>>> contract.
>> [says I'm a liar]
> 
> For the benefit of everyone's education, do you by any chance have the
> citations to the relevant decisions to hand?

Since I'm not actually a liar, that seems doubtful.

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-09-29 06:55:34 -0400, Peter Brett <peter@peter-b.co.uk> said:
> 
>> For the benefit of everyone's education, do you by any chance have the
>> citations to the relevant decisions to hand?
> 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProCD_v._Zeidenberg>
> 
> from the ruling:
> 
> "He had no choice, because the software splashed the license on the 
> screen and would not let him proceed without indicating acceptance."

Ludicrous. A "contract" negotiated at gunpoint, and with no quid pro 
quo, can't possibly be considered valid by any SANE jurisprudence.

> The
> key distinctions are when the license is presented (pre or post sale), 
> and whether it is possible to install and/or use the software without 
> agreeing to the license. That's why almost all such licenses now require 
> presentation and acceptance of the license before installation can 
> begin.

Does not make sense. Once you have the installer you ALREADY HAVE a 
lawfully-obtained copy, and under Title 17 Section 117 (a) (1) ALREADY 
HAVE a right to actually install and use it WITHOUT permission from the 
copyright holder. Agreeing to the "license" trades away rights you'd 
otherwise have (e.g. reverse engineering is fair use) in exchange for 
what? Not the right to install the software -- you already HAVE that. 
What, then?

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-09-28 17:47:48 -0400, Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> 
> said:
> 
>> Of course, I am not a lawyer
> 
> Which may explain why, despite 5 paragraphs of writing, you fail

I do not fail.

Go fuck yourself, asshole.

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-09-28 17:30:24 -0400, Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> 
> said:
> 
>> I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter if it's an actual sale
> 
> 1. It isn't a sale, since, by definition, a sale involves compensation 
> of some sort.
> 
> 2. I'm pretty sure that the click through EULA is a binding license

I've just explained why it is not, or at least should not, be binding.

Rainer Joswig wrote:
> all three (Clozure CL, Allegro CL and LispWorks) are supporting
> multiple threads.
> Only Clozure CL currently supports multiple concurrent (!) Lisp
> threads.
> Allegro CL will do that with version 9.0. LispWorks will do that with
> version 6.0, which is currently in beta.

So of all of these Common Lisps only Clozure supports multi-core?

Clojure has had that from the outset, but it's not a Common Lisp; it's 
closer to Scheme.

A.L. wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:48:02 -0700 (PDT), gnubeard
> <gnubeard@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> For those annoyed with the 5-hour timeout in LispWorks Personal
>> Edition:
> 
> This is simply stealing somebody's property. 

Oh, really? If so, then you should be able to identify an object that 
someone no longer has, but used to have, because of the purported act of 
theft.

A.L. wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:40:18 +0200, "John Thingstad"
> <jpthing@online.no> wrote:
> 
>> P� Mon, 28 Sep 2009 23:35:39 +0200, skrev A.L. <alewando@aol.com>:
>>
>>> On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:48:02 -0700 (PDT), gnubeard
>>> <gnubeard@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> For those annoyed with the 5-hour timeout in LispWorks Personal
>>>> Edition:
>>>>
>>> This is simply stealing somebody's property.
>>>
>>> A.L.
>> You seem to have some very delusional ideas about what constitutes  
>> stealing.
>> I might recommend going with Clozure CL instead, but...
>> If he thwarted the licensing system (With a license generator or the like)  
>> and distributed that, that would be a clear violation.
>> Messing with the system time and at the same time making all the time  
>> functionality useless is silly, but hardly criminal.
>> Your black and white interpretation of the world just makes you sound like  
>> a idiot.. (In my eyes.)
> 
> This is your interpretation. It is amazing how many people represent
> Bolshevik mentality.

Yes, such as, for instance, yourself. You're the one who believes in 
state-supported and state-enforced interventions in the free market such 
as copyright after all.

> Posting advice how to break manufacturer's protection is more or less
> the same like posting advice how to drive neighbor's Mercedes using
> screwdriver.

Nonsense. If you steal a neighbor's Mercedes, that neighbor no longer 
has a Mercedes. If you copy someone's copy of LispWorks, everyone who 
already had one STILL has one. Nothing was taken.

> If you don't like break after 5 hours, porchase full version. If not,
> not be surprised if after some time manufacturer will go belly up.
> They pay their espenses selling software. No income, no software. This
> is that easy.

Red Hat seems to be able to get by quite nicely without doing anything 
of the sort.

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-09-29 03:47:02 -0400, Alessio Stalla <alessiostalla@gmail.com> 
> said:
> 
>> Imagine if e.g. Ford gave away cars that automatically
>> stop after 5 hours, and you discovered and applied a technique to
>> circumvent this limitation, do you really believe that you would have
>> committed a crime in this case?
> 
> Imagine if Zipcar allowed you to drive one of their cars that 
> automatically stopped after 5 hours which you were licensed to use only 
> if you agreed to a license which prohibited reverse engineering. Do you 
> think they could terminate your license if you reverse engineered and 
> disabled the 5 hour limitation?
> 
> Analogies only work if you include all the relevant details in your 
> parallel. LW is not giving you LW personal - they're licensing you to 
> use it. In particular, you cannot be said to own something if you can't 
> dispose of it as you wish, if you can't give it to another person. You 
> can't transfer your copy of LW personal to another person, read the 
> license.

That's a nice piece of circular reasoning there. It's not yours, they're 
just licensing it. Why? Because the license says you can't transfer your 
copy.

When you first download it, though, what you have is clearly yours to do 
with as you please. You clicked a link, you received a gift with no 
strings attached.

The so called "license" is only presented AFTER you already OWN it.

How can you possibly consider it possible for a piece of your property 
to "divorce" you and revert to some other ownership merely by 
robotically saying that it's doing so? How can you possibly square that 
with the concept of property rights that is central to capitalism?

Are you a communist, Raffael?

On Sep 29, 7:01=A0pm, Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
> Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> > On 2009-09-29 06:55:34 -0400, Peter Brett <pe...@peter-b.co.uk> said:
>
> >> For the benefit of everyone's education, do you by any chance have the
> >> citations to the relevant decisions to hand?
>
> > <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProCD_v._Zeidenberg>
>
> > from the ruling:
>
> > "He had no choice, because the software splashed the license on the
> > screen and would not let him proceed without indicating acceptance."
>
> Ludicrous. A "contract" negotiated at gunpoint, and with no quid pro
> quo, can't possibly be considered valid by any SANE jurisprudence.
>
> > The
> > key distinctions are when the license is presented (pre or post sale),
> > and whether it is possible to install and/or use the software without
> > agreeing to the license. That's why almost all such licenses now requir=
e
> > presentation and acceptance of the license before installation can
> > begin.
>
> Does not make sense. Once you have the installer you ALREADY HAVE a
> lawfully-obtained copy, and under Title 17 Section 117 (a) (1) ALREADY
> HAVE a right to actually install and use it WITHOUT permission from the
> copyright holder. Agreeing to the "license" trades away rights you'd
> otherwise have (e.g. reverse engineering is fair use) in exchange for
> what? Not the right to install the software -- you already HAVE that.
> What, then?

Probably the installer is not considered a copy of the software, but a
medium for getting the copy, like e.g. the company website is. I'm not
saying I think this is sane - in my opinion a contract should ideally
always involve two human beings and a way to verify with 100% accuracy
that they both actually agreed to the contract. Granting an automated
mechanism (like a software) the right to decide whether a contract has
been agreed or not is very dangerous as it makes the parties be on
different levels - whoever writes the software gets to decide how and
when the contract is considered to be signed, and can in theory revoke
it at any time. My copy of X stops working and says I haven't accepted
the license, how can I prove I did accept it?

Alessio

On Sep 29, 7:07=A0pm, Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
> Rainer Joswig wrote:
> > all three (Clozure CL, Allegro CL and LispWorks) are supporting
> > multiple threads.
> > Only Clozure CL currently supports multiple concurrent (!) Lisp
> > threads.
> > Allegro CL will do that with version 9.0. LispWorks will do that with
> > version 6.0, which is currently in beta.
>
> So of all of these Common Lisps only Clozure supports multi-core?
>
> Clojure has had that from the outset, but it's not a Common Lisp; it's
> closer to Scheme.

Clojure has it because the JVM has it. ABCL runs on the JVM and
inherits its threading model, too.

On Sep 29, 3:37=A0pm, Raffael Cavallaro
<raffaelcavall...@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> On 2009-09-29 03:47:02 -0400, Alessio Stalla <alessiosta...@gmail.com> sa=
id:
>
> > Imagine if e.g. Ford gave away cars that automatically
> > stop after 5 hours, and you discovered and applied a technique to
> > circumvent this limitation, do you really believe that you would have
> > committed a crime in this case?
>
> Imagine if Zipcar allowed you to drive one of their cars that
> automatically stopped after 5 hours which you were licensed to use only
> if you agreed to a license which prohibited reverse engineering. Do you
> think they could terminate your license if you reverse engineered and
> disabled the 5 hour limitation?
>
> Analogies only work if you include all the relevant details in your
> parallel. LW is not giving you LW personal - they're licensing you to
> use it. In particular, you cannot be said to own something if you can't
> dispose of it as you wish, if you can't give it to another person. You
> can't transfer your copy of LW personal to another person, read the
> license. The LW Personal situation is akin to being allowed to use a
> car, not owning it.
>
> Moreover, you don't even get to use it unless you agree to the license
> which specifically states that LW can terminate the license if you
> don't abide by it.

Ok, very good points. My analogy wasn't correct.

On 2009-09-28, Raffael Cavallaro
<raffaelcavallaro@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> On 2009-09-28 13:09:03 -0400, Kaz Kylheku <kkylheku@gmail.com> said:
>
>> 1. The user in question has not entered into any formal contract with the
>> copyright holder.
>
> This is where you go wrong. It's only possible to install the software 
> via the downloaded installer. The installer won't run until you click 
> the "Agree" button, agreeing to the license (which I've been quoting 
> from). US Federal courts have upheld the validity of these sorts of 
> click through EULAs.

You can hack the installer to get rid of the button, or simply edit the license
to take out clauses you disagree with and then use the button to agree to the
modified license.

By doing that, you are modifying a copyrighted work. But copyright does not
apply because you are not publishing it.

You have not gained access to, and tampered with, someone one else's storage
device. You are manipulating the binary digits stored in a device which you
own. That is your right.

For instance, suppose you don't want to install the software and you delete it.
Your filesystem will then overwrite those disk blocks with something else.
According to the typical EULA, this is a forbidden use! 

Software /Use/ (as opposed to redistribution) licenses are complete bullshit
that nobody needs to take seriously whatsoever (and, luckily, few do).

Use agreements make sense for rental equipment, not for something you own such
as a copy of some string of symbols, or other information signal.

Rented equipment undergoes depreciation with use; it is returned to the
original owner in a deteriorated condition (however slightly). Moreover, while
the equipment is rented out, it is unavailable for use by the owner. While it
is rented out, the owner has no opportunity to use the equipment, or to loan it
to some other party.

On 2009-09-29, Raffael Cavallaro
<raffaelcavallaro@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> On 2009-09-28 17:57:34 -0400, Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> said:
>
>> There are at least two problems with considering this act to form a contract.
>
> Federal Courts have considered these "problems" and rejected them. 
> Click-through  EULAs have been held to be valid, enforceable, licenses.

In what kinds of cases?

What would you be in court /for/, as someone who is not
redistributing software, hacked or otherwise?

On Sep 29, 9:14=A0pm, Kaz Kylheku <kkylh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2009-09-28, Raffael Cavallaro
>
> <raffaelcavall...@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> > On 2009-09-28 13:09:03 -0400, Kaz Kylheku <kkylh...@gmail.com> said:
>
> >> 1. The user in question has not entered into any formal contract with =
the
> >> copyright holder.
>
> > This is where you go wrong. It's only possible to install the software
> > via the downloaded installer. The installer won't run until you click
> > the "Agree" button, agreeing to the license (which I've been quoting
> > from). US Federal courts have upheld the validity of these sorts of
> > click through EULAs.
>
> You can hack the installer to get rid of the button, or simply edit the l=
icense
> to take out clauses you disagree with and then use the button to agree to=
 the
> modified license.
>
> By doing that, you are modifying a copyrighted work. But copyright does n=
ot
> apply because you are not publishing it.
>
> You have not gained access to, and tampered with, someone one else's stor=
age
> device. You are manipulating the binary digits stored in a device which y=
ou
> own. That is your right.
>
> For instance, suppose you don't want to install the software and you dele=
te it.
> Your filesystem will then overwrite those disk blocks with something else=
..
> According to the typical EULA, this is a forbidden use!
>
> Software /Use/ (as opposed to redistribution) licenses are complete bulls=
hit
> that nobody needs to take seriously whatsoever (and, luckily, few do).

The problem is that they are increasingly being enforced by software
(e.g. DRM) and laws that insanely decree that software is law itself
(in certain countries it is a *crime* to *attempt* circumvent DRM, let
alone succeed doing it).

> Use agreements make sense for rental equipment, not for something you own=
 such
> as a copy of some string of symbols, or other information signal.
>
> Rented equipment undergoes depreciation with use; it is returned to the
> original owner in a deteriorated condition (however slightly). Moreover, =
while
> the equipment is rented out, it is unavailable for use by the owner. Whil=
e it
> is rented out, the owner has no opportunity to use the equipment, or to l=
oan it
> to some other party.

I completely agree.

On 2009-09-29 16:24:10 -0400, Alessio Stalla <alessiostalla@gmail.com> said:

> I completely agree.

I doubt that courts would, and what courts hold is the only relevant 
point. They've held click-through licenses to be valid and enforceable. 
The very fact that someone might hack the installer and circumvent the 
license approval step is in itself proof that the user was aware that 
there was a license agreement for the software. That's why no one makes 
this hack-the-license-approval argument in a real court. Awareness of 
the agreement (or lack thereof) is the crucial point in court holdings 
in this area.

What courts have held to be an exception is when the user is arguably 
*unaware* that there is a license agreement, when the software is made 
available by the copyright holder for installation and/or use without 
the need to explicitly agree to a license. In these cases, courts have 
held that any license unilaterally imposed by the copyright holder is 
not valid. But of course, that isn't the case with LW personal, where 
you do have to agree to the license before you can use the software.

-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

On 2009-09-29 13:03:16 -0400, Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> said:

> I do not fail.
> 
> Go fuck yourself, asshole.

[plonk]
-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

On Sep 28, 11:12=A0pm, Raffael Cavallaro
<raffaelcavall...@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> On 2009-09-28 08:41:54 -0400, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> said:

>
> 1. But you've already posted here in a public forum that your reason
> for using a different version of gettimeofday was an attempt to reverse
> engineer and modify the behavior of LW.

Yes, I had an intention to modify (the LW personal license grants me
that right). I do not have an intention to reverse engineer, and I do
not believe what I did can really be considered reverse engineering,
even if I did learn a bit about the inner workings of LW in the
process.

If you write Lisp code that accesses private/internal LW functions,
and learn something about the internals of LW in the process - that
isn't reverse engineering.

> 2. Using a debug library or tool to log calls made by LW in order to
> see how it works would quite likely also been seen as a violation of
> the no reverse engineering clause.

If it were specifically to see how LW operates, I agree. But if it is
to examine/debug the underlying C library it is not - despite the fact
that you may learn about LW in the process.

On Sep 29, 12:02=A0am, Alessio Stalla <alessiosta...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sep 28, 3:06=A0pm, david <youngde...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I've worked with the Lispworks people for many years. They're great
> > folks; produce a superb product worth every penny of its cost; and are
> > always willing to work with others on various exceptions to their
> > licensing policy.
>
> > However you want to rationalize this thing, it's unethical if nothing
> > else. What's more, you post your "achievement" for all to see.
>
> It would have been unethical if the OP didn't say a thing, used the
> "cracked" version of LispWorks, and maybe even shipped applications
> with it, or published it on p2p. Instead he publicly disclosed the
> "flaw" in LispWorks: its authors can fix it if they want to. If he has
> violated the license and/or the law (I doubt he has), the LispWorks
> guys can cite him in court if they want to.
> So, I fail to see how this is unethical. Is it about him not paying
> money to LW? He said he's willing to pay for a personal edition
> without the time limit; in any case, LW would not have got more money
> if he hadn't "cracked" their software.
>
> Alessio

Thank you. Exactly my thoughts regarding the ethics of the situation.
From my reading of the license, there is little, if anything, to
prohibit this as long as the resulting software is not redistributed
and as long as it is not used for commercial purposes. Circumventing
the 5-hour limit for non-commericial personal use is ALLOWED by the
license.

That license has no bearing on the little snippet of C code I wrote,
so I could distribute that with instructions on how to leverage it
against LW. I don't do that for ethical reasons as well.

* gnubeard
Wrote on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:26:45 -0700 (PDT):

|> 1. But you've already posted here in a public forum that your reason
|> for using a different version of gettimeofday was an attempt to
|> reverse engineer and modify the behavior of LW.
|
| Yes, I had an intention to modify (the LW personal license grants me
| that right). I do not have an intention to reverse engineer, and I do
| not believe what I did can really be considered reverse engineering,
| even if I did learn a bit about the inner workings of LW in the
| process.

No, your post specifically mentioned specific timing information (about
how gettimeofday is used by the software in enforcing the time limit)
which could not have been obtained without reverse-engineering the
product.  This information is essential in circumventing the limit.

| If you write Lisp code that accesses private/internal LW functions,
| and learn something about the internals of LW in the process - that
| isn't reverse engineering.

This does not apply to your actions in question

|> 2. Using a debug library or tool to log calls made by LW in order to
|> see how it works would quite likely also been seen as a violation of
|> the no reverse engineering clause.
|
| If it were specifically to see how LW operates, I agree. But if it is
| to examine/debug the underlying C library it is not - despite the fact
| that you may learn about LW in the process.

You are not examining the C-library but the calls that the product makes
to the C-library which is precisely what is covered by the "reverse
engineering" clause

--
Madhu

On Sep 30, 2:16=A0pm, Madhu <enom...@meer.net> wrote:
> * gnubeard
> Wrote on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:26:45 -0700 (PDT):
>
> |> 1. But you've already posted here in a public forum that your reason
> |> for using a different version of gettimeofday was an attempt to
> |> reverse engineer and modify the behavior of LW.
> |
> | Yes, I had an intention to modify (the LW personal license grants me
> | that right). I do not have an intention to reverse engineer, and I do
> | not believe what I did can really be considered reverse engineering,
> | even if I did learn a bit about the inner workings of LW in the
> | process.
>
> No, your post specifically mentioned specific timing information (about
> how gettimeofday is used by the software in enforcing the time limit)
> which could not have been obtained without reverse-engineering the
> product. =A0This information is essential in circumventing the limit.

I did not have to reverse engineer LW in order to know any of this,
just like I don't need to reverse engineer ANY C program to know that
it will be using the C Library.

My reasoning proceeding this way:

LW core is probably written in C, and uses the C standard library.
So if I interpose gettimeofday I can supply it with a fake time.
That might be sufficient to defeat the time out.

If I had reverse engineered LW to get any of this information, I could
- for example, probably tell you where LW calls gettimeofday, or how
often. Truthfully, I don't even know if it IS directly calling
gettimeofday - conceivably it could be calling time() - which in turn
calls gettimeofday(). I have no idea, and I don't really care.

I performed a simple modification of my C library with the intention
of defeating a time lock. I did it blindly, really - and it worked. I
did learn some things - I learned which approaches of fudging the time
work better for defeating LW's time lock.. but I can only make some
very vague inferences about the internal LW structure that might be
contributing to it... because I have not reverse engineered that
structure.

I just know that as a C program, it is going to use the C library.

> | If you write Lisp code that accesses private/internal LW functions,
> | and learn something about the internals of LW in the process - that
> | isn't reverse engineering.
>
> This does not apply to your actions in question

I believe it does. My actions really have little to do with LW per se.
Conceivably this technique could be used against any program with some
sort of time-out mechanism, and development of the C code in question
would have proceeded the EXACT same way, and would have confirmed as
much to me about those programs as it did about LW - namely, and ONLY,
they it uses gettimeday() somehow.

I wrote a program that interacts with LW. In the process, I arguably
learned some details of LW's internal structure and therefore engaged
in reverse engineering. This is exactly the same situation as if you
learn something about the internal structure of LW through using
private Lisp functions. The only difference is the language used. I
think you're just prejudiced against C :)

>
> |> 2. Using a debug library or tool to log calls made by LW in order to
> |> see how it works would quite likely also been seen as a violation of
> |> the no reverse engineering clause.
> |
> | If it were specifically to see how LW operates, I agree. But if it is
> | to examine/debug the underlying C library it is not - despite the fact
> | that you may learn about LW in the process.
>
> You are not examining the C-library but the calls that the product makes
> to the C-library which is precisely what is covered by the "reverse
> engineering" clause

You're taking this part out of context. If you look at the whole
thread, my point in regards to this was to take an example C library
like FreeVec.

If what I have done is a form of reverse engineering then if FreeVec
were used with LW and an incompatibility were found, debugging FreeVec
by examining how LW interacts with it and triggers a bug would
constitute reverse engineering LW. This is rubbish. The intent is not
to learn anything about LW, it is to fix FreeVec. Any knowledge gained
about LW is secondary, and does not constitute reverse engineering.

Similarly, my intent was to modify the behavior of LW. The LW personal
license grants me that right. I did not inspect LW's code or binaries.
I wrote a 6 line C function, compiled it to a shared library, loaded
it and ran LW - and it works. I now learned (or rather confirmed) that
LW *must* either directly, or indirectly, rely on gettimeofday and the
C standard library.

That is not reverse engineering.

If IS reverse engineering, then the following is ALSO reverse
engineering:

Start LW near the point in time where Day Light Savings Time with take
effect. Your computer will automatically adjust the time, and LW's
behavior will be modified. You can now make inferences about the
internal structure of LW, so you've engaged in reverse engineering.

This is more than just absurd, or short sighted - it is downright,
plainly retarded. And not high-functioning 72'ish IQ retarded either.
I'm talking full-on drooling and grunting retarded.

Reverse engineering is the act of analyzing a system to discern its
private design and internal structure. LW is ADVERTISING the fact that
they RELY on the time by having a TIMEOUT. If I used a debugging or
profiling tool to see what C functions are called during garbage
collection, THAT would be reverse engineering.. because it is not
plainly and clearly obvious from even casual use how they do it.

It is plainly and clearly obvious that LW relys on the system date and
time.. it takes no reverse engineering to see it, and no inspection of
the binaries to reveal it. It HAD to be done via gettimeofday because,
what is the alternative, really? Reading the HW clock directly?

Here is some more reverse engineering for you - this shows how fucking
uber-smart I am - I'll reverse a bit of every C program ever written,
and those that don't even exist yet without looking at a byte of code:

They all use malloc() to allocate memory!

Please.

On Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:32:43 -0400, Raffael Cavallaro wrote:

> On 2009-09-29 16:24:10 -0400, Alessio Stalla <alessiostalla@gmail.com>
> said:
> 
>> I completely agree.
> 
> I doubt that courts would, and what courts hold is the only relevant
> point. They've held click-through licenses to be valid and enforceable.
> The very fact that someone might hack the installer and circumvent the
> license approval step is in itself proof that the user was aware that
> there was a license agreement for the software. That's why no one makes
> this hack-the-license-approval argument in a real court. Awareness of
> the agreement (or lack thereof) is the crucial point in court holdings
> in this area.
> 
> What courts have held to be an exception is when the user is arguably
> *unaware* that there is a license agreement, when the software is made
> available by the copyright holder for installation and/or use without
> the need to explicitly agree to a license. In these cases, courts have
> held that any license unilaterally imposed by the copyright holder is
> not valid. But of course, that isn't the case with LW personal, where
> you do have to agree to the license before you can use the software.

The whole thread reminds me of a civil law class that I have taken
(IANAL, but it seemed -- and turned out to be -- interesting).  It was
a course for non-law students, most had a mathematics/science
background.  _All_ questions from the audience were like this,
students thinking that laws are like an algorithm that they can hack.
The professor was very understanding and actually stopped to explain
that legal systems don't work that way -- common sense is present in
both Common Law and continental European systems, and you can't expect
to get away with technical tricks like that.

Tamas

On Sep 30, 5:29=A0pm, Tamas K Papp <tkp...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The whole thread reminds me of a civil law class that I have taken
> (IANAL, but it seemed -- and turned out to be -- interesting). =A0It was
> a course for non-law students, most had a mathematics/science
> background. =A0_All_ questions from the audience were like this,
> students thinking that laws are like an algorithm that they can hack.
> The professor was very understanding and actually stopped to explain
> that legal systems don't work that way -- common sense is present in
> both Common Law and continental European systems, and you can't expect
> to get away with technical tricks like that.

Well, yes - of course! That is what judges and juries are for - to
bring common sense to bear on particular situations.

To me, it is common sense that in a software package given away with a
perpetual license (i.e. this is NOT an evaluation demo designed to
provoke a sale. It is a license for personal, non-commercial USE - not
testing) that I am free to modify it on my own machine, so long as I
don't break copyright laws by redistributing it.

Applying the LD_PRELOAD technique to the 30-day evaluation copy of LW,
or other packages would clearly violate the license and intended use.
Those packages are _licensed_ for 30 days - and thats it. LW Personal
is _licensed_ for as long as I desire to use it non-commercially. The
5-hour restriction is a technical limitation, and my kludge gets
around that limitation.

I really don't feel this is an infringement on the license. If I did,
I wouldn't have done it.

On Sep 30, 12:32=A0am, Raffael Cavallaro
<raffaelcavall...@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> On 2009-09-29 16:24:10 -0400, Alessio Stalla <alessiosta...@gmail.com> sa=
id:
>
> > I completely agree.
>
> I doubt that courts would, and what courts hold is the only relevant
> point. They've held click-through licenses to be valid and enforceable.

I agree to how Kaz believes things should be - I know that actual law
is different, and until my secret world domination device is complete,
I cannot pretend that every law is in accordance with my beliefs.

> The very fact that someone might hack the installer and circumvent the
> license approval step is in itself proof that the user was aware that
> there was a license agreement for the software. That's why no one makes
> this hack-the-license-approval argument in a real court. Awareness of
> the agreement (or lack thereof) is the crucial point in court holdings
> in this area.

The point imho is that, unlike a signed contract, it is not
objectively verifiable that the user has read and accepted the
license. Who provides the proof of the acceptance of the license? Not
a third party, but the installer of the software itself. What if, for
example, the installer has a bug (or even a malicious feature) and
allows you to proceed without accepting the license? Unlikely, but not
provably impossible. Making a software dictate law is giving powers to
the makers of the software, powers that they shouldn't have. Again I'm
reasoning about what I think things *should* be, not what they are
now.

> What courts have held to be an exception is when the user is arguably
> *unaware* that there is a license agreement, when the software is made
> available by the copyright holder for installation and/or use without
> the need to explicitly agree to a license. In these cases, courts have
> held that any license unilaterally imposed by the copyright holder is
> not valid. But of course, that isn't the case with LW personal, where
> you do have to agree to the license before you can use the software.
>
> --
> Raffael Cavallaro

gnubeard wrote:
> On Sep 30, 5:29 pm, Tamas K Papp <tkp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> The whole thread reminds me of a civil law class that I have taken
>> (IANAL, but it seemed -- and turned out to be -- interesting).  It was
>> a course for non-law students, most had a mathematics/science
>> background.  _All_ questions from the audience were like this,
>> students thinking that laws are like an algorithm that they can hack.
>> The professor was very understanding and actually stopped to explain
>> that legal systems don't work that way -- common sense is present in
>> both Common Law and continental European systems, and you can't expect
>> to get away with technical tricks like that.
> 
> Well, yes - of course! That is what judges and juries are for - to
> bring common sense to bear on particular situations.
> 
> To me, it is common sense that in a software package given away with a
> perpetual license (i.e. this is NOT an evaluation demo designed to
> provoke a sale. It is a license for personal, non-commercial USE - not
> testing) that I am free to modify it on my own machine, so long as I
> don't break copyright laws by redistributing it.
> 
> Applying the LD_PRELOAD technique to the 30-day evaluation copy of LW,
> or other packages would clearly violate the license and intended use.
> Those packages are _licensed_ for 30 days - and thats it. LW Personal
> is _licensed_ for as long as I desire to use it non-commercially. The
> 5-hour restriction is a technical limitation, and my kludge gets
> around that limitation.
> 
> I really don't feel this is an infringement on the license. If I did,
> I wouldn't have done it.

Guys, we are all not lawyers. Why are we having this discussion?

Even if what you did were legal to every single letter of the law, the 
question remains whether it's ethically responsible.

LispWorks Inc. is not a big corporation, it's a small company with only 
a handful of people running it, who are part of the Common Lisp 
community, actively supporting it, including open-source projects - in 
other words, they are our friends. Just like the other commercial Common 
Lisp vendors.

We are not talking about Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Oracle, or any of those 
big beasts who couldn't care less about such minor incidents (but 
contrary to small companies have all the money in the world to actually 
pursue action).

So, please don't try to find excuses that what you did is actually 
defensible. Be honest and say that it's not really the right thing to 
do. If you do it anyway, that's fine, but please make sure that the 
damage doesn't spread. You wouldn't do anybody a service. It's important 
that the commercial vendors survive as much as it is important that the 
open source vendors do well.


Pascal

-- 
My website: http://p-cos.net
Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org
Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/

* gnubeard
Wrote on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:31:23 -0700 (PDT):

| On Sep 30, 2:16 pm, Madhu <enom...@meer.net> wrote:
|> * gnubeard
|> Wrote on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 18:26:45 -0700 (PDT):
|>
|> |> 1. But you've already posted here in a public forum that your reason
|> |> for using a different version of gettimeofday was an attempt to
|> |> reverse engineer and modify the behavior of LW.
|> |
|> | Yes, I had an intention to modify (the LW personal license grants me
|> | that right). I do not have an intention to reverse engineer, and I do
|> | not believe what I did can really be considered reverse engineering,
|> | even if I did learn a bit about the inner workings of LW in the
|> | process.
|>
|> No, your post specifically mentioned specific timing information (about
|> how gettimeofday is used by the software in enforcing the time limit)
|> which could not have been obtained without reverse-engineering the
|> product.  This information is essential in circumventing the limit.
|
| I did not have to reverse engineer LW in order to know any of this,
| just like I don't need to reverse engineer ANY C program to know that
| it will be using the C Library.

But you did reverse engineer the product in violation of the agreement
and your attempts at justifying it by redefining what the clause means
are exhibits rank dishonesty on your part.

It wouldn't bother me if it weren't for the gobs of `moral high ground'
you keep spewing on the newsgroup.  There is a contradiction that can
only be killfiled.

--
Madhu

* gnubeard
Wrote on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 22:31:23 -0700 (PDT):
|>
|> |> 1. But you've already posted here in a public forum that your reason
|> |> for using a different version of gettimeofday was an attempt to
|> |> reverse engineer and modify the behavior of LW.
|> |
|> | Yes, I had an intention to modify (the LW personal license grants me
|> | that right). I do not have an intention to reverse engineer, and I do
|> | not believe what I did can really be considered reverse engineering,
|> | even if I did learn a bit about the inner workings of LW in the
|> | process.
|>
|> No, your post specifically mentioned specific timing information (about
|> how gettimeofday is used by the software in enforcing the time limit)
|> which could not have been obtained without reverse-engineering the
|> product.  This information is essential in circumventing the limit.
|
| I did not have to reverse engineer LW in order to know any of this,
| just like I don't need to reverse engineer ANY C program to know that
| it will be using the C Library.

But you did reverse engineer the product in violation of the agreement
and your attempts at justifying it by redefining what the clause means
are exhibits of rank dishonesty on your part.

It wouldn't bother me if it weren't for the gobs of `moral high ground'
you keep spewing on the newsgroup.  There is a contradiction that can
only be killfiled.

--
Madhu

On Sep 30, 10:29=A0am, Tamas K Papp <tkp...@gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
> The whole thread reminds me of a civil law class that I have taken
> (IANAL, but it seemed -- and turned out to be -- interesting). =A0It was
> a course for non-law students, most had a mathematics/science
> background. =A0_All_ questions from the audience were like this,
> students thinking that laws are like an algorithm that they can hack.
> The professor was very understanding and actually stopped to explain
> that legal systems don't work that way -- common sense is present in
> both Common Law and continental European systems, and you can't expect
> to get away with technical tricks like that.

Right - you need money too.

Alessio Stalla wrote:
> Probably the installer is not considered a copy of the software

Also ridiculous. Clearly it is, or contains, a copy.

You might as well argue that a CD single with a song on it is not 
considered a copy of the song, but rather a "medium for getting the copy".

> I'm not saying I think this is sane - in my opinion a contract should
> ideally always involve two human beings and a way to verify with 100%
> accuracy that they both actually agreed to the contract.

I'm glad to find that you're one of the few other people out there 
showing signs of sanity in regard to "license agreements".

> Granting an automated mechanism (like a software) the right to decide
> whether a contract has been agreed or not is very dangerous as it makes
> the parties be on different levels - whoever writes the software gets
> to decide how and when the contract is considered to be signed, and can
> in theory revoke it at any time. My copy of X stops working and says I
> haven't accepted the license, how can I prove I did accept it?

It's much worse than that. What if it siphons money from your bank 
account, and then announces that you implicitly activated some term of 
its "license agreement" that expressly allows it to assess a fine 
against you, automatically? I'm sure you can think of even worse.

The problem is ultimately an attack on our fundamental property rights. 
We NEED, for a proper capitalist society and for a *free* one, that OUR 
things are actually OURS. If our software, and maybe appliances, cars, 
and so on cease to be ours and become agents of organizations whose 
agendas are not always going to dovetail with our own, with this 
relationship actually considered legally binding, then we cease to 
become citizens and property owners and we become a new class of serfs 
with a mixture of corporate and governmental overlords.

This is also why the FSF and free software (like Clojure (EPL), ABCL 
(GPL), and SBCL (BSD)) are so important.

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-09-29 16:24:10 -0400, Alessio Stalla <alessiostalla@gmail.com> 
> said:
> 
>> I completely agree.
> 
> I doubt that courts would, and what courts hold is the only relevant 
> point.

Fuck the courts. Congress, in explicitly writing section 117 (a) (1) 
into the copyright code, very clearly intended that software copyright 
holders NOT have any kind of hold over their users post-sale. If the 
courts are going against what Congress clearly intended, then they 
themselves are a problem and will need to be seen to. The Supreme 
Court's job is to do that. Let's hope it does, and soon.

> The very fact that someone might hack the installer and circumvent the 
> license approval step is in itself proof that the user was aware that 
> there was a license agreement for the software.

Surely you don't believe that mere awareness of the terms of some 
contract is tantamount to having signed it?! That would undermine 
critically key parts of all our rights.

Pascal Costanza wrote:
> Even if what you did were legal to every single letter of the law, the 
> question remains whether it's ethically responsible.

I, for one, find nothing unethical about "cheating" a monopoly out of 
their monopoly rents (so long as I don't actually deprive them of 
something they already had, which *would* be theft), let alone merely 
altering personal property in a manner that does not even (arguably) 
result in a lost sale to some monopoly.

> LispWorks Inc. is not a big corporation, it's a small company with only 
> a handful of people running it

Maybe if their prices were more reasonable, they'd be more successful.

> We are not talking about Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Oracle, or any of those 
> big beasts who couldn't care less about such minor incidents (but 
> contrary to small companies have all the money in the world to actually 
> pursue action).

A monopolist is a monopolist, no matter how big or small it is.

> So, please don't try to find excuses that what you did is actually 
> defensible. Be honest and say that it's not really the right thing to 
> do.

He honestly doesn't believe that it was a wrongdoing. And neither do I.

> If you do it anyway, that's fine, but please make sure that the 
> damage doesn't spread.

Damage? What damage?? Point to any identifiable damage -- I'll even 
allow (this once) a lost future sale to qualify as damage, even though I 
don't agree that any vendor is (or should be) ever *entitled* to 
*future* sales or revenue of any kind.

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-09-29 13:03:16 -0400, Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> 
> said:
> 
>> I do not fail.
>>
>> Go fuck yourself, asshole.
> 
> [personal attack deleted]

Oh yeah? Well double dumbass on you!

Alessio Stalla wrote:
> On Sep 29, 7:07 pm, Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
>> Rainer Joswig wrote:
>>> all three (Clozure CL, Allegro CL and LispWorks) are supporting
>>> multiple threads.
>>> Only Clozure CL currently supports multiple concurrent (!) Lisp
>>> threads.
>>> Allegro CL will do that with version 9.0. LispWorks will do that with
>>> version 6.0, which is currently in beta.
>> So of all of these Common Lisps only Clozure supports multi-core?
>>
>> Clojure has had that from the outset, but it's not a Common Lisp; it's
>> closer to Scheme.
> 
> Clojure has it because the JVM has it. ABCL runs on the JVM and
> inherits its threading model, too.

So, ABCL, Clozure (both Common Lisps) and Clojure (Lisp but not a CL). 
Any more?

Alessio Stalla wrote:
> On Sep 29, 3:37 pm, Raffael Cavallaro
> <raffaelcavall...@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
>> On 2009-09-29 03:47:02 -0400, Alessio Stalla <alessiosta...@gmail.com> said:
>>
>>> Imagine if e.g. Ford gave away cars that automatically
>>> stop after 5 hours, and you discovered and applied a technique to
>>> circumvent this limitation, do you really believe that you would have
>>> committed a crime in this case?
>> Imagine if Zipcar allowed you to drive one of their cars that
>> automatically stopped after 5 hours which you were licensed to use only
>> if you agreed to a license which prohibited reverse engineering. Do you
>> think they could terminate your license if you reverse engineered and
>> disabled the 5 hour limitation?
>>
>> Analogies only work if you include all the relevant details in your
>> parallel. LW is not giving you LW personal - they're licensing you to
>> use it. In particular, you cannot be said to own something if you can't
>> dispose of it as you wish, if you can't give it to another person. You
>> can't transfer your copy of LW personal to another person, read the
>> license. The LW Personal situation is akin to being allowed to use a
>> car, not owning it.
>>
>> Moreover, you don't even get to use it unless you agree to the license
>> which specifically states that LW can terminate the license if you
>> don't abide by it.
> 
> Ok, very good points. My analogy wasn't correct.

There is one enormous problem with a Zipcar vs. LW analogy. Zipcar is 
scarce: if you presently are driving a Zipcar, nobody else can be 
driving that particular Zipcar, and making another one is fairly 
expensive and time and labor intensive. However, LW is not diminished at 
all the more people use it (in fact, it probably becomes more valuable, 
through network effects), and although a particular copy of LW might 
only be able to be in one place at one time, the marginal cost of a copy 
of LW is on the order of pennies (if downloaded) to nickels (stamped 
disc) or, at worst, a buck or two (burned disc), versus the marginal 
cost of a Zipcar presumably being in the tens of grand ballpark typical 
for mass-manufactured non-high-end automobiles.

Consequently, someone freeloading with a Zipcar is depriving someone, 
somewhere, of the fruits of twenty grand or more worth of parts and 
labor. Someone freeloading with a copy of LW (and the O.P. isn't even 
doing THAT) is depriving someone, somewhere, of what? Nickles and dimes? 
Pennies?

Oh, how I weep.

In fact, in the e-business world, having to pay the minuscule marginal 
cost for people to view and download from your web site that don't 
eventually convert into sales is considered to be a cost of doing business.

And the O.P. has indicated that if LW even has a lost sale to him, it is 
not because he was able to circumvent the five hour BS, it is because LW 
failed to offer a for-pay product better fitting his needs.

I'd consider this whole mess to be a tempest in a teapot except that it 
indirectly illuminates a growing and serious threat to our private 
property rights from the so-called intellectual property lobby, mainly 
commercial software vendors (like LW), the music labels, and Hollywood, 
here in the U.S.; these companies want to own their products even after 
they've sold them, to protect obsolete business models from competition, 
and they want increasing control over other industries, particularly 
consumer electronics. They tried to ban the tape player and the VCR, 
succeeded in crippling DVD players and DVRs, and made a credible attempt 
on our computers (remember the big "trusted computing" hype/flap a few 
years ago?) with partial success (some of Windows Vista's CPU-hogging 
misfeatures, since largely defanged as of Service Pack 2 and easily 
circumvented thank God). This will only continue until all learn the 
errors of their ways.

On 2009-09-29 21:30:05 -0400, gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> said:

> Circumventing
> the 5-hour limit for non-commericial personal use is ALLOWED by the
> license.

Not if if involves reverse engineering how LW implements the time 
limit, and of course, it does.
-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

On 2009-09-30 04:57:17 -0400, Alessio Stalla <alessiostalla@gmail.com> said:

> The point imho is that, unlike a signed contract, it is not
> objectively verifiable that the user has read and accepted the
> license.

Civil courts in the US use the standard of "preponderance of evidence." 
This means the side whose claim is *more likely* based on evidence 
presented prevails (no need for proof "beyond a reasonable doubt" which 
is the much higher criminal standard).

So courts have asked themselves which is more likely, that someone who 
installed the software was somehow completely unaware of the license 
presented, or that the user was aware of the license. This is why the 
"hack the installer" defense is pretty worthless. The very act of 
hacking the installer is evidence on the side of "the user knew there 
was a license agreement."

-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

On Sep 30, 7:13=A0pm, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:

> So, please don't try to find excuses that what you did is actually
> defensible. Be honest and say that it's not really the right thing to
> do. If you do it anyway, that's fine, but please make sure that the
> damage doesn't spread. You wouldn't do anybody a service. It's important
> that the commercial vendors survive as much as it is important that the
> open source vendors do well.

As as I said in the original post .. I feel this is mildly unethical,
but I'm ok with shrugging that off (mostly because I know that, at
some point in the future, I _will_ end up buying LW - I like it very
much, I just can't afford it now). I won't distribute code to do it,
because I find that harder to shrug off. I included in my post a
recommendation on how to fix this problem, if the LW guys desire to do
so.

On Sep 30, 8:27=A0pm, Madhu <enom...@meer.net> wrote:

> But you did reverse engineer the product in violation of the agreement
> and your attempts at justifying it by redefining what the clause means
> are exhibits rank dishonesty on your part.

I'm not redefining anything.

>
> It wouldn't bother me if it weren't for the gobs of `moral high ground'
> you keep spewing on the newsgroup. =A0There is a contradiction that can
> only be killfiled.

Congratulations, dipshit - you are first person in this thread to get
my asshairs up. I'm not taking any high moral ground, you fucking
idiot - I said in my original post that I felt this whole thing is
mildly unethical, and that I won't distribute code to do it -- AND I
recommended a way to fix it. I'd actually love to see a fix make it
into the 6.0 Personal release.. mostly so that I can give assholes
like you the finger.

I have argued that this doesn't technically seem to be against the
license, either - but as I said, IANAL - so of course it is possible
it could be argued.

Clearly you didn't go back and read my original post. Clearly you
don't know what the hell you're talking about, chief.

On Oct 1, 4:59=A0am, Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
> He honestly doesn't believe that it was a wrongdoing. And neither do I.

Well, actually I do believe it is a minor wrongdoing.. the jokers
around here equate it to a type of theft, which clearly it is not.

It is a wrongdoing in the sense that it may hurt the LW guys
feelings.

It is like if my grandmother gave me a soft, warm, comfy sweater for
Christmas. For the most part, I like it, but it has this annoying
turtle-neck. So I cut off the turtleneck and throw a patch or two on
it to make it punk-chick or some shit, and my grandmother's feelings
get hurt a bit about it.

That is the extent of the ethical problem.. and I'm comfortable
shrugging that off.

Fortunately for me, though .. my grandmother is a cool old bird and
wouldn't actually give a damn.

P� Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:04:19 +0200, skrev Dave Searles  
<searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk>:

> Alessio Stalla wrote:
>> On Sep 29, 7:07 pm, Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
>>> Rainer Joswig wrote:
>>>> all three (Clozure CL, Allegro CL and LispWorks) are supporting
>>>> multiple threads.
>>>> Only Clozure CL currently supports multiple concurrent (!) Lisp
>>>> threads.
>>>> Allegro CL will do that with version 9.0. LispWorks will do that with
>>>> version 6.0, which is currently in beta.
>>> So of all of these Common Lisps only Clozure supports multi-core?
>>>
>>> Clojure has had that from the outset, but it's not a Common Lisp; it's
>>> closer to Scheme.
>>  Clojure has it because the JVM has it. ABCL runs on the JVM and
>> inherits its threading model, too.
>
> So, ABCL, Clozure (both Common Lisps) and Clojure (Lisp but not a CL).  
> Any more?


Clozure compiles to machine code not Java bytecode.
ABCL is the only CL that does.

--------------
John Thingstad

"John Thingstad" <jpthing@online.no> writes:

> På Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:04:19 +0200, skrev Dave Searles
> <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk>:
>
>> Alessio Stalla wrote:
>>> On Sep 29, 7:07 pm, Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
>>>> Rainer Joswig wrote:
>>>>> all three (Clozure CL, Allegro CL and LispWorks) are supporting
>>>>> multiple threads.
>>>>> Only Clozure CL currently supports multiple concurrent (!) Lisp
>>>>> threads.
>>>>> Allegro CL will do that with version 9.0. LispWorks will do that with
>>>>> version 6.0, which is currently in beta.
>>>> So of all of these Common Lisps only Clozure supports multi-core?
>>>>
>>>> Clojure has had that from the outset, but it's not a Common Lisp; it's
>>>> closer to Scheme.
>>>  Clojure has it because the JVM has it. ABCL runs on the JVM and
>>> inherits its threading model, too.
>>
>> So, ABCL, Clozure (both Common Lisps) and Clojure (Lisp but not a
>> CL).  Any more?
>
>
> Clozure compiles to machine code not Java bytecode.
> ABCL is the only CL that does.

To nitpick, the name of the lisp is "Clozure CL"; the name of the
company that sponsors its development is "Clozure Associates" (also not
to be confused with Irish boy-band "Clozure").

In article 
<e4d6dd55-54f9-4079-bed5-022428eb1de8@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
 gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I don't steal.

Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing.

A pure free market doesn't work well for intellectual goods, such as 
books, music, software, and so on, because the marginal cost of making a 
copy is close to zero. In a pure free market (which means there would be 
no legal restrictions on making and distributing copies) you'd only get 
books and music from artists who are independently wealthy or otherwise 
find a patron, because trying to make money actually selling books and 
CDs wouldn't work. As soon as you published, the copies would start, and 
they would undercut you enough that you'd just never make back your 
initial costs.

There are three ways to fix this.

#1. Say "Oh well...that's life" and get by with only those who can find 
patronage or who make a lot of money in some non-creative endeavor 
producing artistic works. The result is that artistic works would 
essentially be free to consumers, but we would have far fewer new works 
produced.

#2. Say "OK, so we won't use the free market to deal with deciding what 
art gets produced and how much artists get paid". Instead, have some 
kind of bureaucracy handle it. The government collects money to support 
artists (probably via a tax on something that roughly correlates with 
consumption of art, such as a media tax), and divvies it up among 
artists based on what consumers are consuming. So, the government would 
run the bittorrent trackers or the music stores, and keep track of how 
many times each work is downloaded, and split the tax accordingly. In a 
way this is a patronage system like #1, but we are all the patrons, 
indirectly through the government.

#3. Artificially, by force of law, imbue intellectual goods with some of 
the characteristics of real property so as to make it work like a 
regular good in the free market. In particular, make it so that people 
can't make copies--if they want a copy, they have to get it from the 
artist.

The approach most societies nowadays take is #3. But note that #3 is a 
legal fiction. It only works out fairly if we all follow the rules. 
Pirates aren't following the rules, and if enough people pirate, it will 
snowball. People will notice and think "I've got a few thousand dollars 
spend on my CDs and DVDs...my pirate neighbor didn't have to spend that 
money on DVDs, so was able to instead build a better home theater to 
watch his movies...why the hell I'm I spending all this money when these 
people are getting it or free?".

This is very similar to polluters dumping trash and waste in, say, a 
public park or forest or lake. If only a few do it, it might annoy a few 
people who see it happening, and it will raise costs to the rest of us.  
But if a lot of people do it, it can destroy the park.

That's the analogy for what you are: an intellectual polluter.


-- 
--Tim Smith

On Oct 1, 3:37=A0pm, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

> Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing.

You're right. +1 points.

> This is very similar to polluters dumping trash and waste in, say, a
> public park or forest or lake. If only a few do it, it might annoy a few
> people who see it happening, and it will raise costs to the rest of us. =
=A0
> But if a lot of people do it, it can destroy the park.
>
> That's the analogy for what you are: an intellectual polluter.

Except my trash is kept in my own home, and I've put it in no public
space. Thats what everyone seems to overlook, here. I've made no
copies for others, distributed no "cracks" or "patches" - all I did
was to discuss how to do it. So, you're wrong. -1 points.

Total score: 0.

On Oct 1, 3:37=A0pm, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

> Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing.

You're right. +1 points.

> This is very similar to polluters dumping trash and waste in, say, a
> public park or forest or lake. If only a few do it, it might annoy a few
> people who see it happening, and it will raise costs to the rest of us. =
=A0
> But if a lot of people do it, it can destroy the park.
>
> That's the analogy for what you are: an intellectual polluter.

Except my trash is kept in my own home, and I've put it in no public
space. Thats what everyone seems to overlook, here. I've made no
copies for others, distributed no "cracks" or "patches" - all I did
was to discuss how to do it. So, you're wrong. -1 points.

Total score: 0.

On Oct 1, 3:37=A0pm, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

> Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing.

You're right. +1 points.

> This is very similar to polluters dumping trash and waste in, say, a
> public park or forest or lake. If only a few do it, it might annoy a few
> people who see it happening, and it will raise costs to the rest of us. =
=A0
> But if a lot of people do it, it can destroy the park.
>
> That's the analogy for what you are: an intellectual polluter.

Except my trash is kept in my own home, and I've put it in no public
space. Thats what everyone seems to overlook, here. I've made no
copies for others, distributed no "cracks" or "patches" - all I did
was to discuss how to do it. So, you're wrong. -1 points.

Total score: 0.

On Oct 1, 3:37=A0pm, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

> Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing.

You're right. +1 points.

> This is very similar to polluters dumping trash and waste in, say, a
> public park or forest or lake. If only a few do it, it might annoy a few
> people who see it happening, and it will raise costs to the rest of us. =
=A0
> But if a lot of people do it, it can destroy the park.
>
> That's the analogy for what you are: an intellectual polluter.

Except my trash is kept in my own home, and I've put it in no public
space. Thats what everyone seems to overlook, here. I've made no
copies for others, distributed no "cracks" or "patches" - all I did
was to discuss how to do it. So, you're wrong. -1 points.

Total score: 0.

On Oct 1, 7:37=A0am, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
> In article
> <e4d6dd55-54f9-4079-bed5-022428eb1...@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
>
> =A0gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I don't steal.
>
> Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing.
>
> A pure free market doesn't work well for intellectual goods, such as
> books, music, software, and so on, because the marginal cost of making a
> copy is close to zero. In a pure free market (which means there would be
> no legal restrictions on making and distributing copies) you'd only get
> books and music from artists who are independently wealthy or otherwise
> find a patron, because trying to make money actually selling books and
> CDs wouldn't work. As soon as you published, the copies would start, and
> they would undercut you enough that you'd just never make back your
> initial costs.
>
> There are three ways to fix this.
>
> #1. Say "Oh well...that's life" and get by with only those who can find
> patronage or who make a lot of money in some non-creative endeavor
> producing artistic works. The result is that artistic works would
> essentially be free to consumers, but we would have far fewer new works
> produced.

I don't think it would end up like this. I think there would be far
fewer artists which don't make art seriously, or that make art
primarily for money. I'm a music lover, and I would happily pay =80=80=80
(or $$$) - even on a subscription basis - to my favourite bands to
allow them to continue making good music. I think many other people
would. Maybe I'm being too optimistic, who knows.

> #2. Say "OK, so we won't use the free market to deal with deciding what
> art gets produced and how much artists get paid". Instead, have some
> kind of bureaucracy handle it. The government collects money to support
> artists (probably via a tax on something that roughly correlates with
> consumption of art, such as a media tax), and divvies it up among
> artists based on what consumers are consuming. So, the government would
> run the bittorrent trackers or the music stores, and keep track of how
> many times each work is downloaded, and split the tax accordingly. In a
> way this is a patronage system like #1, but we are all the patrons,
> indirectly through the government.

That's an option too, it could be used in conjunction with #1 if #1
wasn't enough.

> #3. Artificially, by force of law, imbue intellectual goods with some of
> the characteristics of real property so as to make it work like a
> regular good in the free market. In particular, make it so that people
> can't make copies--if they want a copy, they have to get it from the
> artist.
>
> The approach most societies nowadays take is #3. But note that #3 is a
> legal fiction. It only works out fairly if we all follow the rules.

It doesn't work fairly. Making laws to artificially force a phenomenon
into working in an unnatural way is generally a huge mistake. Force of
law is not a divine force; you cannot say "this song in mp3 format
shalt be real property from now on" and hope everything works. Because
it is not real property, no matter what. It has been said countless
times: I steal from you your car, you don't have a car anymore; I copy
your CD, you still have the CD. I don't return a book you have lent to
me, you don't have the book anymore; I copy your ebook, you still have
the ebook. That someone is making money now on the assumption that a
song or a software is like a physical object, and would not make money
if laws were changed to be more in accordance with how things really
are, is not an excuse for keeping a bad law.

> Pirates aren't following the rules, and if enough people pirate, it will
> snowball. People will notice and think "I've got a few thousand dollars
> spend on my CDs and DVDs...my pirate neighbor didn't have to spend that
> money on DVDs, so was able to instead build a better home theater to
> watch his movies...why the hell I'm I spending all this money when these
> people are getting it or free?".
>
> This is very similar to polluters dumping trash and waste in, say, a
> public park or forest or lake. If only a few do it, it might annoy a few
> people who see it happening, and it will raise costs to the rest of us. =
=A0
> But if a lot of people do it, it can destroy the park.
>
> That's the analogy for what you are: an intellectual polluter.

No, it's not a fair analogy. Dumping trash in a park is naturally
wrong; it damages a public property without giving any benefits to
society. It's more like if someone charged you money for walking in
the street, and someone discovered that, ooh, you can walk in the
street without paying! Because the street is not someone's private
property. How will the poor street-lending companies survive now that
everyone walks in the street freely? I say, screw them! I don't want
policemen arresting me if I walk in the street without paying. And who
will build new streets now? People who need them will.

Alessio

On Sep 30, 9:04=A0pm, Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
> Alessio Stalla wrote:
> > On Sep 29, 7:07 pm, Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
> >> Rainer Joswig wrote:
> >>> all three (Clozure CL, Allegro CL and LispWorks) are supporting
> >>> multiple threads.
> >>> Only Clozure CL currently supports multiple concurrent (!) Lisp
> >>> threads.
> >>> Allegro CL will do that with version 9.0. LispWorks will do that with
> >>> version 6.0, which is currently in beta.
> >> So of all of these Common Lisps only Clozure supports multi-core?
>
> >> Clojure has had that from the outset, but it's not a Common Lisp; it's
> >> closer to Scheme.
>
> > Clojure has it because the JVM has it. ABCL runs on the JVM and
> > inherits its threading model, too.
>
> So, ABCL, Clozure (both Common Lisps) and Clojure (Lisp but not a CL).
> Any more?

I read that Scieneer CL has been designed with parallelism in mind,
and so it probably supports multi-core, but I never used it.

However I think that generally too much importance is given to
multicores. Apart from heavily parallel CPU-intensive applications,
most programs will work perfectly fine on a single core, and the OS
will happily use the other cores for other applications.

Alessio

On 2009-10-01, Tim Smith <reply_in_group@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
> In article 
><e4d6dd55-54f9-4079-bed5-022428eb1de8@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
>  gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> I don't steal.
>
> Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing.
>
> A pure free market doesn't work well for intellectual goods, such as 
> books, music, software, and so on, because the marginal cost of making a 
> copy is close to zero. In a pure free market (which means there would be 
> no legal restrictions on making and distributing copies) you'd only get 
> books and music from artists who are independently wealthy or otherwise 
> find a patron, because trying to make money actually selling books and 
> CDs wouldn't work. As soon as you published, the copies would start, and 
> they would undercut you enough that you'd just never make back your 
> initial costs.

Copying isn't the best analogy for what he is doing. He has a legal copy of the
software.  Having obtained a legal copy of a work, all he is doing is flipping
the bits of a storage device which he owns. I.e. doing as he pleases with
private property.

Kaz Kylheku <kkylheku@gmail.com> writes:

> On 2009-10-01, Tim Smith <reply_in_group@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
>> In article 
>><e4d6dd55-54f9-4079-bed5-022428eb1de8@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
>>  gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> I don't steal.
>>
>> Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing.
>>
>> A pure free market doesn't work well for intellectual goods, such as 
>> books, music, software, and so on, because the marginal cost of making a 
>> copy is close to zero. In a pure free market (which means there would be 
>> no legal restrictions on making and distributing copies) you'd only get 
>> books and music from artists who are independently wealthy or otherwise 
>> find a patron, because trying to make money actually selling books and 
>> CDs wouldn't work. As soon as you published, the copies would start, and 
>> they would undercut you enough that you'd just never make back your 
>> initial costs.
>
> Copying isn't the best analogy for what he is doing. He has a legal copy of the
> software.  Having obtained a legal copy of a work, all he is doing is flipping
> the bits of a storage device which he owns. I.e. doing as he pleases with
> private property.

Would this analogy do:

   He's at an ATM, and there's a lamppost nearby.  He noticed that
   when drawing money from the ATM, if he kicks the lamppost that
   sends a pulse in the ATM that prevents it to debit his account.


-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

On Oct 1, 5:02=A0pm, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
wrote:
> Kaz Kylheku <kkylh...@gmail.com> writes:
> > On 2009-10-01, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
> >> In article
> >><e4d6dd55-54f9-4079-bed5-022428eb1...@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
> >> =A0gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>> I don't steal.
>
> >> Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing.
>
> >> A pure free market doesn't work well for intellectual goods, such as
> >> books, music, software, and so on, because the marginal cost of making=
 a
> >> copy is close to zero. In a pure free market (which means there would =
be
> >> no legal restrictions on making and distributing copies) you'd only ge=
t
> >> books and music from artists who are independently wealthy or otherwis=
e
> >> find a patron, because trying to make money actually selling books and
> >> CDs wouldn't work. As soon as you published, the copies would start, a=
nd
> >> they would undercut you enough that you'd just never make back your
> >> initial costs.
>
> > Copying isn't the best analogy for what he is doing. He has a legal cop=
y of the
> > software. =A0Having obtained a legal copy of a work, all he is doing is=
 flipping
> > the bits of a storage device which he owns. I.e. doing as he pleases wi=
th
> > private property.
>
> Would this analogy do:
>
> =A0 =A0He's at an ATM, and there's a lamppost nearby. =A0He noticed that
> =A0 =A0when drawing money from the ATM, if he kicks the lamppost that
> =A0 =A0sends a pulse in the ATM that prevents it to debit his account.

He doesn't own the ATM, the bank does, so he's not allowed to fiddle
with it.

Alessio

Alessio Stalla <alessiostalla@gmail.com> writes:

> On Oct 1, 5:02=A0pm, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
> wrote:
>> Kaz Kylheku <kkylh...@gmail.com> writes:
>> > On 2009-10-01, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
>> >> In article
>> >><e4d6dd55-54f9-4079-bed5-022428eb1...@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
>> >> =A0gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >>> I don't steal.
>>
>> >> Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing.
>>
>> >> A pure free market doesn't work well for intellectual goods, such as
>> >> books, music, software, and so on, because the marginal cost of makin=
g a
>> >> copy is close to zero. In a pure free market (which means there would=
 be
>> >> no legal restrictions on making and distributing copies) you'd only g=
et
>> >> books and music from artists who are independently wealthy or otherwi=
se
>> >> find a patron, because trying to make money actually selling books and
>> >> CDs wouldn't work. As soon as you published, the copies would start, =
and
>> >> they would undercut you enough that you'd just never make back your
>> >> initial costs.
>>
>> > Copying isn't the best analogy for what he is doing. He has a legal co=
py of the
>> > software. =A0Having obtained a legal copy of a work, all he is doing i=
s flipping
>> > the bits of a storage device which he owns. I.e. doing as he pleases w=
ith
>> > private property.
>>
>> Would this analogy do:
>>
>> =A0 =A0He's at an ATM, and there's a lamppost nearby. =A0He noticed that
>> =A0 =A0when drawing money from the ATM, if he kicks the lamppost that
>> =A0 =A0sends a pulse in the ATM that prevents it to debit his account.
>
> He doesn't own the ATM, the bank does, so he's not allowed to fiddle
> with it.

He didn't fiddle with it.  He only fiddled with the utility providing
the ATM its power.


--=20
__Pascal Bourguignon__

On Oct 1, 5:19=A0pm, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
wrote:
> Alessio Stalla <alessiosta...@gmail.com> writes:
> > On Oct 1, 5:02=A0pm, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
> > wrote:
> >> Kaz Kylheku <kkylh...@gmail.com> writes:
> >> > On 2009-10-01, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
> >> >> In article
> >> >><e4d6dd55-54f9-4079-bed5-022428eb1...@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
> >> >> =A0gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> >>> I don't steal.
>
> >> >> Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing.
>
> >> >> A pure free market doesn't work well for intellectual goods, such a=
s
> >> >> books, music, software, and so on, because the marginal cost of mak=
ing a
> >> >> copy is close to zero. In a pure free market (which means there wou=
ld be
> >> >> no legal restrictions on making and distributing copies) you'd only=
 get
> >> >> books and music from artists who are independently wealthy or other=
wise
> >> >> find a patron, because trying to make money actually selling books =
and
> >> >> CDs wouldn't work. As soon as you published, the copies would start=
, and
> >> >> they would undercut you enough that you'd just never make back your
> >> >> initial costs.
>
> >> > Copying isn't the best analogy for what he is doing. He has a legal =
copy of the
> >> > software. =A0Having obtained a legal copy of a work, all he is doing=
 is flipping
> >> > the bits of a storage device which he owns. I.e. doing as he pleases=
 with
> >> > private property.
>
> >> Would this analogy do:
>
> >> =A0 =A0He's at an ATM, and there's a lamppost nearby. =A0He noticed th=
at
> >> =A0 =A0when drawing money from the ATM, if he kicks the lamppost that
> >> =A0 =A0sends a pulse in the ATM that prevents it to debit his account.
>
> > He doesn't own the ATM, the bank does, so he's not allowed to fiddle
> > with it.
>
> He didn't fiddle with it. =A0He only fiddled with the utility providing
> the ATM its power.

I was writing a lengthy reply to try to confute this, but then I
started to see things from a different perspective.

My main argument was the distinction between information and physical
objects.
I realized that they have in common a lot more than I thought.
A program is ultimately a sequence of bytes. A chair is ultimately a
combination of atoms. But what distinguishes them from other sequences
of bytes, from other combinations of atoms? What makes them be
Lispworks and the chair I'm sitting on? The meaning we assign them.
Seeing LispWorks as a program is more convenient than seeing it as a
sequence of bytes, and seeing a my chair as a chair is more convenient
than looking at it as a combination of atoms. The most convenient way
for us to interpret a certain thing is the meaning, the essence of
that thing, what that thing really "is".

In that light, changing bytes of LispWorks is like changing atoms of a
chair, or of an ATM to return to your example. No one can claim
property on a byte or on an atom, but one can claim property on the
thing the byte or the atom "belong" to. Clearly bytes don't differ
from atoms in this respect, contrarily to what I believed before.

Still, what troubles me is that we are able to deal with bytes much
more easily than with atoms. I cannot copy a chair or modify an ATM by
messing with it at the atomic level. I can however do those things on
programs and information in general, and I still don't believe we need
laws to limit those possibilities we have with bytes. Does this mean
that when you reach the technical level necessary to copy something
almost freely, and to change it at the level of its basic
constituents, private property naturally ceases to exist? I have to
think more about this.

Alessio

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-09-29 21:30:05 -0400, gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> said:
> 
>> Circumventing
>> the 5-hour limit for non-commericial personal use is ALLOWED by the
>> license.
> 
> Not if if involves reverse engineering how LW implements the time limit, 
> and of course, it does.

Literalist. Authoritarian. Fascist.

Dave Searles wrote:
> The problem is ultimately an attack on our fundamental property rights. 
> We NEED, for a proper capitalist society and for a *free* one, that OUR 
> things are actually OURS. If our software, and maybe appliances, cars, 
> and so on cease to be ours and become agents of organizations whose 
> agendas are not always going to dovetail with our own, with this 
> relationship actually considered legally binding, then we cease to 
> become citizens and property owners and we become a new class of serfs 
> with a mixture of corporate and governmental overlords.

Got a scary preview of such a world the night after writing this, when I 
watched CSI:NY.

Cars have software, more and more as time goes on, and increasingly 
vendors seek to clamp down on how it may be used. Give them ways to 
exert ownership over our vehicles, and a) that CSI:NY can easily come 
true when some hacker gets at the vendor-override mechanism and b) the 
same shenanigans can be used by the vendor for its own motives or at 
government gunpoint for government purposes, unaccountably and stealthily.

> This is also why the FSF and free software (like Clojure (EPL), ABCL 
> (GPL), and SBCL (BSD)) are so important.

And growing more important with every passing day.

gnubeard wrote:
> On Oct 1, 4:59 am, Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
>> He honestly doesn't believe that it was a wrongdoing. And neither do I.
> 
> Well, actually I do believe it is a minor wrongdoing.. the jokers
> around here equate it to a type of theft, which clearly it is not.
> 
> It is a wrongdoing in the sense that it may hurt the LW guys
> feelings.

I don't consider that to be a wrongdoing, not when they probably will 
never actually know about it (what they don't know can't hurt them), and 
even if they did ...

> It is like if my grandmother gave me a soft, warm, comfy sweater for
> Christmas. For the most part, I like it, but it has this annoying
> turtle-neck. So I cut off the turtleneck and throw a patch or two on
> it to make it punk-chick or some shit, and my grandmother's feelings
> get hurt a bit about it.

.... LW is not your grandmother, it is some faceless impersonal 
corporation. Corporations are very different entities from individual 
persons, whatever their legal status as artificial persons. 
Corporations, in particular, don't seem to have feelings, and tend to be 
amoral. (Not evil, amoral; like a tiger or some types of human 
psychopath, but also like every other tool we've constructed, like a 
hammer or an electrical socket or a computer.) Consideration of feelings 
is, IMO, wasted on corporations; save it for human beings.

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-09-30 04:57:17 -0400, Alessio Stalla <alessiostalla@gmail.com> 
> said:
> 
>> The point imho is that, unlike a signed contract, it is not
>> objectively verifiable that the user has read and accepted the
>> license.
> 
> Civil courts in the US use the standard of "preponderance of evidence." 
> This means the side whose claim is *more likely* based on evidence 
> presented prevails (no need for proof "beyond a reasonable doubt" which 
> is the much higher criminal standard).
> 
> So courts have asked themselves which is more likely, that someone who 
> installed the software was somehow completely unaware of the license 
> presented, or that the user was aware of the license.

Aware of the license is a very different kettle of fish from agreed to 
the license.

Surely you don't think that merely reading a contract, without signing 
it, can bind you to its terms? The same reasoning logically must apply 
to seeing a software license but avoiding clicking "I accept" by 
whatever method.

> This is why the "hack the installer" defense is pretty worthless. The
> very act of hacking the installer is evidence on the side of "the user
> knew there was a license agreement."

I'd love to see a non-software business try that sort of argument. "He 
got ahold of one of our widgets and knew we like to sell them to people 
only if they sign this contract, therefore he should be bound by the 
terms of that contract even though we have no evidence that he ever did 
so!" Maybe going after someone who may have gotten the widget 
second-hand, or who for whatever reason simply was able to purchase one 
without the salesman getting his John Hancock on the dotted line.

Tim Smith wrote:
> In article 
> <e4d6dd55-54f9-4079-bed5-022428eb1de8@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
>  gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I don't steal.
> 
> Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing.
> 
> A pure free market doesn't work well for intellectual goods, such as 
> books, music, software, and so on, because the marginal cost of making a 
> copy is close to zero.

Where's Mythbusters when you need em?

Well, forget them. Just go ask Trent Reznor, Jill Sobule, Nina Paley, 
and countless others.

> #1. Say "Oh well...that's life" and get by with only those who can find 
> patronage or who make a lot of money in some non-creative endeavor 
> producing artistic works. The result is that artistic works would 
> essentially be free to consumers, but we would have far fewer new works 
> produced.

Radiohead recently discovered that that just ain't so.

> #3. Artificially, by force of law, imbue intellectual goods with some of 
> the characteristics of real property so as to make it work like a 
> regular good in the free market.

They already would "work like a regular good in the free market"; they 
work like a regular good in the free whose marginal cost happens to be 
approximately zero.

If this sort of crap is so necessary, explain how Linux, 
Open/Free/NetBSD, the GIMP, OpenOffice.org, ABCL, SBCL, Clojure, emacs 
(for what it's worth), Apache, PostgreSQL, and countless other software 
products are able to exist, thrive, and innovate despite NOT doing 
anything to restrict copying.

Red Hat even had Oracle repackaging Red Hat Linux and selling it for a 
while at a 50% mark down from what Red Hat sold physical media for and 
lived to tell the tale. Red Hat was able to leverage their greater 
expertise in the specific internals of Red Hat Linux to beat Oracle 
selling service, and even beat them in media sales by being the 
better-known brand.

For that matter, explain how Coca-Cola Inc. is able to make a killing 
selling tap water just by bottling it and slapping the name Dasani on 
it. Can you square that with the theory that "if people can have it 
really cheap/free you can't make money selling it" that you espouse?

Or perhaps I should just refer you to three blogs:

http://www.questioncopyright.org/
http://www.againstmonopoly.org/
http://www.techdirt.com/

These issues are discussed regularly at the latter two, and the former 
has much useful archival material. The names I dropped above are all 
discussed at Techdirt, where you can find tons more examples like those.

> People will notice and think "I've got a few thousand dollars 
> spend on my CDs and DVDs...my pirate neighbor didn't have to spend that 
> money on DVDs, so was able to instead build a better home theater to 
> watch his movies...why the hell I'm I spending all this money when these 
> people are getting it or free?".
> 
> This is very similar to polluters dumping trash and waste in, say, a 
> public park or forest or lake.

Nonsense. A park or other environment's cleanliness is a finite resource 
and can be consumed. Copyability of information is not a finite 
resource. If lots of people pollute a park it stops being attractive. If 
lots of people copy a Mozart sonata, does it stop being attractive, or 
magically disappear, or get "used up" in some other manner? Nuh-uh.

On 2009-09-27 01:54:45 +0100, gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> said:

> Circumventing limitations in a
> piece of software that I am able to download freely, and which - after
> circumvention - in no way affects the ability of anyone else to use
> the software

Why do you think that is true?  If everyone did what you are 
describing, do you think that LispWorks would continue to provide a 
personal edition for no charge?  I would not if I was them.  So what 
you are doing is only denying the ability of others to use the product 
to the extent that the number of people who do what you are doing is 
very small compared to the number of people who do not  do so.  A 
similar argument would say that if I only take a very small amount of 
money from you, that's not theft.

Alessio Stalla wrote:
> Still, what troubles me is that we are able to deal with bytes much
> more easily than with atoms. I cannot copy a chair or modify an ATM by
> messing with it at the atomic level.

Yet.

It's called molecular nanotechnology, and it's coming Real Soon Now. 
When it does, maybe before 2030, the upheavals recently observed in the 
music industry will look like a minor puff of warm breeze besides the 
Category 5 howler that will rattle the timbers of the major 
manufacturing industries at that time.

> Does this mean that when you reach the technical level necessary to
> copy something almost freely, and to change it at the level of its
> basic constituents, private property naturally ceases to exist?

No, it just means that after copyright goes the way of the dodo, patent 
law will follow it into extinction (or maybe just irrelevance) in due 
course.

And there's another huge upheaval coming sooner: the death of privacy. 
Hopefully it will cause the birth of a new era of unprecedented 
tolerance and understanding, rather than, as I fear, everyone being 
smeared by everyone else and looking really bad.

Probably the latter will happen, then the former, and a fairly elaborate 
almost Victorian system of politeness norms will arise regarding what 
one is permitted to call attention to and discuss in public about other 
people without it being considered very rude, or at least gauche and 
gossipy. Mostly we already have such norms but they'd have to strengthen 
enormously to compensate the inability to keep things secret.

We'd also have to acknowledge and accept a lot of truths about ourselves 
as a species; for instance, that we are not naturally monogamous, 
contrary to popular and semi-legislated myth.

John Thingstad wrote:
> P� Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:04:19 +0200, skrev Dave Searles 
> <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk>:
> 
>> Alessio Stalla wrote:
>>> On Sep 29, 7:07 pm, Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
>>>> Rainer Joswig wrote:
>>>>> all three (Clozure CL, Allegro CL and LispWorks) are supporting
>>>>> multiple threads.
>>>>> Only Clozure CL currently supports multiple concurrent (!) Lisp
>>>>> threads.
>>>>> Allegro CL will do that with version 9.0. LispWorks will do that with
>>>>> version 6.0, which is currently in beta.
>>>> So of all of these Common Lisps only Clozure supports multi-core?
>>>>
>>>> Clojure has had that from the outset, but it's not a Common Lisp; it's
>>>> closer to Scheme.
>>>  Clojure has it because the JVM has it. ABCL runs on the JVM and
>>> inherits its threading model, too.
>>
>> So, ABCL, Clozure (both Common Lisps) and Clojure (Lisp but not a CL). 
>> Any more?
> 
> Clozure compiles to machine code not Java bytecode.

I didn't claim otherwise; I was referring to support for multi-core. All 
the JVM-hosted Lisps should get that "for free" and Clozure was already 
established separately as being able to use multiple cores.

In article <ha31j7$tsk$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
 Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
> > #3. Artificially, by force of law, imbue intellectual goods with some of 
> > the characteristics of real property so as to make it work like a 
> > regular good in the free market.
> 
> They already would "work like a regular good in the free market"; they 
> work like a regular good in the free whose marginal cost happens to be 
> approximately zero.

No, such goods do not work, in the sense that a free market, responding 
to supply and demand, does not result in the optimal allocation of 
resources for intellectual goods.


-- 
--Tim Smith

On 2009-10-01, Pascal J. Bourguignon <pjb@informatimago.com> wrote:
> Kaz Kylheku <kkylheku@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On 2009-10-01, Tim Smith <reply_in_group@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
>>> In article 
>>><e4d6dd55-54f9-4079-bed5-022428eb1de8@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
>>>  gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> I don't steal.
>>>
>>> Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing.
>>>
>>> A pure free market doesn't work well for intellectual goods, such as 
>>> books, music, software, and so on, because the marginal cost of making a 
>>> copy is close to zero. In a pure free market (which means there would be 
>>> no legal restrictions on making and distributing copies) you'd only get 
>>> books and music from artists who are independently wealthy or otherwise 
>>> find a patron, because trying to make money actually selling books and 
>>> CDs wouldn't work. As soon as you published, the copies would start, and 
>>> they would undercut you enough that you'd just never make back your 
>>> initial costs.
>>
>> Copying isn't the best analogy for what he is doing. He has a legal copy of the
>> software.  Having obtained a legal copy of a work, all he is doing is flipping
>> the bits of a storage device which he owns. I.e. doing as he pleases with
>> private property.
>
> Would this analogy do:
>
>    He's at an ATM, and there's a lamppost nearby.  He noticed that
>    when drawing money from the ATM, if he kicks the lamppost that
>    sends a pulse in the ATM that prevents it to debit his account.

Yes, that analogy would do, with these additional contextual constraints:

- he owns the ATM, the network behind it and the bank (and possibly the
  lamp as well).

- he is the only client of the bank; nobody is being cheated if funds
  are siphoned from the bank, without any state change in the accounting.

Remember, if I'm hacking a program in my own privacy, that doesn't affect
anyone.

Maybe I'm just doing research into cracking techniques.

One person obtains the the trial version of a program to try it out.

Another person obtains the the trial version of a program in order to solve the
puzzle of defeating its protection mechanisms.

All of the ways of using the program which do not harm anyone are fine, in a
free society.

Suppose that instead of a coding hack to expire the program after several
hours, the trial program comes with a much simpler mechanism. There is a
"program.conf" file, which contains the string "trial_version=1".  To change
the program to the full version, all you have to do is edit this file to say
"trial_version=0". Or just delete that line, or the entire file.

The license says you may not do this, unless you pay first.

It would be obvious that the program is donation-ware (a form of begging). You
are no more obliged to pay than to drop a dollar into the street musician's
guitar case.

The only difference between deleting ``trial_version=1'' and eliminating a time
limit from machine code is that you have to use your brain more for the latter.
And that's what's supposed to make it wrong, somehow.

If the program can be obtained free of charge, it's donation-ware, even if it
contains deliberately planted bugs which cripple it.  If that program actually
contains all of the code of the full version, you have a right to ``debug'' it
to turn it into the full version, for your own personal use (but redistribution
of the hacked copy, which is a derived work: that's copyright infringement).

Modifying a program, without redistribution, is completely fair use.

If you own a book, you can add notes in the margins or on blank pages,
highlight or underline text, tear out pages, black out text with a black felt
pen, or cover text with corrective tape and write your own.

You can even redistribute that book itself (as opposed to a photocopy).
(Though it has to be obvious that the modifications are not attributed to the
original author; one copyright is that the author of a work has the right not
to have derived works, such as mockeries and travesties, attributed to him).

You can burn the book to keep yourself warm, or read it in the toilet and then
``put it behind you''.

You may not whack someone on the head with it, though.

On 2009-10-01, Tim Bradshaw <tfb@cley.com> wrote:
> On 2009-09-27 01:54:45 +0100, gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> said:
>
>> Circumventing limitations in a
>> piece of software that I am able to download freely, and which - after
>> circumvention - in no way affects the ability of anyone else to use
>> the software
>
> Why do you think that is true? 

Because you can prove it? You can put a programmer in a blackbox, and tell him
to either reverse-engineer a program on the computer therein, or to do some
other kind of development not related to that program.

No events escape from the black box which will let you detect whether he has
done the reverse engineering.

On Oct 1, 11:43=A0pm, Kaz Kylheku <kkylh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2009-10-01, Tim Bradshaw <t...@cley.com> wrote:
>
> > On 2009-09-27 01:54:45 +0100, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> said:
>
> >> Circumventing limitations in a
> >> piece of software that I am able to download freely, and which - after
> >> circumvention - in no way affects the ability of anyone else to use
> >> the software
>
> > Why do you think that is true?
>
> Because you can prove it? You can put a programmer in a blackbox, and tel=
l him
> to either reverse-engineer a program on the computer therein, or to do so=
me
> other kind of development not related to that program.
>
> No events escape from the black box which will let you detect whether he =
has
> done the reverse engineering.

But that black box doesn't actually exist and the programmer is part
of the world in which all his actions have effects.

In article 
<b23f2b5f-f0f5-423f-bac3-4a5756682c55@a7g2000yqo.googlegroups.com>,
 Alessio Stalla <alessiostalla@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> No, it's not a fair analogy. Dumping trash in a park is naturally
> wrong; it damages a public property without giving any benefits to
> society. It's more like if someone charged you money for walking in

It depends on the amount and nature of the trash, doesn't it? Suppose 
people are obeying the law, and not dumping trash. I ignore this, and 
dump napkins and paper plates, after enjoying a pleasant picnic in the 
park. Not being a total jerk, I dump them out of sight. Also, as part of 
not being a total jerk, I use biodegradable napkins and plates. If my 
trash breaks down before anyone discovers it, is it still wrong for me 
to dump it, since I haven't damaged public property.

I'd say yes, it was wrong, even though there was no measurable harm to 
the park or to any other users of the park. The reason I say this is 
that if everybody did it, it would destroy the park.

The same things happens with piracy. We, as a society, have picked a 
solution to the problem of free markets not leading to the optimal use 
of resources when it comes to intellectual goods. That solution is the 
copyright system, which imbues intellectual goods artificially with the 
attributes that allow a free market system to lead to optimal resource 
use.

When someone decides to ignore the rules, they very likely cause no 
measurable harm by their particular action. But if everyone did it, it 
would destroy the system. The system itself is the public property that 
is analogous to the park.

Also, pirates do cause noticeable harm to the non-pirates, even when the 
pirates are operating at a level well below the "destroy the system" 
level. Content producers believe pirates represent lost sales. Whether 
this is true or not is open to debate, but it is not relevant. The 
producers believe it is relevant, and so give us things like DRM.
Those who obey the rules not only have to put up with the annoyance of 
DRM on the content itself, the costs of its development and 
implementation are passed on to us. (This is like a public park 
requiring an admission fee from everyone to cover the cost of cleanup 
for those that dump trash).

So I think the pollution analogy stands up well. A society's rules are 
its public property and correspond to the park.

-- 
--Tim Smith

On Oct 1, 11:17=A0pm, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
> In article
> <b23f2b5f-f0f5-423f-bac3-4a5756682...@a7g2000yqo.googlegroups.com>,
> =A0Alessio Stalla <alessiosta...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > No, it's not a fair analogy. Dumping trash in a park is naturally
> > wrong; it damages a public property without giving any benefits to
> > society. It's more like if someone charged you money for walking in
>
> It depends on the amount and nature of the trash, doesn't it? Suppose
> people are obeying the law, and not dumping trash. I ignore this, and
> dump napkins and paper plates, after enjoying a pleasant picnic in the
> park. Not being a total jerk, I dump them out of sight. Also, as part of
> not being a total jerk, I use biodegradable napkins and plates. If my
> trash breaks down before anyone discovers it, is it still wrong for me
> to dump it, since I haven't damaged public property.
>
> I'd say yes, it was wrong, even though there was no measurable harm to
> the park or to any other users of the park. The reason I say this is
> that if everybody did it, it would destroy the park.

I agree up to this point.

> The same things happens with piracy. We, as a society, have picked a
> solution to the problem of free markets not leading to the optimal use
> of resources when it comes to intellectual goods.

No, it's not we as a society - it is corporations that exert control
on this society, control they shouldn't have.

> That solution is the
> copyright system, which imbues intellectual goods artificially with the
> attributes that allow a free market system to lead to optimal resource
> use.

It is ONE possible solution, and is a bad solution, as it has heavy
drawbacks. The only way to enforce copyright globally is to invade the
privacy of the citizens, to limit excessively what they can do with
their computers, to punish them hard if they break the rules. Sounds
like a police state to me.

> When someone decides to ignore the rules, they very likely cause no
> measurable harm by their particular action. But if everyone did it, it
> would destroy the system. The system itself is the public property that
> is analogous to the park.

Only if you prove me this system is the only possible one.

> Also, pirates do cause noticeable harm to the non-pirates, even when the
> pirates are operating at a level well below the "destroy the system"
> level. Content producers believe pirates represent lost sales. Whether
> this is true or not is open to debate, but it is not relevant. The
> producers believe it is relevant, and so give us things like DRM.

"Give us things"? What are they, gods on earth?

> Those who obey the rules not only have to put up with the annoyance of
> DRM on the content itself, the costs of its development and
> implementation are passed on to us. (This is like a public park
> requiring an admission fee from everyone to cover the cost of cleanup
> for those that dump trash).
>
> So I think the pollution analogy stands up well. A society's rules are
> its public property and correspond to the park.

I agree. But in the case of copyright, the rule has not been decided
by society. It is an old rule which worked in an old system and has
been kept only because it is the only way for a bunch of powerful
corporations to keep their high earnings.

On Oct 1, 10:08=A0pm, Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
> Alessio Stalla wrote:
> > Still, what troubles me is that we are able to deal with bytes much
> > more easily than with atoms. I cannot copy a chair or modify an ATM by
> > messing with it at the atomic level.
>
> Yet.
>
> It's called molecular nanotechnology, and it's coming Real Soon Now.
> When it does, maybe before 2030, the upheavals recently observed in the
> music industry will look like a minor puff of warm breeze besides the
> Category 5 howler that will rattle the timbers of the major
> manufacturing industries at that time.

We'll see.

> > Does this mean that when you reach the technical level necessary to
> > copy something almost freely, and to change it at the level of its
> > basic constituents, private property naturally ceases to exist?
>
> No, it just means that after copyright goes the way of the dodo, patent
> law will follow it into extinction (or maybe just irrelevance) in due
> course.

But if I can cheaply copy your chair, no one will sell chairs anymore,
don't you agree? Or more likely they'll sell complex, beautiful,
carefully designed chairs - whose design is the true value people will
spend for.

> And there's another huge upheaval coming sooner: the death of privacy.
> Hopefully it will cause the birth of a new era of unprecedented
> tolerance and understanding, rather than, as I fear, everyone being
> smeared by everyone else and looking really bad.

Why the death of privacy? I think privacy is important.

> Probably the latter will happen, then the former, and a fairly elaborate
> almost Victorian system of politeness norms will arise regarding what
> one is permitted to call attention to and discuss in public about other
> people without it being considered very rude, or at least gauche and
> gossipy. Mostly we already have such norms but they'd have to strengthen
> enormously to compensate the inability to keep things secret.

I hope this never happens.

> We'd also have to acknowledge and accept a lot of truths about ourselves
> as a species; for instance, that we are not naturally monogamous,
> contrary to popular and semi-legislated myth.

You have my complete approval here.

-- Alessio

On Oct 1, 10:41=A0pm, Kaz Kylheku <kkylh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2009-10-01, Pascal J. Bourguignon <p...@informatimago.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Kaz Kylheku <kkylh...@gmail.com> writes:
>
> >> On 2009-10-01, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
> >>> In article
> >>><e4d6dd55-54f9-4079-bed5-022428eb1...@j9g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
> >>> =A0gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>>> I don't steal.
>
> >>> Stealing is not the best analogy for what you are doing.
>
> >>> A pure free market doesn't work well for intellectual goods, such as
> >>> books, music, software, and so on, because the marginal cost of makin=
g a
> >>> copy is close to zero. In a pure free market (which means there would=
 be
> >>> no legal restrictions on making and distributing copies) you'd only g=
et
> >>> books and music from artists who are independently wealthy or otherwi=
se
> >>> find a patron, because trying to make money actually selling books an=
d
> >>> CDs wouldn't work. As soon as you published, the copies would start, =
and
> >>> they would undercut you enough that you'd just never make back your
> >>> initial costs.
>
> >> Copying isn't the best analogy for what he is doing. He has a legal co=
py of the
> >> software. =A0Having obtained a legal copy of a work, all he is doing i=
s flipping
> >> the bits of a storage device which he owns. I.e. doing as he pleases w=
ith
> >> private property.
>
> > Would this analogy do:
>
> > =A0 =A0He's at an ATM, and there's a lamppost nearby. =A0He noticed tha=
t
> > =A0 =A0when drawing money from the ATM, if he kicks the lamppost that
> > =A0 =A0sends a pulse in the ATM that prevents it to debit his account.
>
> Yes, that analogy would do, with these additional contextual constraints:
>
> - he owns the ATM, the network behind it and the bank (and possibly the
> =A0 lamp as well).
>
> - he is the only client of the bank; nobody is being cheated if funds
> =A0 are siphoned from the bank, without any state change in the accountin=
g.
>
> Remember, if I'm hacking a program in my own privacy, that doesn't affect
> anyone.
>
> Maybe I'm just doing research into cracking techniques.
>
> One person obtains the the trial version of a program to try it out.
>
> Another person obtains the the trial version of a program in order to sol=
ve the
> puzzle of defeating its protection mechanisms.
>
> All of the ways of using the program which do not harm anyone are fine, i=
n a
> free society.
>
> Suppose that instead of a coding hack to expire the program after several
> hours, the trial program comes with a much simpler mechanism. There is a
> "program.conf" file, which contains the string "trial_version=3D1". =A0To=
 change
> the program to the full version, all you have to do is edit this file to =
say
> "trial_version=3D0". Or just delete that line, or the entire file.
>
> The license says you may not do this, unless you pay first.
>
> It would be obvious that the program is donation-ware (a form of begging)=
.. You
> are no more obliged to pay than to drop a dollar into the street musician=
's
> guitar case.
>
> The only difference between deleting ``trial_version=3D1'' and eliminatin=
g a time
> limit from machine code is that you have to use your brain more for the l=
atter.
> And that's what's supposed to make it wrong, somehow.
>
> If the program can be obtained free of charge, it's donation-ware, even i=
f it
> contains deliberately planted bugs which cripple it. =A0If that program a=
ctually
> contains all of the code of the full version, you have a right to ``debug=
'' it
> to turn it into the full version, for your own personal use (but redistri=
bution
> of the hacked copy, which is a derived work: that's copyright infringemen=
t).
>
> Modifying a program, without redistribution, is completely fair use.
>
> If you own a book, you can add notes in the margins or on blank pages,
> highlight or underline text, tear out pages, black out text with a black =
felt
> pen, or cover text with corrective tape and write your own.
>
> You can even redistribute that book itself (as opposed to a photocopy).
> (Though it has to be obvious that the modifications are not attributed to=
 the
> original author; one copyright is that the author of a work has the right=
 not
> to have derived works, such as mockeries and travesties, attributed to hi=
m).
>
> You can burn the book to keep yourself warm, or read it in the toilet and=
 then
> ``put it behind you''.
>
> You may not whack someone on the head with it, though.

Thank you. Your explanation is excellent and convincing. I wish I had
written it instead of my pseudo-philosophical crap that made me
deviate from the main subject :-/

On Oct 2, 1:19=A0am, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
wrote:

> >> Would this analogy do:
>
> >> =A0 =A0He's at an ATM, and there's a lamppost nearby. =A0He noticed th=
at
> >> =A0 =A0when drawing money from the ATM, if he kicks the lamppost that
> >> =A0 =A0sends a pulse in the ATM that prevents it to debit his account.
>
> > He doesn't own the ATM, the bank does, so he's not allowed to fiddle
> > with it.
>
> He didn't fiddle with it. =A0He only fiddled with the utility providing
> the ATM its power.

This analogy sucks too.

a) neither the ATM, nor the lamp post are mine to be messing with.

b) much more importantly, if I were to withdraw $1500 bucks this way,
that is 1500 dollars in real cash that will be unavailable to someone
else, or to the bank. I.e. it is REAL theft.

I have deprived LW of nothing, except - perhaps - a POTENTIAL sale.
That is, I (arguably) prevented them from making a sale. I can't prove
that I actually maintain an interest in buying it, so while I know
this potential sale is in fact not lost - I realize you may be
skeptical of it.

On Oct 2, 5:42=A0am, Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
> gnubeard wrote:
> > On Oct 1, 4:59 am, Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
> >> He honestly doesn't believe that it was a wrongdoing. And neither do I=
..
>
> > Well, actually I do believe it is a minor wrongdoing.. the jokers
> > around here equate it to a type of theft, which clearly it is not.
>
> > It is a wrongdoing in the sense that it may hurt the LW guys
> > feelings.
>
> I don't consider that to be a wrongdoing, not when they probably will
> never actually know about it (what they don't know can't hurt them), and
> even if they did ...

With all the damn chattering going on here, I'd be surprised if
someone at LW hasn't read this thread already :)

>
> > It is like if my grandmother gave me a soft, warm, comfy sweater for
> > Christmas. For the most part, I like it, but it has this annoying
> > turtle-neck. So I cut off the turtleneck and throw a patch or two on
> > it to make it punk-chick or some shit, and my grandmother's feelings
> > get hurt a bit about it.
>
> ... LW is not your grandmother, it is some faceless impersonal
> corporation. Corporations are very different entities from individual
> persons, whatever their legal status as artificial persons.
> Corporations, in particular, don't seem to have feelings, and tend to be
> amoral. (Not evil, amoral; like a tiger or some types of human
> psychopath, but also like every other tool we've constructed, like a
> hammer or an electrical socket or a computer.) Consideration of feelings
> is, IMO, wasted on corporations; save it for human beings.

100% agreed on all points if we're talking about "large" corporations.
Having worked for both, I can tell you that when at a big company - I,
and most of my co-workers, don't really care about our work per-se.
Sure, we want to do a good job for selfish reasons, but really after
it is in the company's hands. Screw it.

With a small company, that is just a bunch of guys, the feeling is
different. I much more want to do a good job not JUST for selfish
reasons (promotion/higher pay potentials) but also because the clients
know me, and I know the clients and we've shared jokes together, etc.

Big corporations becomes nameless and faceless very easily. Small
companies are much more personal, and the employees tend to be more
personally invested in their work.

But I'm not talking about the corporation's "feelings" being hurt (it
has none, after all), I'm talking about the individual LW programmers.
I can imagine that one of them said "Hey, lets give out a personal
edition." .. and possibly other guys thought might not be a good idea.
The guy that argued hard to get the personal edition out there, might
get his feelings hurt by what I've done.

On Oct 2, 6:06=A0am, Tim Bradshaw <t...@cley.com> wrote:
> On 2009-09-27 01:54:45 +0100, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> said:
>
> > Circumventing limitations in a
> > piece of software that I am able to download freely, and which - after
> > circumvention - in no way affects the ability of anyone else to use
> > the software
>
> Why do you think that is true? =A0If everyone did what you are
> describing, do you think that LispWorks would continue to provide a
> personal edition for no charge? =A0I would not if I was them. =A0So what
> you are doing is only denying the ability of others to use the product
> to the extent that the number of people who do what you are doing is
> very small compared to the number of people who do not =A0do so. =A0A
> similar argument would say that if I only take a very small amount of
> money from you, that's not theft.

If all the non-commericial users of LW who only use Personal Edition
(i.e. whom LW has made no money off of) did - why should LW care? If
they see sales shrink because of it - then that means:

Hobbyists DONT find the heap or application restrictions a problem,
but they DO find the time-out to be a problem. So, offer a version
without the timeout but with the heap and application restrictions for
$300. Done.

If _commericial_ users start doing it to avoid the $1500 - well, then
sue their ass off, and make a whole lot more money than that $1500
per.

If _I_ were LW, I'd just fix the fucken code. How hard is it to pull
gettimeofday() in manually rather than trusting the system default?
Not very. If they are using gcc a simple sed s/gettimeofday/
__gettimeofday/g will do the job. How hard is it to cache the
previously returned time and make sure that the one you just got is
always greater than the one you had? Not very. Or here is the mother
of all killers - start up, inspect the environment with all static
code for LD_PRELOAD/DYLD_INSERT_LIBRARIES - and QUIT if it is set.
Game over. What does that take? A few lines to implement your own,
static getenv() and a logic-test or two?

Any of those would render an LD_PRELOAD method against the time
useless. Maybe there would be a few other issues to shore up depending
on the approach they took, but it wouldn't take much time at all for
someone familiar with the C code in question. If it took more than 15
minutes, I'd be very surprised, and concerned.

The last option, in particular, would be ultra-effective, and the
easiest to implement. But it will probably never get done - because
YOU give a shit more than the company/owners.

That says a lot, to me, about you - and your life. Or more
specifically, lack there of.

On Oct 2, 7:17=A0am, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:

> So I think the pollution analogy stands up well. A society's rules are
> its public property and correspond to the park.

By this line of reasoning, then it seems to me that if I:

a) Performed all the same actions with respect to disabling the LW
time-out AND
b) told no one about it (i.e. didn't post here)

Then I haven't "polluted the public park" .. right?

Or, to flip it the other way.. since ALL I have done with respect to
this "public park" is to discuss it if I did the following it would
ALSO be some sort of violation:

a) Crack the time limit
b) Uninstall LW from my system
c) Tell people about it here

So, the issue you have is with DISCUSSING this matter.. since I've
included no code and given copies of the "cracked" version to no one
else.. the only thing I've distributed is the knowledge that it is
possible, and easy to do - so that is the trash in this analogy? The
discussion of how to do it?

Even if I accepted your analogy on the face, which I don't - this very
fact would require me to dismiss it, because of my firm belief in
freedom of speech.

On 2 Okt., 01:44, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Oct 2, 7:17=A0am, Tim Smith <reply_in_gr...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
>
> > So I think the pollution analogy stands up well. A society's rules are
> > its public property and correspond to the park.
>
> By this line of reasoning, then it seems to me that if I:
>
> a) Performed all the same actions with respect to disabling the LW
> time-out AND
> b) told no one about it (i.e. didn't post here)


You know what you really did?

You were stealing our time with bullshit.

I want my time back!

On Oct 2, 10:50=A0am, Rainer Joswig <jos...@lisp.de> wrote:

>
> You know what you really did?
>
> You were stealing our time with bullshit.
>
> I want my time back!

I want a reasonably priced copy of LW or a version not retardly
crippled.
Guess neither one of us gets what we want, right? Yay.

And you, of course, are free to not read this thread. But you do.
Why?

I'm off to play guitar now.

* Kaz Kylheku <20091013102206.125@gmail.com> :
Wrote on Thu, 1 Oct 2009 20:41:31 +0000 (UTC):

| Remember, if I'm hacking a program in my own privacy, that doesn't
| affect anyone.

But that is not all you are doing.  You are publishing the results of
your hacking, and making the hacks available to everyone.

| Maybe I'm just doing research into cracking techniques.
|
| One person obtains the the trial version of a program to try it out.
|
| Another person obtains the the trial version of a program in order to
| solve the puzzle of defeating its protection mechanisms.
|
| All of the ways of using the program which do not harm anyone are
| fine, in a free society.

The harm is clearly seen if you consider the ethical foundation on which
a free society is built on.

To begin with you are free not to use the product in question.  The
value of the product is protected (for lack of other means) by clauses
in a license agreement.

In using the product you have agreed not to reverse engineer the
product.

Having reverse engineered the product you publish the results of the
reverse-engineering which destroys the value of the product, forever.

Your product was licensed for personal use.  Had you stopped with
personal use (twiddling bits on your computer) there would be no issue
with the license.  But Redistributing knowledge of the crack is
equivalent to redistribution of the product, as far as the value of the
product to its owners is concerned.  The had sought to protect this
value with an agreement which is broken.

By destroying this value you are attacking the basis on which free
society is founded.

--
Madhu

On Oct 2, 11:51=A0am, Madhu <enom...@meer.net> wrote:
> But that is not all you are doing. =A0You are publishing the results of
> your hacking, and making the hacks available to everyone.

No "hacks" have been published, you nitwit. I've distributed no code.
I figure if you're not smart enough to figure it out with the bare-
bones information I've provided, you're probably too dumb to use it
responsibly and would end up making torrents of it and shit.

You know, dumbasses like you.

> Your product was licensed for personal use. =A0Had you stopped with
> personal use (twiddling bits on your computer) there would be no issue
> with the license. =A0But Redistributing knowledge of the crack is
> equivalent to redistribution of the product, as far as the value of the
> product to its owners is concerned. =A0The had sought to protect this
> value with an agreement which is broken.

The more you write, the more stupid you seem. You should stop.

Redistributing knowledge of the crack is equivalent to redistributing
the software? Really? Find me a single reference in law which backs
this up in ANY free country.

If you can't, just shut the hell up because you're clearly talking out
of your ass.

Madhu <enometh@meer.net> writes:

> * Kaz Kylheku <20091013102206.125@gmail.com> :
> Wrote on Thu, 1 Oct 2009 20:41:31 +0000 (UTC):
>
> | Remember, if I'm hacking a program in my own privacy, that doesn't
> | affect anyone.
>
> But that is not all you are doing.  You are publishing the results of
> your hacking, and making the hacks available to everyone.
>
> | Maybe I'm just doing research into cracking techniques.
> |
> | One person obtains the the trial version of a program to try it out.
> |
> | Another person obtains the the trial version of a program in order to
> | solve the puzzle of defeating its protection mechanisms.
> |
> | All of the ways of using the program which do not harm anyone are
> | fine, in a free society.
>
> The harm is clearly seen if you consider the ethical foundation on which
> a free society is built on.
>
> To begin with you are free not to use the product in question.  The
> value of the product is protected (for lack of other means) by clauses
> in a license agreement.

So in a way, you're arguing that there's more value in not using it
than in using it?


> In using the product you have agreed not to reverse engineer the
> product.
>
> Having reverse engineered the product you publish the results of the
> reverse-engineering which destroys the value of the product, forever.

You're saying that this software was a secret and that by revealing
some bit of information about this secret lessens its value as a
secret.

Well in that case why the onwer of the secret diffused it in the first
place?  A shared secret is no secret.

> Your product was licensed for personal use.  Had you stopped with
> personal use (twiddling bits on your computer) there would be no issue
> with the license.  But Redistributing knowledge of the crack is
> equivalent to redistribution of the product, as far as the value of the
> product to its owners is concerned.  The had sought to protect this
> value with an agreement which is broken.
>
> By destroying this value you are attacking the basis on which free
> society is founded.

Speaking of foundations:

    One day a group of eminent scientists got together and decided
    that Man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they
    picked one scientist to go and tell Him that they were done with
    Him.  The scientist walked up to God and said, =E2=80=9CGod, we=E2=80=
=99ve decided
    that we no longer need You. We=E2=80=99re to the point that we can clone
    people and do many miraculous things, so why don=E2=80=99t You just
    retire?=E2=80=9D  God listened very patiently to the man and then said,
    =E2=80=9CVery well, but first, how about this, let=E2=80=99s have a Man=
-making
    contest.=E2=80=9D  To which the scientist replied, =E2=80=9COkay, great=
!=E2=80=9D  But God
    added, =E2=80=9CNow, we=E2=80=99re going to do this just like I did bac=
k in the
    old days with Adam.=E2=80=9D  The scientist said, =E2=80=9CSure, no pro=
blem=E2=80=9D and
    bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.  God just looked
    at him and said, =E2=80=9CNo, no, no -=E2=80=94 You go get your own dir=
t!=E2=80=9D


--=20
__Pascal Bourguignon__

* (Pascal J. Bourguignon) <87ws3ewlfh.fsf@galatea.local> :
Wrote on Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:59:14 +0200:

| Madhu <enometh@meer.net> writes:
|
|> * Kaz Kylheku <20091013102206.125@gmail.com> :
|> Wrote on Thu, 1 Oct 2009 20:41:31 +0000 (UTC):
|>
|> | Remember, if I'm hacking a program in my own privacy, that doesn't
|> | affect anyone.
|>
|> But that is not all you are doing.  You are publishing the results of
|> your hacking, and making the hacks available to everyone.
|>
|> | Maybe I'm just doing research into cracking techniques.  One person
|> | obtains the the trial version of a program to try it out.  Another
|> | person obtains the the trial version of a program in order to solve
|> | the puzzle of defeating its protection mechanisms.
|> |
|> | All of the ways of using the program which do not harm anyone are
|> | fine, in a free society.
|>
|> The harm is clearly seen if you consider the ethical foundation on
|> which a free society is built on.
|>
|> To begin with you are free not to use the product in question.  The
|> value of the product is protected (for lack of other means) by clauses
|> in a license agreement.
|
| So in a way, you're arguing that there's more value in not using it
| than in using it?

How does that reasoning follow? I was talking of the value which the
product has to its owners which is destroyed by the actions that Kaz is
advocating.

The product has another type of value for licensee of the product who is
using it.  The license agreement protects the value for the owner while
providing the value for licensee (user).

If you do not want to agree to the license agreement, you are free not
to use the product, and you will not destroy value of the product to its
owner.

|> In using the product you have agreed not to reverse engineer the
|> product.
|>
|> Having reverse engineered the product you publish the results of the
|> reverse-engineering which destroys the value of the product, forever.
|
| You're saying that this software was a secret and that by revealing
| some bit of information about this secret lessens its value as a
| secret.
|
| Well in that case why the onwer of the secret diffused it in the first
| place?  A shared secret is no secret.

I do not know what secret you are talking about.  The product is freely
available for download (subject to license restrictions).  The
operational details of link loader are known.  So like I said:


|> Your product was licensed for personal use.  Had you stopped with
|> personal use (twiddling bits on your computer) there would be no
|> issue with the license.  But Redistributing knowledge of the crack is
|> equivalent to redistribution of the product, as far as the value of
|> the product to its owners is concerned.  The had sought to protect
|> this value with an agreement which is broken.

The poster has reverse engineering a product in violation of the license
agreement and published the results with an intent to destroy its value
(the value it had for its owners).  His intent may include destroying
value of the product to the users; this will happen if the owners
discontinue making the product available because their interests cannot
be protected by license agreements.

Or the value to the user will be diminished if they add more technical
restrictions (as the poster had suggested in his original post) in
consequence of the posters actions.

--
Madhu

On 2009-10-02, Madhu <enometh@meer.net> wrote:
>
> * Kaz Kylheku <20091013102206.125@gmail.com> :
> Wrote on Thu, 1 Oct 2009 20:41:31 +0000 (UTC):
>
>| Remember, if I'm hacking a program in my own privacy, that doesn't
>| affect anyone.
>
> But that is not all you are doing.  You are publishing the results of
> your hacking, and making the hacks available to everyone.

So we agree that if such work is unpublished, it's not wrong?

I don't think it's wrong even if it's published.

If I tell you ``change byte N of file F to value V'', is that statement a
derived work of file F?

If not, no infringment is taking place.

I don't think it's a derived work, because it doesn't cite anything from the
file.

And note that every one of the users of that hack requires a licensed copy
in order to be able to apply the hack.

No exchange among a set of people, all of whom have a legally obtained
copy of something, can constitute infringment.

If you and I both have seen the same movie or read the same novel,
we can't possibly be infringing if we discuss it with each other.

>| Maybe I'm just doing research into cracking techniques.
>|
>| One person obtains the the trial version of a program to try it out.
>|
>| Another person obtains the the trial version of a program in order to
>| solve the puzzle of defeating its protection mechanisms.
>|
>| All of the ways of using the program which do not harm anyone are
>| fine, in a free society.
>
> The harm is clearly seen if you consider the ethical foundation on which
> a free society is built on.

There is no harm because the program costs zero dollars.

Zero dollars means zero actual damages.

> To begin with you are free not to use the product in question.  The
> value of the product is protected (for lack of other means) by clauses
> in a license agreement.

Any of those clauses which don't have to do with 1) copying the program
being forbidden etc, and 2) liability disclaiming are complete
bullshit that you can ignore.

> In using the product you have agreed not to reverse engineer the
> product.

No I haven't.

> Having reverse engineered the product you publish the results of the
> reverse-engineering which destroys the value of the product, forever.

No. What destroys the value of the product is giving it away.  The demo version
has all of the code as the full one.  The vendor has given it away
They did that because they know that the product has little value
in a world which is flooded with free content.

> Your product was licensed for personal use.  Had you stopped with
> personal use (twiddling bits on your computer) there would be no issue
> with the license.

Make up your mind: either there is an issue, or there isn't.

> But Redistributing knowledge of the crack is
> equivalent to redistribution of the product, as far as the value of the
> product to its owners is concerned.  The had sought to protect this
> value with an agreement which is broken.

Giving away the program is a damn poor, poor way of protecting its value!

A properly formed trial version of a program is crippled by the
/actual/ exclusion of the core features that constitute the bulk
of its value.

When it comes to development tools, the core feature which constitutes
their value is the ability to develop and ship software. 

The value of LW is protected because even if you hack the limited version, that
doesn't entitle you to produce shipping programs.  If you ship the hacked
run-time, you are then redistributing an unauthorized derived work.

You could get around it by getting users to independently download LW
and apply a hack. Well, good luck with that! 

So, I suspect that the LW people don't care about people cracking
the personal edition. It is of no consequence.

Those crackers will come around one day when they actually want to
ship an application.  If not having the 5 hour limit in their face helps them
get there, what does it matter, right?

* Kaz Kylheku <20091013190941.784@gmail.com> :
Wrote on Fri, 2 Oct 2009 05:03:15 +0000 (UTC):

| If I tell you ``change byte N of file F to value V'', is that
| statement a derived work of file F?
|
| If not, no infringment is taking place.

But you are not addressing my point which is your infringement of the
no-reverse-engineering clause.

1. By providing this information to me, you are letting me use F in a
   way which I would not have been able to use (here: get rid of a
   limitation)

2. This said limitation was intended and put in place by the owner of F,
   [alleged by me] as a means of protecting his value.

3. The owner of F had prohibited you from finding out this information
   in the license agreemment with a no-reverse-engineering clause.

My allegation is that by providing this information you are causing loss
of value to the owner of F (in point 2).  Of course only the owner of F
can decide what constitutes a loss of value and how to pursue it.  My
claim is that the _only_ way he could protect that loss of value is by
placing the no-reverse-engineering clause.

The _only_ way you can demonstrate that you have broken that
no-reverse-engineering clause is by publishing a crack.

[snip]

|> The harm is clearly seen if you consider the ethical foundation on
|> which a free society is built on.
|
| There is no harm because the program costs zero dollars.
|
| Zero dollars means zero actual damages.

You are not counting that the a potential for non-zero dollars being
replaced by zero dollars constitutes damage.

In any case damage to society is usually not billable.

|> To begin with you are free not to use the product in question.  The
|> value of the product is protected (for lack of other means) by
|> clauses in a license agreement.
|
| Any of those clauses which don't have to do with 1) copying the
| program being forbidden etc, and 2) liability disclaiming are complete
| bullshit that you can ignore.
|
|> In using the product you have agreed not to reverse engineer the
|> product.
|
| No I haven't.

Your defendent, the OP clearly had, when he started using the product.

|> Having reverse engineered the product you publish the results of the
|> reverse-engineering which destroys the value of the product, forever.
|
| No. What destroys the value of the product is giving it away.  The
| demo version has all of the code as the full one.  The vendor has
| given it away They did that because they know that the product has
| little value in a world which is flooded with free content.

Again I am not saying your notion of what constitutes value (or mine)
coincides with what the value of the owner of the product.

|> Your product was licensed for personal use.  Had you stopped with
|> personal use (twiddling bits on your computer) there would be no
|> issue with the license.
|
| Make up your mind: either there is an issue, or there isn't.

What isn't clear?  The license prohibits reverse engineering and permits
personal use.  There is no issue as long as you are the only beneficiary
of legal use.  Instead 1. reverse engineered the product, and 2. proved
it by making the detailed workings of the product to others (this is no
longer personal), with an intent to destroy value of the product.  So
now there is an issue.


|> But Redistributing knowledge of the crack is equivalent to
|> redistribution of the product, as far as the value of the product to
|> its owners is concerned.  The had sought to protect this value with
|> an agreement which is broken.
|
| Giving away the program is a damn poor, poor way of protecting its
| value!

These and other points you mention below are points of view that do not
impact why what you are advocating (publishing cracks)

--
Madhu

[copy-edited supersede ]

* Kaz Kylheku <20091013190941.784@gmail.com> :
Wrote on Fri, 2 Oct 2009 05:03:15 +0000 (UTC):

| If I tell you ``change byte N of file F to value V'', is that
| statement a derived work of file F?
|
| If not, no infringment is taking place.

But you are not addressing my point which is your infringement of the
no-reverse-engineering clause.

1. By providing this information to me, you are letting me use F in a
   way which I would not have been able to use (here: get rid of a
   limitation)

2. This said limitation was intended and put in place by the owner of F,
   [alleged by me] as a means of protecting his value.

3. The owner of F had prohibited you from finding out this information
   in the license agreement with a no-reverse-engineering clause.

My allegation is that by providing this information you are causing loss
of value to the owner of F (in point 2).  Of course only the owner of F
can decide what constitutes a loss of value and how to pursue it.  My
claim is that the _only_ way he could protect that loss of value is by
placing the no-reverse-engineering clause.

The _only_ way you can demonstrate that you have broken that
no-reverse-engineering clause is by publishing a crack.

[snip]

|> The harm is clearly seen if you consider the ethical foundation on
|> which a free society is built on.
|
| There is no harm because the program costs zero dollars.
|
| Zero dollars means zero actual damages.

You are not counting that the a potential for non-zero dollars being
replaced by zero dollars constitutes damage.

In any case damage to society is usually not billable.

|> To begin with you are free not to use the product in question.  The
|> value of the product is protected (for lack of other means) by
|> clauses in a license agreement.
|
| Any of those clauses which don't have to do with 1) copying the
| program being forbidden etc, and 2) liability disclaiming are complete
| bullshit that you can ignore.
|
|> In using the product you have agreed not to reverse engineer the
|> product.
|
| No I haven't.

Your defendant, the OP clearly had, when he started using the product.

|> Having reverse engineered the product you publish the results of the
|> reverse-engineering which destroys the value of the product, forever.
|
| No. What destroys the value of the product is giving it away.  The
| demo version has all of the code as the full one.  The vendor has
| given it away They did that because they know that the product has
| little value in a world which is flooded with free content.

Again I am not saying your notion of what constitutes value (or mine)
coincides with the value of the owner of the product.

|> Your product was licensed for personal use.  Had you stopped with
|> personal use (twiddling bits on your computer) there would be no
|> issue with the license.
|
| Make up your mind: either there is an issue, or there isn't.

What isn't clear?  The license prohibits reverse engineering and permits
personal use.  There is no issue as long as you are the only beneficiary
of legal use.  Instead you 1. reverse engineered the product, and
2. proved it by making the detailed workings of the product available to
others (this is no longer personal), with an intent to destroy value of
the product.  So now there is an issue.

|> But Redistributing knowledge of the crack is equivalent to
|> redistribution of the product, as far as the value of the product to
|> its owners is concerned.  The had sought to protect this value with
|> an agreement which is broken.
|
| Giving away the program is a damn poor, poor way of protecting its
| value!

These and other points you mention below are points of view that do not
impact why what you are advocating (i.e. publishing cracks) is harmful

--
Madhu

Kaz Kylheku <kkylheku@gmail.com> writes:

> The only difference between deleting ``trial_version=1'' and
> eliminating a time limit from machine code is that you have to use
> your brain more for the latter.  And that's what's supposed to make it
> wrong, somehow.
>
> If the program can be obtained free of charge, it's donation-ware,
> even if it contains deliberately planted bugs which cripple it.  If
> that program actually contains all of the code of the full version,
> you have a right to ``debug'' it to turn it into the full version, for
> your own personal use (but redistribution of the hacked copy, which is
> a derived work: that's copyright infringement).
>
> Modifying a program, without redistribution, is completely fair use.

So I guess that you already TEXed the TEXbook:-)  Up to now, I have
restrained myself from doing so, but since you argue so convincingly, ...

Nicolas

On Oct 2, 4:49=A0pm, Madhu <enom...@meer.net> wrote:

> But you are not addressing my point which is your infringement of the
> no-reverse-engineering clause.
>
> 1. By providing this information to me, you are letting me use F in a
> =A0 =A0way which I would not have been able to use (here: get rid of a
> =A0 =A0limitation)

You have write the C code yourself to do what I did - I've supplied no
code. You seem to be implying that, because I told you that LW is
susceptible to interposing gettimeofday(), that you are somehow NOT
reverse engineering the code and that I did.

But I didn't inspect LW. I "guessed" (really, it is so obvious that I
can't even call it guessing).. wrote the code. It worked.

Guessing is not reverse engineering.

Reverse engineering is analyzing a system to determine its internal
structure. I've done none of that.


> 2. This said limitation was intended and put in place by the owner of F,
> =A0 =A0[alleged by me] as a means of protecting his value.

You're wrong. It is not an access mechanism. Go read the LW Personal
release notes. It states clearly that the limit is there to make the
program useless for commercial use. Commercial use is prohibited by
the license - it does not speak of the limitations. As long as I don't
use it commercially, this isn't an issue.

>
> 3. The owner of F had prohibited you from finding out this information
> =A0 =A0in the license agreement with a no-reverse-engineering clause.

It is true that I am prohibited from figuring out the internal
structure of LW by analyzing it. I am not prohibited from guessing as
to what it must be doing. If I observe that I change my clock time and
see LW's behavior change, that is not reverse engineering.

> The _only_ way you can demonstrate that you have broken that
> no-reverse-engineering clause is by publishing a crack.

If my post was this:

"Hey guys, you can avoid the LW timeout by using a script which sets
your system clock back as needed, and LW will never prompt."

Does that constitute a "crack" - the STATEMENT of that fact? Of course
not. The actual script to do so might be considered a crack .. but not
the discussion of it.

Furthermore - does anyone even really need to be told that? Probably
not. It is OBVIOUS (i.e. no reverse engineering needed). Applying the
same principle so that only the LW program is affected and not the
entire system is obvious too.. that is what the damn feature of the
linker is for.

I'm sure you still don't get it, though.

gnubeard wrote:
> 100% agreed on all points

OK.

> Big corporations becomes nameless and faceless very easily. Small
> companies are much more personal, and the employees tend to be more
> personally invested in their work.

Of course, no company is less personal than one you only interact with 
via its web site.

> But I'm not talking about the corporation's "feelings" being hurt (it
> has none, after all), I'm talking about the individual LW programmers.

You've had no contact with them.

> I can imagine that one of them said "Hey, lets give out a personal
> edition." ..

I can't. That sort of decision is made by managers, not programmers.

On Oct 1, 9:23=A0pm, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Oct 2, 10:50=A0am, Rainer Joswig <jos...@lisp.de> wrote:

> > You know what you really did?

> > You were stealing our time with bullshit.

> > I want my time back!

> I want a reasonably priced copy of LW or a version not retardly
> crippled.

Just download OpenMCL already.

There are plenty of high-quality Common Lisp implementations that not
only cost nothing to download, install, and use without limitations,
but actually come with complete sourcecode for you to modify to your
heart's content. Why the hell would you waste your time dicking with
the time limit on the demo version of LispWorks in the first place?

Sheesh,
Pillsy

Tim Smith wrote:
> In article 
> <b23f2b5f-f0f5-423f-bac3-4a5756682c55@a7g2000yqo.googlegroups.com>,
>  Alessio Stalla <alessiostalla@gmail.com> wrote:
>> No, it's not a fair analogy. Dumping trash in a park is naturally
>> wrong; it damages a public property without giving any benefits to
>> society. It's more like if someone charged you money for walking in
> 
> It depends on the amount and nature of the trash, doesn't it? Suppose 
> people are obeying the law, and not dumping trash. I ignore this, and 
> dump napkins and paper plates, after enjoying a pleasant picnic in the 
> park. Not being a total jerk, I dump them out of sight. Also, as part of 
> not being a total jerk, I use biodegradable napkins and plates. If my 
> trash breaks down before anyone discovers it, is it still wrong for me 
> to dump it, since I haven't damaged public property.
> 
> I'd say yes, it was wrong, even though there was no measurable harm to 
> the park or to any other users of the park. The reason I say this is 
> that if everybody did it, it would destroy the park.
> 
> The same things happens with piracy.

It does not.

> We, as a society, have picked a solution to the problem of free markets
> not leading to the optimal use of resources when it comes to intellectual
> goods.

"We" have not. Perhaps YOU have. I do not even agree that there IS a 
"problem of free markets not leading to the optimal use of resources 
when it comes to intellectual goods".

> When someone decides to ignore the rules, they very likely cause no 
> measurable harm by their particular action. But if everyone did it, it 
> would destroy the system.

When it comes to music "piracy", we are at a point resembling "everyone 
did it", yet the music industry is thriving. Musicians are making as 
much money as ever. Oh, a few companies in the RIAA are not doing so 
hot, but that seems attributable to many other factors -- people buy 
fewer plastic discs now, but that's attributable to having other 
entertainment options like video games and DVDs than in the past; many 
of these companies are wasting huge sums of money on legal action that 
results in (by their standards) relatively small amounts of money in 
uncollectable judgments; and numerous structural and strategic blunders. 
Smart musicians, on the other hand, are thriving and despite the general 
economic downturn of recent months.

> So I think the pollution analogy stands up well.

It does not.

Alessio Stalla wrote:
> On Oct 1, 10:08 pm, Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
>> Alessio Stalla wrote:
>>> Still, what troubles me is that we are able to deal with bytes much
>>> more easily than with atoms. I cannot copy a chair or modify an ATM by
>>> messing with it at the atomic level.
>> Yet.
>>
>> It's called molecular nanotechnology, and it's coming Real Soon Now.
>> When it does, maybe before 2030, the upheavals recently observed in the
>> music industry will look like a minor puff of warm breeze besides the
>> Category 5 howler that will rattle the timbers of the major
>> manufacturing industries at that time.
> 
> We'll see.
> 
>>> Does this mean that when you reach the technical level necessary to
>>> copy something almost freely, and to change it at the level of its
>>> basic constituents, private property naturally ceases to exist?
>> No, it just means that after copyright goes the way of the dodo, patent
>> law will follow it into extinction (or maybe just irrelevance) in due
>> course.
> 
> But if I can cheaply copy your chair, no one will sell chairs anymore,
> don't you agree?

Most likely.

However, someone skilled in the art will surely be able to sell their 
time and expertise at creating the templates for novel chairs.

Look how the fashion industry thrives in the presence of rampant 
copying! In fact, everyone wearing something is the spur for someone to 
make, and people to buy, something new that isn't widely copied yet. 
Competition is what drives innovation, not the promise of monopoly 
rents. The latter only prompts someone to work hard until they get a 
single "hit", and then rest on their laurels collecting royalty cheques.

That so many creative people that CAN do so still DON'T, and continue 
creating new stuff, also evidences that the urge to create is sometimes 
a drive unto itself that needs no encouragement-by-legislative-fiat.

 > Or more likely they'll sell complex, beautiful,
> carefully designed chairs - whose design is the true value people will
> spend for.

Aha. That's it -- or perhaps not the chairs, but the ability to 
custom-design them for the rich and famous or whatever. Time and 
expertise remain scarce even if the material goods become non-scarce.

>> And there's another huge upheaval coming sooner: the death of privacy.
>> Hopefully it will cause the birth of a new era of unprecedented
>> tolerance and understanding, rather than, as I fear, everyone being
>> smeared by everyone else and looking really bad.
> 
> Why the death of privacy? I think privacy is important.

It appears to be unsustainable. Google, Amazon, etc. furnish one reason. 
Look at the controversy over the new Netflix prize, and how hard it 
proves to be to truly anonymize data. Consider also the practical 
problem of sustaining it and enforcing it as cameras, wireless 
networking gadgets, and the like get smaller and easier to conceal. 
Last, but not least, consider that biotechnology and nanotechnology will 
increase the destructive power potentially accessible by an individual 
or a small organization. Heavy surveillance is the only apparent 
defense. So we wind up at a trichotomy: everyone watches everyone; Big 
Brother watches everyone; or nearly everyone dies. The last is obviously 
bad, and the middle item leads to Orwell's 1984 in a pretty much 
straight line, and so is bad. What does that leave?

>> Probably the latter will happen, then the former, and a fairly elaborate
>> almost Victorian system of politeness norms will arise regarding what
>> one is permitted to call attention to and discuss in public about other
>> people without it being considered very rude, or at least gauche and
>> gossipy. Mostly we already have such norms but they'd have to strengthen
>> enormously to compensate the inability to keep things secret.
> 
> I hope this never happens.

Hope away, for all the good it will do.

>> We'd also have to acknowledge and accept a lot of truths about ourselves
>> as a species; for instance, that we are not naturally monogamous,
>> contrary to popular and semi-legislated myth.
> 
> You have my complete approval here.
> 
> -- Alessio

Madhu wrote:

> My allegation is that by providing this information you are causing loss
> of value to the owner of F (in point 2).

Causing "loss of value", where that represents a drop in expected FUTURE 
revenue rather than a loss of actually-owned property, is not criminal 
or even wrong.

If I sell my shares in Google, Google's stock loses a bit of value. If I 
sell my shares and advise lots of other people to sell theirs, it could 
lose some more. Technically, Google is deprived of nothing; they still 
have however many shares they have, but simply can't expect to get as 
much from selling one as before. So the sale value is down, strictly 
analogously to the (unsubstantiated) assertion being made about LW, as a 
result of someone "providing information".

Yet we'd all agree that I'm well within my rights to, say, try Google's 
new browser, decide it sucks, decide on that basis that Google has 
jumped the shark, dump my stock, and tell everyone I know this or post 
it to a newsgroup. It's free speech.

We'd also all agree that if Google's browser (or stock!) came with an 
attached note claiming to forbid me from talking about how much it 
sucks, that that could not possibly be considered to be legally binding, 
right? Non-negotiated, simply asserted after the fact of the 
transaction, no witnesses or other evidence that anyone "agreed" to it, 
and purports to restrict freedom of speech merely by being VIEWED while 
providing no compensation? Legally speaking, that's not a contract, it's 
a joke.

> 2. proved it by making the detailed workings of the product available to
> others (this is no longer personal), with an intent to destroy value of
> the product.

Prove intent.

Tim Smith wrote:
> In article <ha31j7$tsk$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
>  Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
>>> #3. Artificially, by force of law, imbue intellectual goods with some of 
>>> the characteristics of real property so as to make it work like a 
>>> regular good in the free market.
>> They already would "work like a regular good in the free market"; they 
>> work like a regular good in the free whose marginal cost happens to be 
>> approximately zero.
> 
> [says I'm a liar]

No, you are.

> such goods do not work, in the sense that a free market, responding 
> to supply and demand, does not result in the optimal allocation of 
> resources for intellectual goods.

It doesn't? Do you have proof or is this just you repeating an oft-heard 
myth?

Tim Bradshaw wrote:
> On 2009-09-27 01:54:45 +0100, gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> said:
> 
>> Circumventing limitations in a
>> piece of software that I am able to download freely, and which - after
>> circumvention - in no way affects the ability of anyone else to use
>> the software
> 
> Why do you think that is true?  If everyone did what you are describing, 
> do you think that LispWorks would continue to provide a personal edition 
> for no charge?  I would not if I was them.  So what you are doing is 
> only denying the ability of others to use the product

Bollocks. If LispWorks decides to discontinue the personal edition, 
that's on LispWorks's head, not gnubeard's. Gnubeard isn't responsible 
for anyone else's choices but his own.

Furthermore, even if they did so, the personal edition installer is out 
there and people can copy it off one another. That might be copyright 
infringement, but the possibility proves that even LW discontinuing it 
would not "deny the ability of others to use the product"; it just might 
make it more difficult (and deprive them of updates and bugfixes).

> A similar argument would say that if I only take a very small amount
> of money from you, that's not theft.

That analogy has been shot down in flames multiple times already.

On Oct 3, 12:17=A0am, Pillsy <pillsb...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Oct 1, 9:23=A0pm, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Oct 2, 10:50=A0am, Rainer Joswig <jos...@lisp.de> wrote:
> > > You know what you really did?
> > > You were stealing our time with bullshit.
> > > I want my time back!
> > I want a reasonably priced copy of LW or a version not retardly
> > crippled.
>
> Just download OpenMCL already.
>
> There are plenty of high-quality Common Lisp implementations that not
> only cost nothing to download, install, and use without limitations,
> but actually come with complete sourcecode for you to modify to your
> heart's content. Why the hell would you waste your time dicking with
> the time limit on the demo version of LispWorks in the first place?
>
> Sheesh,
> Pillsy

I prefer LW and CAPI. It isn't like I downloaded it, and did this the
same day. I've been using LW, with the 5-hour limit, quite happily for
some time. The 5-hour limit never affected me until rather recently in
my specific project (the audio filters).. it was only after it annoyed
me that I took the 10 minutes of time to defeat it.

I actually DID think, briefly, about switching to SBCL or something
else for this project. But then I lose CAPI, and have to spend a bunch
of time .. MUCH more than a few minutes.. dicking around with details
of building a GUI for my filters on some other Lisp.

Then I thought - "well, I wonder if simply interposing gettimeofday()
would work" - save me the time dicking around with some other Lisp,
and let me keep my existing code intact. It worked. I'm all set. This
was "hello world" simple - compiled the first time (so short, no
typos). Worked the first time - trivial. So trivial, I almost didn't
post about it. Then I remembered the aversion to C that many Lispers
have, so that this may not occur to them.. or maybe they never even
encountered this feature of the linker.

But if it DIDNT work, I'd probably be using a different Lisp.. I
certainly wouldn't have invested any real time into it.

gnubeard wrote:
> On Oct 3, 12:17 am, Pillsy <pillsb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Oct 1, 9:23 pm, gnubeard <gnube...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Oct 2, 10:50 am, Rainer Joswig <jos...@lisp.de> wrote:
>>>> You know what you really did?
>>>> You were stealing our time with bullshit.
>>>> I want my time back!
>>> I want a reasonably priced copy of LW or a version not retardly
>>> crippled.
>> Just download OpenMCL already.
>>
>> There are plenty of high-quality Common Lisp implementations that not
>> only cost nothing to download, install, and use without limitations,
>> but actually come with complete sourcecode for you to modify to your
>> heart's content. Why the hell would you waste your time dicking with
>> the time limit on the demo version of LispWorks in the first place?
>>
>> Sheesh,
>> Pillsy
> 
> I prefer LW and CAPI. It isn't like I downloaded it, and did this the
> same day. I've been using LW, with the 5-hour limit, quite happily for
> some time. The 5-hour limit never affected me until rather recently in
> my specific project (the audio filters).. it was only after it annoyed
> me that I took the 10 minutes of time to defeat it.
> 
> I actually DID think, briefly, about switching to SBCL or something
> else for this project. But then I lose CAPI, and have to spend a bunch
> of time .. MUCH more than a few minutes.. dicking around with details
> of building a GUI for my filters on some other Lisp.
> 
> Then I thought - "well, I wonder if simply interposing gettimeofday()
> would work" - save me the time dicking around with some other Lisp,
> and let me keep my existing code intact. It worked. I'm all set. This
> was "hello world" simple - compiled the first time (so short, no
> typos). Worked the first time - trivial. So trivial, I almost didn't
> post about it. Then I remembered the aversion to C that many Lispers
> have, so that this may not occur to them.. or maybe they never even
> encountered this feature of the linker.
> 
> But if it DIDNT work, I'd probably be using a different Lisp.. I
> certainly wouldn't have invested any real time into it.

The real problem is you invested a lot of time in a proprietary GUI 
library. In fact, the real problem is the lack of a widely-adopted, 
quality portable open source CL GUI library. (JVM-hosted Lisps should 
have access to Swing, which has a compatible open source version in 
OpenJDK.)

On 2009-10-01 21:06:40 +0100, Tim Bradshaw <tfb@cley.com> said:

> only denying

That should have been "only not denying" (which rather alters the sense).

I don't have the energy to respond to any of the replies: other than to 
say if you really think this kind of thing is OK you do not have a very 
firm grasp of economics.

Tim Bradshaw wrote:
> I don't have the energy to respond to any of the replies: other than to 
> say if you really think this kind of thing is OK you do not have a very 
> firm grasp of economics.

Be that as it may, Michele Boldrin and David Levine have such a firm 
grasp of economics that both have doctorates in economics, and they 
happen to agree with me: http://www.againstmonopoly.org/

Dave Searles wrote:
> Tim Bradshaw wrote:
>> I don't have the energy to respond to any of the replies: other than 
>> to say if you really think this kind of thing is OK you do not have a 
>> very firm grasp of economics.
> 
> Be that as it may, Michele Boldrin and David Levine have such a firm 
> grasp of economics that both have doctorates in economics, and they 
> happen to agree with me: http://www.againstmonopoly.org/

Having a firm grasp of economics is like being anchored in quicksand.

kt

On 2009-10-03 23:31:35 -0400, Kenneth Tilton <kentilton@gmail.com> said:

> Having a firm grasp of economics is like being anchored in quicksand.

Deep.

Pun intended.
-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

In article <ha53rr$h3i$2@news.eternal-september.org>,
 Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:

> Tim Smith wrote:
> > In article <ha31j7$tsk$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
> >  Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
> >>> #3. Artificially, by force of law, imbue intellectual goods with some of 
> >>> the characteristics of real property so as to make it work like a 
> >>> regular good in the free market.
> >> They already would "work like a regular good in the free market"; they 
> >> work like a regular good in the free whose marginal cost happens to be 
> >> approximately zero.
> > 
> > [says I'm a liar]
> 
> No, you are.

Are you 5?  I said you were wrong. I didn't say you were a liar.

> > such goods do not work, in the sense that a free market, responding 
> > to supply and demand, does not result in the optimal allocation of 
> > resources for intellectual goods.
> 
> It doesn't? Do you have proof or is this just you repeating an oft-heard 
> myth?

It's standard economic theory--you should be able to find the details in 
any good university library if you want them. There are several 
situations in which a free market is not Pareto efficient. One of those 
is when the goods are non-rivalrous and non-excludable. Intellectual 
goods are non-rivalrous and non-excludable, hence there is a market 
failure.

-- 
--Tim Smith

Tim Smith wrote:
> In article <ha53rr$h3i$2@news.eternal-september.org>,
>  Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
>> Tim Smith wrote:
>>> In article <ha31j7$tsk$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
>>>  Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
>>>>> #3. Artificially, by force of law, imbue intellectual goods with some of 
>>>>> the characteristics of real property so as to make it work like a 
>>>>> regular good in the free market.
>>>> They already would "work like a regular good in the free market"; they 
>>>> work like a regular good in the free whose marginal cost happens to be 
>>>> approximately zero.
>>> [says I'm a liar]
>> No, you are.
> 
> [personal attacks deleted]

Wrong.

>>> such goods do not work, in the sense that a free market, responding 
>>> to supply and demand, does not result in the optimal allocation of 
>>> resources for intellectual goods.
>> It doesn't? Do you have proof or is this just you repeating an oft-heard 
>> myth?
> 
> It's standard economic theory

It's standard bollocks. The evidence is equivocal at best. Read Boldrin 
and Levine [2008].

Kenneth Tilton wrote:
> Dave Searles wrote:
>> grasp of economics that both have doctorates in economics, and they 
>> happen to agree with me: http://www.againstmonopoly.org/
> 
> Having a firm grasp of economics is like being anchored in quicksand.

PPOSTFU.

In article <haatdi$pj$3@news.eternal-september.org>,
 Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:

> Tim Smith wrote:
> > In article <ha53rr$h3i$2@news.eternal-september.org>,
> >  Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
> >> Tim Smith wrote:
> >>> In article <ha31j7$tsk$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
> >>>  Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
> >>>>> #3. Artificially, by force of law, imbue intellectual goods with some 
> >>>>> of 
> >>>>> the characteristics of real property so as to make it work like a 
> >>>>> regular good in the free market.
> >>>> They already would "work like a regular good in the free market"; they 
> >>>> work like a regular good in the free whose marginal cost happens to be 
> >>>> approximately zero.
> >>> [says I'm a liar]
> >> No, you are.
> > 
> > [personal attacks deleted]
> 
> Wrong.

There was no personal attack, and I did not call you a liar. Although if 
you continue to deliberately misrepresent things, liar will become an 
appropriate description of you.

> 
> >>> such goods do not work, in the sense that a free market, responding 
> >>> to supply and demand, does not result in the optimal allocation of 
> >>> resources for intellectual goods.
> >> It doesn't? Do you have proof or is this just you repeating an oft-heard 
> >> myth?
> > 
> > It's standard economic theory
> 
> It's standard bollocks. The evidence is equivocal at best. Read Boldrin 
> and Levine [2008].

Provide a precise cite.


-- 
--Tim Smith

Tim Smith wrote:
> In article <haatdi$pj$3@news.eternal-september.org>,
>  Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
>> Tim Smith wrote:
>>> In article <ha53rr$h3i$2@news.eternal-september.org>,
>>>  Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
>>>> Tim Smith wrote:
>>>>> In article <ha31j7$tsk$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
>>>>>  Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
>>>>>>> #3. Artificially, by force of law, imbue intellectual goods with some 
>>>>>>> of 
>>>>>>> the characteristics of real property so as to make it work like a 
>>>>>>> regular good in the free market.
>>>>>> They already would "work like a regular good in the free market"; they 
>>>>>> work like a regular good in the free whose marginal cost happens to be 
>>>>>> approximately zero.
>>>>> [says I'm a liar]
>>>> No, you are.
>>> [personal attacks deleted]
>> Wrong.
> 
> [says I'm a liar]

No, you are.

>>>>> such goods do not work, in the sense that a free market, responding 
>>>>> to supply and demand, does not result in the optimal allocation of 
>>>>> resources for intellectual goods.
>>>> It doesn't? Do you have proof or is this just you repeating an oft-heard 
>>>> myth?
>>> It's standard economic theory
>> It's standard bollocks. The evidence is equivocal at best. Read Boldrin 
>> and Levine [2008].
> Provide a precise cite.

http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm

In article <hadk1v$hnl$3@news.eternal-september.org>,
 Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
> >>> [personal attacks deleted]
> >> Wrong.
> > 
> > [says I'm a liar]
> 
> No, you are.

Ironically, by repeatedly claiming that people call you a liar and 
accusing them of personal attacks when they did neither, you are *now* 
in fact a liar.

> 
> >>>>> such goods do not work, in the sense that a free market, responding 
> >>>>> to supply and demand, does not result in the optimal allocation of 
> >>>>> resources for intellectual goods.
> >>>> It doesn't? Do you have proof or is this just you repeating an oft-heard 
> >>>> myth?
> >>> It's standard economic theory
> >> It's standard bollocks. The evidence is equivocal at best. Read Boldrin 
> >> and Levine [2008].
> > Provide a precise cite.
> 
> http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm

Provide a *precise* cite. That means cite to a specific page in that 
book that backs your claim that I was wrong when I said that a free 
market is not pareto efficient when dealing with goods that are 
non-rivalrous and non-excludible.

-- 
--Tim Smith

On 2009-10-06 05:36:48 -0400, Evan I <tali713@nospam.yahoo.evar.com> said:

> Since
> the modifications are solely for his own use, he has not violated the
> licenses modification clause either.

1. The license specifically prohibits reverse engineering, full stop, 
not just reverse engineering for commercial purposes.

2. Once he publishes any reverse engineering and circumvention methods, 
as he has done here, he can no longer make the claim that what he is 
doing is solely for his own personal, educational use. Reverse 
engineering and circumvention for one's own educational use is one 
thing. Publication of that reverse engineering and method of 
circumvention is another thing, and they have very different legal 
statuses.

-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

Tim Smith wrote:
> In article <hadk1v$hnl$3@news.eternal-september.org>,
>  Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
>>>>> [personal attacks deleted]
>>>> Wrong.
>>> [says I'm a liar]
>> No, you are.
> 
> [says I'm a liar]

No, you are.

>>>>>>> such goods do not work, in the sense that a free market, responding 
>>>>>>> to supply and demand, does not result in the optimal allocation of 
>>>>>>> resources for intellectual goods.
>>>>>> It doesn't? Do you have proof or is this just you repeating an oft-heard 
>>>>>> myth?
>>>>> It's standard economic theory
>>>> It's standard bollocks. The evidence is equivocal at best. Read Boldrin 
>>>> and Levine [2008].
>>> Provide a precise cite.
>> http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm
> 
> Provide

I just did.

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-10-06 05:36:48 -0400, Evan I <tali713@nospam.yahoo.evar.com> said:
> 
>> Since
>> the modifications are solely for his own use, he has not violated the
>> licenses modification clause either.
> 
> 1. The license specifically prohibits reverse engineering, full stop, 
> not just reverse engineering for commercial purposes.
> 
> 2. Once he publishes any reverse engineering and circumvention methods, 
> as he has done here, he can no longer make the claim that what he is 
> doing is solely for his own personal, educational use. Reverse 
> engineering and circumvention for one's own educational use is one 
> thing. Publication of that reverse engineering and method of 
> circumvention is another thing, and they have very different legal 
> statuses.

The latter should be a federally protected activity, in the interests of 
cybersecurity. Not allowing researchers to publish exploits/permitting 
vendors to muzzle researchers that discover exploits leads to "security 
through obscurity" and all the usual attendant problems.

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog

In article <hahbe8$otc$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
 Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
> >>>> It's standard bollocks. The evidence is equivocal at best. Read Boldrin 
> >>>> and Levine [2008].
> >>> Provide a precise cite.
> >> http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm
> > 
> > Provide
> 
> I just did.

I must have missed it. What was the page number?


-- 
--Tim Smith

On Oct 7, 1:10=A0am, Raffael Cavallaro
<raffaelcavall...@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> On 2009-10-06 05:36:48 -0400, Evan I <tali...@nospam.yahoo.evar.com> said=
:
>
> > Since
> > the modifications are solely for his own use, he has not violated the
> > licenses modification clause either.
>
> 1. The license specifically prohibits reverse engineering, full stop,
> not just reverse engineering for commercial purposes.

Say this all you like - and it is true. But I didn't reverse engineer
anything.

If my C code relied on any reverse engineered principles from LW, one
would expect that it would only work against LW. But, in fact, it will
work against any time-based protection reliant on gettimeofday(). A
kind person noticed this thread, and pointed me to an article
published a few years ago in 2600 magazine, with code. It is a generic
library that interposes gettimeofday() along with some other common
functions which enable the single library to defeat the time locks of
many such programs. The code in question has NOTHING to do with LW,
and indeed can be made into a generic crack against virtually any
program (i.e. doesn't rely on reverse engineering).

So the C code in question isn't derived from reverse engineering. Nor
was it even used as a tool to perform reverse engineering - because
after it constrained the clock to a few minute interval, LW no longer
prompts - so there is no reason to fuss or investigate the mechanisms
that LW uses.

You really are STRETCHING to find a way in which I violated the
license. You must certainly know that. Is it so threatening to
conceive that, in this case, the license may not prohibit such
actions?

On Oct 7, 1:10=A0am, Raffael Cavallaro
<raffaelcavall...@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> On 2009-10-06 05:36:48 -0400, Evan I <tali...@nospam.yahoo.evar.com> said=
:
>
> > Since
> > the modifications are solely for his own use, he has not violated the
> > licenses modification clause either.
>
> 1. The license specifically prohibits reverse engineering, full stop,
> not just reverse engineering for commercial purposes.
>
> 2. Once he publishes any reverse engineering and circumvention methods,
> as he has done here, he can no longer make the claim that what he is
> doing is solely for his own personal, educational use. Reverse
> engineering and circumvention for one's own educational use is one
> thing. Publication of that reverse engineering and method of
> circumvention is another thing, and they have very different legal
> statuses.
>
> --
> Raffael Cavallaro


Oh, and by the way - you are right about the different legal status of
the two. You should read up on the reverse engineering that was
performed on the original IBM PC/XT platform to produce the first
clones of the era.

The short of it:

The guys who reverse engineered the IBM XT were prohibited, legally,
from producing a clone based on their research. But they were NOT
legally prohibited from publishing papers about their findings.
Compaq, the first clone maker, used those papers to build an IBM
compatible PC.

No one got sued.

Because it isn't as cut-and-dry as you are presenting it.

Tim Smith wrote:
> In article <hahbe8$otc$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
>  Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
>>>>>> It's standard bollocks. The evidence is equivocal at best. Read Boldrin 
>>>>>> and Levine [2008].
>>>>> Provide a precise cite.
>>>> http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm
>>> Provide
>> I just did.
> 
> I must have missed it.

You fucking quoted it!

On 2009-10-08 00:15:53 -0400, gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> said:

> The guys who reverse engineered the IBM XT were prohibited, legally,
> from producing a clone based on their research. But they were NOT
> legally prohibited from publishing papers about their findings.
> Compaq, the first clone maker, used those papers to build an IBM
> compatible PC.

This happened before the DMCA. Your actions did not. The DMCA exception 
for reverse engineering explicitly prohibits publication of the results.
-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

* gnubeard Wrote on Wed, 7 Oct 2009 21:12:45 -0700 (PDT):
|
| Say this all you like - and it is true. But I didn't reverse engineer
| anything.

You made changes to your environment and observed how the behaviour of
the software changed (with regard to changes in your environment); with
the intent of changing the behaviour of a product to overcome an access
restriction in the product. This constitutes reverse engineering.  This
was prohibited by the license.

You reverse engineered the product to circumvent a limitation (access
restrictions) put in by the owner of the product which was licensed for
personal use.

You published the results of your reverse engineering, thereby enabling
others to circumvent the access restrictions which were intended and put
in place by the owner of the software. This is no longer "personal use."

[You're still posting after the kill expired. Hopefully I won't see you
another week]

--
Madhu

Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com>
writes:

> On 2009-10-06 05:36:48 -0400, Evan I <tali713@nospam.yahoo.evar.com> said:
>
>> Since
>> the modifications are solely for his own use, he has not violated the
>> licenses modification clause either.
>
> 1. The license specifically prohibits reverse engineering, full stop,
> not just reverse engineering for commercial purposes.

I really wish whoever wrote that license would clarify the intent of
that clause, I read it a few times and found it could be easily read in
either direction.

    5. Copying, Modification and Distribution. You may not
    copy the Software except as necessary to exercise your
    rights under this Agreement and to make one (1) copy of
    the Software in machine readable form for back-up or
    archival purposes only. You may not translate, reverse
    engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify or create
    derivative works based on the materials, except as
    expressly permitted by the law of this Agreement. You
    may modify the Software and/or merge it into another
    program solely for your use in accordance with this
    Agreement.  Any portion of the Software merged into
    another program will continue to be subject to the terms
    and conditions of this Agreement.  Except for the
    distribution of runtime versions of the software
    ("Runtimes") in accordance with the following paragraph,
    this license does not permit the distribution of the
    Software, or any part thereof, to any third party.

It seems to me that this clause is fairly clear.  But it is presented
here, just to make sure that we are actually talking about the same
clause.  I don't see a full stop (aka a period) after the phrase
"reverse engineer", I see a comma.  Indeed that sentence has a
sub-clause which informs the reader that there are in fact exemptions.
These are presented later in the same clause of the license.  But
without formal legal training or a degree in English I cannot comment
further.

> 2. Once he publishes any reverse engineering and circumvention
> methods, as he has done here, he can no longer make the claim that
> what he is doing is solely for his own personal, educational
> use. Reverse engineering and circumvention for one's own educational
> use is one thing. Publication of that reverse engineering and method
> of circumvention is another thing, and they have very different legal
> statuses.


Again, not to be-labor the point, but he has published his awareness of
a weakness in the programs limitations.  He has NOT published a patch
nor distributed a modified copy.  Morally his acts are questionable, but
I would argue better for the developer than for the potential exploiter.
/I/ certainly would not have published such a finding in a public forum.
It's very indiscreet, it would have been better to directly inform the
author, or if one where mischievous to keep it a shared secret amongst
friends.  Publishing it in a public forum neither serves self-interest
nor the best interests of the creators of LispWorks.  But if one of the
interests is served it is more likely than not LispWorks, since I had to
download it just to read the license, and will probably end up truly
testing it out.


-- tali713

Madhu wrote:
> * gnubeard Wrote on Wed, 7 Oct 2009 21:12:45 -0700 (PDT):
> |
> | Say this all you like - and it is true. But I didn't reverse engineer
> | anything.
> 
> You made changes to your environment and observed how the behaviour of
> the software changed (with regard to changes in your environment); with
> the intent of changing the behaviour of a product to overcome an access
> restriction in the product. This constitutes reverse engineering.

It's already been explained that by this standard, almost any action one 
takes with one's hardware and operating system "reverse engineers" 
multiple pieces of software.

> You reverse engineered the product to circumvent a limitation (access
> restrictions) put in by the owner of the product

Really? I don't recall gnubeard saying he put the access restrictions in 
place. If he did, though, it *certainly* can't be immoral for him to 
subsequently change his mind and circumvent them.

> You published the results of your reverse engineering, thereby enabling
> others to circumvent the access restrictions which were intended and put
> in place by the owner of the software.

Again, I don't recall gnubeard putting them in place. That had 
previously been attributed to LispWorks, but the copy in question is 
gnubeard's now, and was by the time of the alleged "reverse engineering".

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-10-08 00:15:53 -0400, gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> said:
> 
>> The guys who reverse engineered the IBM XT were prohibited, legally,
>> from producing a clone based on their research. But they were NOT
>> legally prohibited from publishing papers about their findings.
>> Compaq, the first clone maker, used those papers to build an IBM
>> compatible PC.
> 
> This happened before the DMCA.

The DMCA applies to circumvention of copy protection, and only in the 
United States.

1. This did not involve copy protection, any more than Skylink making
    garage door opener remotes that interoperated with Chamberlain's did.
2. I don't think we know gnubeard's location with certainty at this
    time.

> The DMCA exception for reverse engineering explicitly prohibits
> publication of the results.

That has to be nonsense. Security researchers are always publishing 
results, and this must be permitted for security reasons. Cybersecurity. 
NATIONAL security.

Dave Searles wrote:
> Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
>> On 2009-10-08 00:15:53 -0400, gnubeard <gnubeard@gmail.com> said:
>>
>>> The guys who reverse engineered the IBM XT were prohibited, legally,
>>> from producing a clone based on their research. But they were NOT
>>> legally prohibited from publishing papers about their findings.
>>> Compaq, the first clone maker, used those papers to build an IBM
>>> compatible PC.
>>
>> This happened before the DMCA.
> 
> The DMCA applies to circumvention of copy protection, and only in the 
> United States.
> 
> 1. This did not involve copy protection, any more than Skylink making
>    garage door opener remotes that interoperated with Chamberlain's did.

 From the appeals court via 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamberlain_v._Skylink

     * "The plain language of the statute ... requires a plaintiff 
alleging circumvention (or trafficking) to prove that the defendant's 
access was unauthorized-a significant burden where, as here, the 
copyright laws authorize consumers to use the copy of Chamberlain's 
software embedded in the GDOs that they purchased. "

That would be that pesky Title 17 Section 117 (a) (1) again, Raffael.

     * "The DMCA does not create a new property right for copyright 
owners. Nor, for that matter, does it divest the public of the property 
rights that the Copyright Act has long granted to the public."

For example, gnubeard's ownership of his copy of LW, and his Section 117 
(a) (1) rights vis-a-vis that copy.

"The anticircumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the DMCA 
create new grounds of liability. A copyright owner seeking to impose 
liability on an accused circumventor must demonstrate a reasonable 
relationship between the circumvention at issue and a use relating to a 
property right for which the Copyright Act permits the copyright owner 
to withhold authorization-as well as notice that authorization was 
withheld."

The Copyright Act permits the copyright holder to withhold authorization 
for the following enumerated exclusive rights: reproduction and 
adaptation (with the Section 117 (a) (1) exemption for such 
reproductions and adaptations as occur as part of normal use of computer 
software), distribution, and public performance/display.

It is clear that gnubeard has not publicly performed or displayed LW, 
nor distributed it. The remaining exclusive rights don't apply because 
any made during gnubeard's use of LW clearly fall within the Section 117 
(a) (1) exemption. Therefore the circumvention did not involve "a use 
relating to a ... right for which the Copyright Act permits the 
copyright owner to withhold authorization".

Therefore, your DMCA-based argument regarding gnubeard's gettimeofday() 
hack hasn't got a leg to stand on.

"A copyright owner seeking to impose liability on an accused trafficker 
must demonstrate that the trafficker's device enables either copyright 
infringement or a prohibited circumvention."

And that torpedoes your argument regarding his posting of information 
here. Since there was no copyright infringement and, as per the above 
argument, no "prohibited circumvention", it looks to me like gnubeard is 
free and clear even if he is within the borders of the United States.

Now stick THAT in your pipe and smoke it.

In article <hajtbi$8u7$4@news.eternal-september.org>,
 Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:

> Tim Smith wrote:
> > In article <hahbe8$otc$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
> >  Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
> >>>>>> It's standard bollocks. The evidence is equivocal at best. Read 
> >>>>>> Boldrin 
> >>>>>> and Levine [2008].
> >>>>> Provide a precise cite.
> >>>> http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm
> >>> Provide
> >> I just did.
> > 
> > I must have missed it.
> 
> You fucking quoted it!

Perhaps there is some kind of word wrapping problem, or text is getting 
cut off, because all that I see above is the URL to a site containing a 
book that is several hundred pages long. Where is the *precise* cite you 
keep lyin^H^H^H^Hclaiming to have provided? Are you having trouble 
because you haven't actually read the book, so have no idea where to 
find what you claim it says (which there is about a 99% chance it does 
not say)?

-- 
--Tim Smith

On 2009-10-08, Madhu <enometh@meer.net> wrote:
>
> * gnubeard Wrote on Wed, 7 Oct 2009 21:12:45 -0700 (PDT):
>|
>| Say this all you like - and it is true. But I didn't reverse engineer
>| anything.
>
> You made changes to your environment and observed how the behaviour of
> the software changed (with regard to changes in your environment); with
> the intent of changing the behaviour of a product to overcome an access
> restriction in the product. This constitutes reverse engineering.  This
> was prohibited by the license.

Showing your face in public if you're a woman is also prohibited by the
license attached to your life when you live in some parts of the world.

On Oct 8, 8:31=A0pm, Kaz Kylheku <kkylh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2009-10-08, Madhu <enom...@meer.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > * gnubeard Wrote on Wed, 7 Oct 2009 21:12:45 -0700 (PDT):
> >|
> >| Say this all you like - and it is true. But I didn't reverse engineer
> >| anything.
>
> > You made changes to your environment and observed how the behaviour of
> > the software changed (with regard to changes in your environment); with
> > the intent of changing the behaviour of a product to overcome an access
> > restriction in the product. This constitutes reverse engineering. =A0Th=
is
> > was prohibited by the license.
>
> Showing your face in public if you're a woman is also prohibited by the
> license attached to your life when you live in some parts of the world.

Showing your genitals in public is prohibited in any country.

On 2009-10-08 02:46:08 -0400, Evan I <tali713@nospam.yahoo.evar.com> said:

> Again, not to be-labor the point, but he has published his awareness of
> a weakness in the programs limitations.

No, he has not merely published the fact that he is aware of how to 
circumvent a limitiation, he has published specific, detailed 
instructions on how to circumvent a limitation.

This is precisely what's meant by publishing the results of reverse 
engineering.

-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com>
writes:

> On 2009-10-08 02:46:08 -0400, Evan I <tali713@nospam.yahoo.evar.com> said:
>
>> Again, not to be-labor the point, but he has published his awareness of
>> a weakness in the programs limitations.
>
> No, he has not merely published the fact that he is aware of how to
> circumvent a limitiation, he has published specific, detailed
> instructions on how to circumvent a limitation.
>
> This is precisely what's meant by publishing the results of reverse
> engineering.

Well, if it really is reverse engineering.  Which I find suspect, as I
often have insight into how a program probably works, but I would hardly
call it reverse engineering.  Maybe if he had reverse engineered
something I would feel differently.  Like had the check been something
internal to the program, and had he figured out how that internal
component worked, and then replaced it.  That would be beyond a shadow
of a doubt reverse engineering.

This is simply observation of a program running on a machine, combined
with altering how the machine works.  To call that reverse engineering
is like noticing that one of my programs can't load images, so I guess
it must be missing a library, so I install a couple of image libraries.
No one in their right mind would suggest that I reverse engineered the
program.

So let's call it for what it is.  Circumvention of an intentionally
introduced flaw in the program.  Which is *definitely* naughty.  But not
an explicit violation of the license agreement, nor in truth reverse
engineering.  Unless you want to claim that any astute user of a
computer reverse engineers all their software because they guess and
confirm how some small part of it works.  In which case, I wonder how a
programmer could use /any/ software without reverse engineering it.

That being said, if the authors intent has been violated then that
intent should either be clearly stated on the website or explicitly
mentioned in the license.  I understand that this can be a difficult
process, but correctly wording a license is a really good idea, even if
it is only over a trivial matter.

BTW, he also published how to fix the flaw, not just how to exploit it.
Should he be criticized for that as well?  If not, how does one suggest
how to fix a flaw without describing it?  

For that matter how could flaws in the license be noticed without them
being discussed.  Not everyone acts on moral grounds so a license really
should be very well written, if you wish it to be enforcable.  Merely
asserting that something must be reverse engineering because of it's
outcomes would be a very weak argument should it ever actually matter.
In this case, I believe the discussiong to be more about addressing the
morality of the issue and the steps that can be taken to prevent abuse.
Only rationally discussing these issues will resolve them.


-- tali713

P.S. I can no longer find the wording on the website that mentions that
these limitations are for the purposes of preventing commercial use.
Either I am going blind, or that language has been removed.  Either way,
I have nothing left to say on the subject.  It is no longer clear to me
that the intent was not violated.

On 2009-10-08 18:26:48 -0400, Evan I <tali713@nospam.yahoo.evar.com> said:

>  Unless you want to claim that any astute user of a
> computer reverse engineers all their software because they guess and
> confirm how some small part of it works.

Guessing, no. Confirming, yes. Sytematic confirmation of an hypothesis 
of how something operates is the very definition of reverse engineering.


-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

Tim Smith wrote:
> In article <hajtbi$8u7$4@news.eternal-september.org>,
>  Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
>> Tim Smith wrote:
>>> In article <hahbe8$otc$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
>>>  Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:
>>>>>>>> It's standard bollocks. The evidence is equivocal at best. Read 
>>>>>>>> Boldrin 
>>>>>>>> and Levine [2008].
>>>>>>> Provide a precise cite.
>>>>>> http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm
>>>>> Provide
>>>> I just did.
>>> I must have missed it.
>> You fucking quoted it!
> 
> [says I'm a liar]

No, you are.

vippstar wrote:
> On Oct 8, 8:31 pm, Kaz Kylheku <kkylh...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 2009-10-08, Madhu <enom...@meer.net> wrote:
>>> * gnubeard Wrote on Wed, 7 Oct 2009 21:12:45 -0700 (PDT):
>>> |
>>> | Say this all you like - and it is true. But I didn't reverse engineer
>>> | anything.
>>> You made changes to your environment and observed how the behaviour of
>>> the software changed (with regard to changes in your environment); with
>>> the intent of changing the behaviour of a product to overcome an access
>>> restriction in the product. This constitutes reverse engineering.  This
>>> was prohibited by the license.
>> Showing your face in public if you're a woman is also prohibited by the
>> license attached to your life when you live in some parts of the world.
> 
> Showing your genitals in public is prohibited in any country.

Bollocks. Lots have nude beaches or similar designated areas, even if 
they do not permit it in all public places.

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-10-08 02:46:08 -0400, Evan I <tali713@nospam.yahoo.evar.com> said:
> 
>> Again, not to be-labor the point, but he has published his awareness of
>> a weakness in the programs limitations.
> 
> No, he has not merely published the fact that he is aware of how to 
> circumvent a limitiation, he has published specific, detailed 
> instructions on how to circumvent a limitation.

He published a description, not clear instructions that wouldn't require 
quite a bit of blank-filling-in by a would-be implementor.

And that's after you ignored the points I raised in a couple of other 
recent posts.

Evan I wrote:
> Circumvention of an intentionally introduced flaw in the program.
> Which is *definitely* naughty.

I don't agree, and it seems likely that Kaz and Alessio also don't 
agree, that it's circumventing such flaws that is naughty, instead of 
intentionally introducing flaws that is naughty.

> That being said, if the authors intent has been violated then that
> intent should either be clearly stated on the website or explicitly
> mentioned in the license.

Even that doesn't address the elephant in the room here, which is the 
question of exactly how binding the author's intent *should* be, legally 
and otherwise, upon the user? I think the only reasonable answer here is 
"none", same as for any other property. I buy a box of chocolates from 
Hershey, they're mine. Hershey doesn't get to decide I can't do certain 
things with them and somehow have that have the legal force of law 
unless I don't receive the box until AFTER signing some contract. Why 
should LispWorks be held to a different standard than Hershey?

> In this case, I believe the discussiong to be more about addressing the
> morality of the issue and the steps that can be taken to prevent abuse.

I don't think that modifying your own property in the comfort and 
privacy of your own home IS abuse, no matter what its manufacturer's 
wishes regarding its use.

> Only rationally discussing these issues will resolve them.

This I agree with wholeheartedly.

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-10-08 18:26:48 -0400, Evan I <tali713@nospam.yahoo.evar.com> said:
>>  Unless you want to claim that any astute user of a
>> computer reverse engineers all their software because they guess and
>> confirm how some small part of it works.
> 
> Guessing, no. Confirming, yes. Sytematic confirmation of an hypothesis 
> of how something operates is the very definition of reverse engineering.

He took a single stab in the dark and it happened to be right. It 
doesn't get much less systematic than that, idiot.

P� Thu, 08 Oct 2009 22:55:21 +0200, skrev Raffael Cavallaro  
<raffaelcavallaro@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com>:

> On 2009-10-08 02:46:08 -0400, Evan I <tali713@nospam.yahoo.evar.com>  
> said:
>
>> Again, not to be-labor the point, but he has published his awareness of
>> a weakness in the programs limitations.
>
> No, he has not merely published the fact that he is aware of how to  
> circumvent a limitiation, he has published specific, detailed  
> instructions on how to circumvent a limitation.
>
> This is precisely what's meant by publishing the results of reverse  
> engineering.
>

Well Bill Clementsen figured out how to get LispWorks Personal to execute  
a init script to load Edi's starter-pack.
http://bc.tech.coop/blog/070403.html
I guess by your definition that makes him a thief too. (LWPE doesn't read  
the init file.)

Must be hard to keep up your moral standards living in this den of thieves  
:)

--------------
John Thingstad

Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> writes:

> I don't think that modifying your own property in the comfort and
> privacy of your own home IS abuse, no matter what its manufacturer's
> wishes regarding its use.

But with most licenses (including the one used by Lispworks), the
ownership of the copy of the software is NOT transferred to the end
user, so you're not free to do whatever you want to it, just like your
public library won't let you modify their books to your own wishes "in
the comfort and privacy of your home".
-- 
  (espen)

On Oct 9, 2:25=A0pm, Espen Vestre <es...@vestre.net> wrote:
> Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> writes:
> > I don't think that modifying your own property in the comfort and
> > privacy of your own home IS abuse, no matter what its manufacturer's
> > wishes regarding its use.
>
> But with most licenses (including the one used by Lispworks), the
> ownership of the copy of the software is NOT transferred to the end
> user, so you're not free to do whatever you want to it, just like your
> public library won't let you modify their books to your own wishes "in
> the comfort and privacy of your home".

What about copying the book and using the copy for my own needs? ...

vippstar <vippstar@gmail.com> writes:

> What about copying the book and using the copy for my own needs? ...

Good point right at the heart of the problems with IP rights.  But I
didn't really want to go into the philosophical discussion here.

Putting both the philosophical and juridical questions aside, I think
it's quite sad that a small company providing a wonderful lisp
implementation is subject to threads like this one on this
newsgroup. I'd rather see community support for them than discussions on
how to circumvent "annoyances" with their giveaway product versions.
-- 
  (espen)

On 2009-10-09 05:13:31 -0400, "John Thingstad" <jpthing@online.no> said:

> Must be hard to keep up your moral standards living in this den of thieves  :)


I personally don't consider it moral to tell creators how they may or 
may not control their own IP. By giving IP creators the ability to 
control how others use their IP we allow everything from the GPL to 
commercial licenses.

The moral answer is simple; if you don't like the lispworks personal 
license, don't use lispworks personal.

When someone violates any of these licenses, it is asserting that the 
violator's wishes for the disposition of that IP are more important 
than the wishes of the IP's creator. This is just selfishness. In order 
to be this selfish publicly one must usually be lacking in self 
awareness, so such selfish acts are usually accompanied by 
rationalizing.

As a practical matter, to allow these sorts of license violations is to 
create an IP climate in which every license becomes a de facto public 
domain license.  This would be a disaster for the free flow of 
knowledge; Those who had valuable IP would simply keep it secret.



-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

On 30 Sep, 08:29, Tamas K Papp <tkp...@gmail.com> wrote:

> The whole thread reminds me of a civil law class that I have taken
> (IANAL, but it seemed -- and turned out to be -- interesting). =A0It was
> a course for non-law students, most had a mathematics/science
> background. =A0_All_ questions from the audience were like this,
> students thinking that laws are like an algorithm that they can hack.
> The professor was very understanding and actually stopped to explain
> that legal systems don't work that way -- common sense is present in
> both Common Law and continental European systems, and you can't expect
> to get away with technical tricks like that.

in my country it used to illegal to trade on a sunday except for
certain
exceptions.  A man who lived in my town wanted to sell furniture on a
sunday but this was not one of the allowed exceptions.

Groceries were exempt.
So he sold 200 &currency_unit carrots and gave away arm chairs.
When it got to court the judge ruled this was not a genuine grocery
sale
but merely a device for circumventing the law.

On 2009-10-09, Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> On 2009-10-09 05:13:31 -0400, "John Thingstad" <jpthing@online.no> said:
>
>> Must be hard to keep up your moral standards living in this den of thieves  :)
>
>
> I personally don't consider it moral to tell creators how they may or 
> may not control their own IP. 

Really? So for instance, you don't consider it moral to tell creators that they
can't log your keystrokes, or turn your computer into a member of a thousand
element botnet which attacks machines no the net?

The owner of the computer installation has the right to know what every single
instruction of the software does, and to change it if he doesn't agree with it.

If I think that a binary has a buffer overflow vulnerability in it, I'm
free to whip out my disassembly tools and look for it.

> By giving IP creators the ability to 
> control how others use their IP we allow everything from the GPL to 
> commercial licenses.

The GPL is not a /use/ license but a redistribution license.

You don't have to agree to it to use the software.

Programs which pop up the GPL during installation are ridiculously wrong.

> The moral answer is simple; if you don't like the lispworks personal 
> license, don't use lispworks personal.


> When someone violates any of these licenses, it is asserting that the 
> violator's wishes for the disposition of that IP are more important 
> than the wishes of the IP's creator.

The wishes of what happens on my computer are law on my computer.

If I have a lawfully obtained pece of sofwtare, it's my business how I use it.
I can look at every machine instruction with a magnifying glass.  A program is
exactly like a book or music recording, or any other copyrighted work.  You can
read every word of a book and understand it. You can write notes in the margin,
etc.

> This is just selfishness. In order 
> to be this selfish publicly one must usually be lacking in self 
> awareness, so such selfish acts are usually accompanied by 
> rationalizing.

Rationalizing is good. Unselfish acts are also accompanied by rationalizing.
Everything must be rationalized. If it's not rationalized, it's a mindless act.

> As a practical matter, to allow these sorts of license violations is to 
> create an IP climate in which every license becomes a de facto public 
> domain license.

Public domain has to do with copying, not with use.

> This would be a disaster for the free flow of 
> knowledge; Those who had valuable IP would simply keep it secret.

Isn't that what patents are for? Patents mean that you can reveal the IP
(sparing the others the need to reverse-engineer).

Everyone can understand the invention; they just can't go into business with a
very similar invention.

A time-limit hack in trial software is not an original invention.

Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> writes:

> On 2009-10-09 05:13:31 -0400, "John Thingstad" <jpthing@online.no> said:
>
>> Must be hard to keep up your moral standards living in this den of thieves  :)
>
>
> I personally don't consider it moral to tell creators how they may or
> may not control their own IP. By giving IP creators the ability to
> control how others use their IP we allow everything from the GPL to
> commercial licenses.

This is not clear.

Don't you consider it a good thing to have a choice between GPL and
commercial licenses (and within commercial licenses, and choices
between various DRM modes)?

If not, do you consider everything should be copyleft?  Or always with
the most stringent commercial license? (Pay the most hefty sum
everytime you try to use (whatever the kind of use) the commercial
product?)

In what way is it not moral to teach people how to control their work
and their work usage?



> The moral answer is simple; if you don't like the lispworks personal
> license, don't use lispworks personal.

Personnaly, I think that GPL is a good way to deal with IP, so I agree
that if anybody is not happy with the restrictions of commercial
licenes, they should just NOT use or copy commercial software, and
rather use AND copy AND let copy GPL'ed software.  

With this mindset, I agree too, that it may not be a good idea to tell
commercial vendors how they may render their commercial license more
agreable to customers or potential customers.


> When someone violates any of these licenses, it is asserting that the
> violator's wishes for the disposition of that IP are more important
> than the wishes of the IP's creator. This is just selfishness. In
> order to be this selfish publicly one must usually be lacking in self
> awareness, so such selfish acts are usually accompanied by
> rationalizing.

Agreed.


> As a practical matter, to allow these sorts of license violations is
> to create an IP climate in which every license becomes a de facto
> public domain license.  This would be a disaster for the free flow of
> knowledge; Those who had valuable IP would simply keep it secret.

Agreed. 

I'd add one word about secret IP.  The human society could very well
decide that the IP used in commercial operations should be published
(at the very least, that whole IP should fully disclosed under the
form of a kind of patent).   Today, it is fiction because corporations
are allowed too much rights (IMO), but I think that their rights
should be restricted and that such a disposition concerning IP would
be good.  Notably, a lot of software is being constantly lost because
the sources are never published.  The patent system could be put to
good use if it was required that the source of any software sold be
published in a patent.  Competitors couldn't use that IP (if there's
any real IP inside, that is), but once the corporation dies, or after
the patent term, the sources would be available.  Another advantage is
that we would have to come with a more precise characterisation of
intellectual property.  If two programs share one line of code, do
they share IP?  If they share one algorithm?  If they share 60% of
boilerplate lines of code? 


-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

On 2009-10-09, Espen Vestre <espen@vestre.net> wrote:
> Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> writes:
>
>> I don't think that modifying your own property in the comfort and
>> privacy of your own home IS abuse, no matter what its manufacturer's
>> wishes regarding its use.
>
> But with most licenses (including the one used by Lispworks), the
> ownership of the copy of the software is NOT transferred to the end
> user

Maybe in the demented minds of some drunken lawyers! But in fact, you do own
the copy. You don't own the copyright: the right to make and redistribute other
copies.

>so you're not free to do whatever you want to it, just like your

In fact you are.

> public library won't let you modify their books to your own wishes "in
> the comfort and privacy of your home".

Nice try, genius. But a library book is not a copy. You have to return it.
The library does not have that book while you have it out. If you destroy it,
that book is then not available to the library and its patrons until they
replace it.

If I get my own book, I can make margin notes in it, tear out pages,
black out or highlight passages, etc.

Espen Vestre <espen@vestre.net> writes:

> Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> writes:
>
>> I don't think that modifying your own property in the comfort and
>> privacy of your own home IS abuse, no matter what its manufacturer's
>> wishes regarding its use.
>
> But with most licenses (including the one used by Lispworks), the
> ownership of the copy of the software is NOT transferred to the end
> user, so you're not free to do whatever you want to it, just like your
> public library won't let you modify their books to your own wishes "in
> the comfort and privacy of your home".

Exactly, what it is I am forbidden to do with Lispworks' executable?

May I not compute its md5sum?
May I not copy it from /usr/bin/ to /home/pjb/bin/?
May I not cat it to /dev/snd0?
May I not cat it to /usr/bin/brainfuck?
May I not upgrade my OS libraries?
Why couldn't I write my own version of OS libraries and install them on my own computer?

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

On 2009-10-09, vippstar <vippstar@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Oct 9, 2:25�pm, Espen Vestre <es...@vestre.net> wrote:
>> Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> writes:
>> > I don't think that modifying your own property in the comfort and
>> > privacy of your own home IS abuse, no matter what its manufacturer's
>> > wishes regarding its use.
>>
>> But with most licenses (including the one used by Lispworks), the
>> ownership of the copy of the software is NOT transferred to the end
>> user, so you're not free to do whatever you want to it, just like your
>> public library won't let you modify their books to your own wishes "in
>> the comfort and privacy of your home".
>
> What about copying the book and using the copy for my own needs? ...

That's a copyright violation. And it's completely irrelevant to this debate.

Why? Because, recall, the debate is about analyzing and modifying a program of
which you already have a *lawful* copy.

Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> Espen Vestre <espen@vestre.net> writes:
> 
>> Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> writes:
>>
>>> I don't think that modifying your own property in the comfort and
>>> privacy of your own home IS abuse, no matter what its manufacturer's
>>> wishes regarding its use.
>> But with most licenses (including the one used by Lispworks), the
>> ownership of the copy of the software is NOT transferred to the end
>> user, so you're not free to do whatever you want to it, just like your
>> public library won't let you modify their books to your own wishes "in
>> the comfort and privacy of your home".
> 
> Exactly, what it is I am forbidden to do with Lispworks' executable?
> 
> May I not compute its md5sum?
> May I not copy it from /usr/bin/ to /home/pjb/bin/?
> May I not cat it to /dev/snd0?
> May I not cat it to /usr/bin/brainfuck?
> May I not upgrade my OS libraries?
> Why couldn't I write my own version of OS libraries and install them on my own computer?

That's not what the OP did. He didn't on one day muck around with the OS 
libraries and replaced some of them randomly with new functionality, and 
on some other distant day accidentally realized that his copy of 
LispWorks Personal Edition ran longer than 5 hours, and then again on 
some third, again distant figured out that those two events may have had 
a connection.

No, he made an educated guess what LispWorks PE may do to implement its 
limitation, and probed it with the explicit intent to circumvent it. 
That's very obvious from his original posting.

If I change a key that I own to open a lock that I don't own to enter a 
room that I'm not supposed to enter, did I act "lawful" just because I 
made modifications _only_ to my own personal key? I am allowed to modify 
what I possess, no?

Stop thinking like a geek, please! ;)


Pascal

-- 
My website: http://p-cos.net
Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org
Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/

On 2009-10-09 12:50:45 -0400, Kaz Kylheku <kkylheku@gmail.com> said:

> So for instance, you don't consider it moral to tell creators that they
> can't log your keystrokes, or turn your computer into a member of a thousand
> element botnet which attacks machines no the net?

If the license says this ***Don't Use the Product!***


If you find a license disagreeable for some reason you are free not to 
enter into it.

Just because you find some clause of a license objectionable doesn't 
give you the right to unilaterally redefine the license. Just don't 
enter into the license.

-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

On 2009-10-09 12:51:36 -0400, pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. 
Bourguignon) said:

> This is not clear.
> 
> Don't you consider it a good thing to have a choice between GPL and
> commercial licenses (and within commercial licenses, and choices
> between various DRM modes)?


Yes.

> 
> If not, do you consider everything should be copyleft?  Or always with
> the most stringent commercial license? (Pay the most hefty sum
> everytime you try to use (whatever the kind of use) the commercial
> product?)

IP creators should get to choose how their IP is licensed. Anything 
from copyleft to restrictive commercial licenses (within the scope and 
term of copyright law of course).


> 
> In what way is it not moral to teach people how to control their work
> and their work usage?

To quote the Sphinx from Mystery Men, "I don't remember telling you to 
do that."


-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

Pascal Costanza <pc@p-cos.net> writes:

> Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
>> Espen Vestre <espen@vestre.net> writes:
>> 
>>> Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> writes:
>>>
>>>> I don't think that modifying your own property in the comfort and
>>>> privacy of your own home IS abuse, no matter what its manufacturer's
>>>> wishes regarding its use.
>>> But with most licenses (including the one used by Lispworks), the
>>> ownership of the copy of the software is NOT transferred to the end
>>> user, so you're not free to do whatever you want to it, just like your
>>> public library won't let you modify their books to your own wishes "in
>>> the comfort and privacy of your home".
>> Exactly, what it is I am forbidden to do with Lispworks' executable?
>> May I not compute its md5sum?
>> May I not copy it from /usr/bin/ to /home/pjb/bin/?
>> May I not cat it to /dev/snd0?
>> May I not cat it to /usr/bin/brainfuck?
>> May I not upgrade my OS libraries?
>> Why couldn't I write my own version of OS libraries and install them on my own computer?
>
> That's not what the OP did. He didn't on one day muck around with the
> OS libraries and replaced some of them randomly with new
> functionality, and on some other distant day accidentally realized
> that his copy of LispWorks Personal Edition ran longer than 5 hours,
> and then again on some third, again distant figured out that those two
> events may have had a connection.
>
> No, he made an educated guess what LispWorks PE may do to implement
> its limitation, and probed it with the explicit intent to circumvent
> it. That's very obvious from his original posting.
>
> If I change a key that I own to open a lock that I don't own to enter
> a room that I'm not supposed to enter, did I act "lawful" just because
> I made modifications _only_ to my own personal key? I am allowed to
> modify what I possess, no?
>
> Stop thinking like a geek, please! ;)

We have to be precise.  Modifying my own key cannot be unlawful.
Using it to open a door I'm not allowed to open might be unlawful.

Here the OP has been critized for modifying his key.  We should only
critize him if he uses Lispworks for more than five hours.

He should be entitled to report the big in the DRM limitation
algorithm of Lispworks, which is only he did here.  We don't have a
proof that he actually used Lispworks more than five hours, even if it
is what he said he wanted to do.

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

Nick Keighley wrote:
> On 30 Sep, 08:29, Tamas K Papp <tkp...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> The whole thread reminds me of a civil law class that I have taken
>> (IANAL, but it seemed -- and turned out to be -- interesting).  It was
>> a course for non-law students, most had a mathematics/science
>> background.  _All_ questions from the audience were like this,
>> students thinking that laws are like an algorithm that they can hack.
>> The professor was very understanding and actually stopped to explain
>> that legal systems don't work that way -- common sense is present in
>> both Common Law and continental European systems, and you can't expect
>> to get away with technical tricks like that.
> 
> in my country it used to illegal to trade on a sunday except for
> certain
> exceptions.  A man who lived in my town wanted to sell furniture on a
> sunday but this was not one of the allowed exceptions.
> 
> Groceries were exempt.
> So he sold 200 &currency_unit carrots and gave away arm chairs.
> When it got to court the judge ruled this was not a genuine grocery
> sale
> but merely a device for circumventing the law.

I don't know which is more ridiculous: the law in question, the method 
of circumvention, or the judge actually upholding the obviously-bogus law.

In particular, where is the harm in selling furniture on a Sunday? Point 
me to the victim, please. No victim, no crime.

pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:

> Here the OP has been critized for modifying his key.  We should only
> critize him if he uses Lispworks for more than five hours.

Why this hairsplitting? What is the subject of this thread, and why?

> He should be entitled to report the big in the DRM limitation
> algorithm of Lispworks, which is only he did here.  

Then the Subject wording is pretty bad, don't you think?
-- 
  (espen)

Espen Vestre wrote:
> Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> writes:
> 
>> I don't think that modifying your own property in the comfort and
>> privacy of your own home IS abuse, no matter what its manufacturer's
>> wishes regarding its use.
> 
> But with most licenses (including the one used by Lispworks), the
> ownership of the copy of the software is NOT transferred to the end
> user

We all know that that is a work of fiction.

Read these.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090927/2332506333.shtml
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091001/1805496397.shtml

> just like your public library won't let you modify their books to
> your own wishes "in the comfort and privacy of your home".

That's silly. If you, say, tore a page out of a library book, or crashed 
a rental car, or whatever, it's damaged for the next person to borrow or 
rent it. If you modify your copy of some software on your own hard 
drive, you haven't altered it in any way for anyone else.

Library book: scarce physical object, which when one person has it no 
one else can, so people have to share and if one damages it all are 
affected.

Rental car: scarce physical object, which when one person has it no one 
else can, so people have to share and if one damages it all are affected.

Downloaded software: non-scarce data object, which when one person has 
it other people still can, so people don't have to share and if one 
alters it none of the others are affected.

Why do you think the software should be treated like a borrowed library 
book? It's clearly much more like a book obtained from the bookstore: 
you don't have to return it, while you have it it isn't unavailable for 
others (they can buy one too, or go to the library), and if you fuck it 
up in some way, it doesn't affect anyone else's enjoyment of their copies.

And the last time I checked, when you have your own copy of a book (not 
borrowed) you can do as you please with it, except maybe spread copies 
around and publicly read it aloud.

You seem to think a copyright gives, or should give, an author God-like 
control over all use. I've pointed out repeatedly that Title 17 of the 
US Code specifies very specific and narrow "exclusive rights" and some 
exemptions even to those. You keep on not listening.

Espen Vestre wrote:
> vippstar <vippstar@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> What about copying the book and using the copy for my own needs? ...
> 
> Good point right at the heart of the problems with IP rights.  But I
> didn't really want to go into the philosophical discussion here.
> 
> Putting both the philosophical and juridical questions aside, I think
> it's quite sad that a small company providing a wonderful lisp
> implementation is subject to threads like this one on this
> newsgroup. I'd rather see community support for them than discussions on
> how to circumvent "annoyances" with their giveaway product versions.

Well, tough. It's called free speech, and if in my opinion intentionally 
crippling software is evil, I have a right to state that opinion.

Pascal Costanza wrote:
> If I change a key that I own to open a lock that I don't own to enter a 
> room that I'm not supposed to enter, did I act "lawful" just because I 
> made modifications _only_ to my own personal key? I am allowed to modify 
> what I possess, no?

That's different. This is more like you bought a house, moved in, found 
the keys you got wouldn't open one door in the basement, and picked the 
lock. Oh, and the previous owner had mentioned something about not 
wanting you to go in there, before selling you the place without making 
it a binding condition of the sale.

I don't see a crime there.

> Stop thinking like a geek, please! ;)

Wrong newsgroup. Try alt.politics.obama maybe. If you post in 
comp.lang.lisp expect replies from geeks.

Kaz Kylheku <kkylheku@gmail.com> writes:

> Maybe in the demented minds of some drunken lawyers! But in fact, you do own
> the copy. You don't own the copyright: the right to make and redistribute other
> copies.

Ok, I realise that this might be the current juridical understanding (at
least in parts of the world?).

>>so you're not free to do whatever you want to it, just like your
>
> In fact you are.

No, you're not. 

> Nice try, genius. 

Why the offensive tone?

> If I get my own book, I can make margin notes in it, tear out pages,
> black out or highlight passages, etc.

But you can't necessarily read it in front of a public audience...
-- 
  (espen)

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-10-09 05:13:31 -0400, "John Thingstad" <jpthing@online.no> said:
> 
>> Must be hard to keep up your moral standards living in this den of 
>> thieves  :)
> 
> I personally don't consider it moral to tell creators how they may or 
> may not control their own IP.

Really? Then the Founding Fathers were immoral when they said that 
control could only last "for limited Times"? Congress was immoral when 
they passed the Copyright Act and it only granted a few specific, 
exclusive rights with a lot of limitations? The President was immoral 
when he signed it into law? Numerous judges and juries were immoral when 
they made various findings of fair use over the centuries? The judges of 
the court of appeals that smacked down Chamberlain in Chamberlain v. 
Skylink were immoral?

> By giving IP creators the ability to control how others use their IP
> we allow everything from the GPL to commercial licenses.

If we were ever to do so, what we'd be allowing is communism. The free 
market would be destroyed and replaced with central control of the 
economy by a few large organizations. Private transactions would cease 
to be; everyone would have to buy from the company store. That is the 
logical endpoint of "intellectual property enforcement": a surveillance 
state and no free market. It starts with saying you can't copy this or 
that. Then with your computer isn't yours any more, software companies 
get to decide how you may or may not use it. Then your car and anything 
else with a microchip in it. Then everything else. Soon you have no 
private property anymore; everything is "licensed, not sold". Welcome to 
Soviet Union 2.0.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

> When someone violates any of these licenses, it is asserting that the 
> violator's wishes for the disposition of that IP are more important than 
> the wishes of the IP's creator.

No, it is stating that the "violator"'s wishes for the disposition of 
their own copy of something are more important than the wishes of the 
copy's manufacturer -- same as for any other manufactured good.

We don't consider that evil, immoral, or selfish if it's any other 
manufactured good, including books or CDs which have copyrights. Why 
should we make a special case for software?

> As a practical matter, to allow these sorts of license violations is to 
> create an IP climate in which every license becomes a de facto public 
> domain license.  This would be a disaster for the free flow of 
> knowledge

I don't know where you get the idea that making it easier for people to 
freely exchange information would be "a disaster for the free flow of 
knowledge".

Read one week of Techdirt. Any week. You'll see how clearly it's the 
opposite (and intuitive) result: increasing the degree to which vendors 
can arbitrarily restrict the free flow of information is a disaster for 
the free flow of knowledge.

Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> writes:

> Well, tough. It's called free speech, and if in my opinion
> intentionally crippling software is evil, I have a right to state that
> opinion.

You're free to buy an uncrippled version of the same software whenever
you want. You may think the crippled version is pure evil, but other
programmers enjoy it. 

I have some sympathy for the /principles/ you and others are advocating
here, but I don't approve of using a small friendly lisp company as a
target.
-- 
  (espen)

Espen Vestre <espen@vestre.net> writes:

> pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon) writes:
>
>> Here the OP has been critized for modifying his key.  We should only
>> critize him if he uses Lispworks for more than five hours.
>
> Why this hairsplitting? What is the subject of this thread, and why?
>
>> He should be entitled to report the big in the DRM limitation
>> algorithm of Lispworks, which is only he did here.  
>
> Then the Subject wording is pretty bad, don't you think?

Yes.  You're right :-)

-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> On 2009-10-09 12:50:45 -0400, Kaz Kylheku <kkylheku@gmail.com> said:
>> So for instance, you don't consider it moral to tell creators that they
>> can't log your keystrokes, or turn your computer into a member of a 
>> thousand
>> element botnet which attacks machines no the net?
> 
> If the license says this ***Don't Use the Product!***
> 
> If you find a license disagreeable for some reason you are free not to 
> enter into it.
> 
> Just because you find some clause of a license objectionable doesn't 
> give you the right to unilaterally redefine the license. Just don't 
> enter into the license.

Now you're repeating yourself, as well as continuing to ignore all of 
the reasoning and evidence to refute your claim that any legally binding 
contract was ever entered into. It's much closer to if someone sells you 
something, then AFTER the sale (NOT as a condition of sale) says "please 
don't do X with it", and you then do X with it.

Here's a hypothetical. I buy a box of chocolates. When I get it home I 
unwrap and open it and find a paper note inside above the chocolates and 
face-up saying "License agreement. By opening this box you agree not to 
eat the square ones. They're all delicious and nontoxic but if you eat 
any square one we can repossess your chocolates and sue you." I eat a 
square one.

1. Did I do something wrong?
2. Should the manufacturer be able to sue me?
3. Is the manufacturer being stupid?
4. Is the manufacturer being evil?

Now let's say I buy a book. The hardback and paperback edition are side 
by side in the store and I get the paperback edition. I get it home and 
open it and out falls a slip of paper which says "License agreement. By 
opening this book you agree not to decipher the last chapter. If you do 
so, we can repossess the book and sue you. The hardback edition is not 
encoded." When I get near the end I find that the ending is 
gobbledygook. Apparently they want me to pay extra for the hardback 
edition to be able to read the ending. But on a hunch I run the ending 
through ROT13 and presto!

1. Did I do something wrong?
2. Should the manufacturer be able to sue me?
3. Is the manufacturer being stupid?
4. Is the manufacturer being evil?

Now let's say it's LW personal edition and I do what gnubeard did.

1. Did I do something wrong?
2. Should the manufacturer be able to sue me?
3. Is the manufacturer being stupid?
4. Is the manufacturer being evil?

If your answers change from one of these to the next, explain why. If 
your answers are not "no, no, yes, yes" for either of the first two, 
explain why. Do note that the second and the third item both involve a 
copyrighted work.

Le Fri, 25 Sep 2009 04:48:02 -0700 (PDT),
gnubeard a =C3=A9crit :

> For those annoyed with the 5-hour timeout in LispWorks Personal
> Edition:

Good troll ! Even if this not your intent... :-D

--=20
Jacques.

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
> IP creators should get to choose how their IP is licensed. Anything from 
> copyleft to restrictive commercial licenses (within the scope and term 
> of copyright law of course).

Within the scope and term of copyright law, you say.

Yet when I point out that the "rights" LW is trying to assert go well 
beyond what Title 17 permits as "exclusive rights", you just give me a 
blank stare. Why?

Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> Pascal Costanza <pc@p-cos.net> writes:
> 
>> Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
>>> Espen Vestre <espen@vestre.net> writes:
>>>
>>>> Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> I don't think that modifying your own property in the comfort and
>>>>> privacy of your own home IS abuse, no matter what its manufacturer's
>>>>> wishes regarding its use.
>>>> But with most licenses (including the one used by Lispworks), the
>>>> ownership of the copy of the software is NOT transferred to the end
>>>> user, so you're not free to do whatever you want to it, just like your
>>>> public library won't let you modify their books to your own wishes "in
>>>> the comfort and privacy of your home".
>>> Exactly, what it is I am forbidden to do with Lispworks' executable?
>>> May I not compute its md5sum?
>>> May I not copy it from /usr/bin/ to /home/pjb/bin/?
>>> May I not cat it to /dev/snd0?
>>> May I not cat it to /usr/bin/brainfuck?
>>> May I not upgrade my OS libraries?
>>> Why couldn't I write my own version of OS libraries and install them on my own computer?
>> That's not what the OP did. He didn't on one day muck around with the
>> OS libraries and replaced some of them randomly with new
>> functionality, and on some other distant day accidentally realized
>> that his copy of LispWorks Personal Edition ran longer than 5 hours,
>> and then again on some third, again distant figured out that those two
>> events may have had a connection.
>>
>> No, he made an educated guess what LispWorks PE may do to implement
>> its limitation, and probed it with the explicit intent to circumvent
>> it. That's very obvious from his original posting.
>>
>> If I change a key that I own to open a lock that I don't own to enter
>> a room that I'm not supposed to enter, did I act "lawful" just because
>> I made modifications _only_ to my own personal key? I am allowed to
>> modify what I possess, no?
>>
>> Stop thinking like a geek, please! ;)
> 
> We have to be precise.  Modifying my own key cannot be unlawful.
> Using it to open a door I'm not allowed to open might be unlawful.
> 
> Here the OP has been critized for modifying his key.  We should only
> critize him if he uses Lispworks for more than five hours.
> 
> He should be entitled to report the big in the DRM limitation
> algorithm of Lispworks, which is only he did here.  We don't have a
> proof that he actually used Lispworks more than five hours, even if it
> is what he said he wanted to do.

Am I allowed to modify my own key in such a way that I _know_ it will 
open that door, even if nobody can prove that I actually entered the 
room behind it?

What kinds of tests am I allowed to perform to convince myself that the 
modified key opens that door? Can I, for example, unlock that door, just 
to quickly lock it afterwards again? Or is that already too much? If 
that is already too much, how do I know that the modified key opens that 
door? Or should I actually not know it after all?

Where do you draw the line?

Am I allowed to give instructions to other people how to create a key 
that can open that door, as soon as I know about a modification of a key 
that opens that door? Am I at least partially responsible, then, if 
others actually enter that room with a key they created based on my 
instructions?


Pascal

-- 
My website: http://p-cos.net
Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org
Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/

On Oct 9, 9:44=A0pm, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
> Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> > Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> writes:
>
> >> Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> >>> Espen Vestre <es...@vestre.net> writes:
>
> >>>> Dave Searles <sear...@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> writes:
>
> >>>>> I don't think that modifying your own property in the comfort and
> >>>>> privacy of your own home IS abuse, no matter what its manufacturer'=
s
> >>>>> wishes regarding its use.
> >>>> But with most licenses (including the one used by Lispworks), the
> >>>> ownership of the copy of the software is NOT transferred to the end
> >>>> user, so you're not free to do whatever you want to it, just like yo=
ur
> >>>> public library won't let you modify their books to your own wishes "=
in
> >>>> the comfort and privacy of your home".
> >>> Exactly, what it is I am forbidden to do with Lispworks' executable?
> >>> May I not compute its md5sum?
> >>> May I not copy it from /usr/bin/ to /home/pjb/bin/?
> >>> May I not cat it to /dev/snd0?
> >>> May I not cat it to /usr/bin/brainfuck?
> >>> May I not upgrade my OS libraries?
> >>> Why couldn't I write my own version of OS libraries and install them =
on my own computer?
> >> That's not what the OP did. He didn't on one day muck around with the
> >> OS libraries and replaced some of them randomly with new
> >> functionality, and on some other distant day accidentally realized
> >> that his copy of LispWorks Personal Edition ran longer than 5 hours,
> >> and then again on some third, again distant figured out that those two
> >> events may have had a connection.
>
> >> No, he made an educated guess what LispWorks PE may do to implement
> >> its limitation, and probed it with the explicit intent to circumvent
> >> it. That's very obvious from his original posting.
>
> >> If I change a key that I own to open a lock that I don't own to enter
> >> a room that I'm not supposed to enter, did I act "lawful" just because
> >> I made modifications _only_ to my own personal key? I am allowed to
> >> modify what I possess, no?
>
> >> Stop thinking like a geek, please! ;)
>
> > We have to be precise. =A0Modifying my own key cannot be unlawful.
> > Using it to open a door I'm not allowed to open might be unlawful.
>
> > Here the OP has been critized for modifying his key. =A0We should only
> > critize him if he uses Lispworks for more than five hours.
>
> > He should be entitled to report the big in the DRM limitation
> > algorithm of Lispworks, which is only he did here. =A0We don't have a
> > proof that he actually used Lispworks more than five hours, even if it
> > is what he said he wanted to do.
>
> Am I allowed to modify my own key in such a way that I _know_ it will
> open that door, even if nobody can prove that I actually entered the
> room behind it?

Yes - if it is yours, then you can do whatever you want to it.

> What kinds of tests am I allowed to perform to convince myself that the
> modified key opens that door?

Only those which don't break the law.

> Can I, for example, unlock that door, just
> to quickly lock it afterwards again? Or is that already too much? If
> that is already too much, how do I know that the modified key opens that
> door? Or should I actually not know it after all?

It is too much, from your premise that opening the door is illegal.
You do not have the right to know if your key opens the door or not;
if you cannot determine it using legal means, then you cannot know it.

> Where do you draw the line?

Where your private property ends.

> Am I allowed to give instructions to other people how to create a key
> that can open that door, as soon as I know about a modification of a key
> that opens that door?

In my opinion, you should always be allowed to. Some legislators
believe otherwise, and have made giving certain kinds of information
be a crime. I think this is a huge violation of the basic right of
free speech.

> Am I at least partially responsible, then, if
> others actually enter that room with a key they created based on my
> instructions?

Again in my opinion, no one should *ever* be held even partially
responsible for someone else's actions - or we would have the
absurdity that one is less responsible for something if somebody told
him how to do it. Also in these case many legislators have ruled
differently.

Alessio

What pages in the book at 
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm
support you claim that there is not a market failure when a free market 
tries to deal with goods that are non-rivalrous and non-excludable?

-- 
--Tim Smith

[BAD ANALOGY LIMIT EXCEEDED]

* Pascal Costanza <7j9i4eF35035bU1@mid.individual.net> :
Wrote on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:44:13 +0200:
| Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
|>> If I change a key that I own to open a lock that I don't own to enter
|>> a room that I'm not supposed to enter, did I act "lawful" just because
|>> I made modifications _only_ to my own personal key? I am allowed to
|>> modify what I possess, no?
|>>
|>> Stop thinking like a geek, please! ;)
|>
|> We have to be precise.  Modifying my own key cannot be unlawful.
|> Using it to open a door I'm not allowed to open might be unlawful.

[..]

| Am I allowed to give instructions to other people how to create a key
| that can open that door, as soon as I know about a modification of a
| key that opens that door? Am I at least partially responsible, then,
| if others actually enter that room with a key they created based on my
| instructions?


I think the limits of the analogy are being stretched too much.  It is
easy to get lost in the details of the model you are creating in order
to study some phenomenon. Any number of models can produce any number of
results.[1]

To illustrate what I mean, let me use an analogy (from Dave Barry, not
inventing my own, to break the metacircularity)

	What happens if a big asteroid hits Earth?  Judging from
	realistic simulations involving a sledge hammer and a common
	laboratory frog, we can assume it will be pretty bad.

	-- Dave	Barry

--
Madhu

[1] I assume you don't have a political or a
    influence-consumer-behaviour goal in using a model to produce
    "scientific sounding" results which also appeal directly to the
    audience (like the bulk of modern funded research)

Tim Smith wrote:
> What pages in the book at 
> http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm
> support you claim that there is not a market failure when a free market 
> tries to deal with goods that are non-rivalrous and non-excludable?

All of them.

Espen Vestre wrote:
> Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> writes:
> 
>> Well, tough. It's called free speech, and if in my opinion
>> intentionally crippling software is evil, I have a right to state that
>> opinion.
> 
> You're free to buy an uncrippled version of the same software whenever
> you want.

Or to not do so. That's called freedom of transaction. I'm also free to 
modify my private property in almost any way I choose. That's called 
property rights. REAL property rights. Oh, and I'm free to talk about 
it. That's called the First Amendment.

> I have some sympathy for the /principles/ you and others are advocating
> here, but I don't approve of using a small friendly lisp company as a
> target.

I don't consider any company charging a 150,000% markup (no that is not 
a typo, read on for the math) on something "friendly". Assuming 
generously a one-penny average marginal cost per download and the 
previously stated $1500 price tag -- that's 0.01 dollar expenses, 
$1500.00 revenue, and therefore $1499.99 profit per transaction. That 
isn't "a small friendly lisp company", it's highway robbery. In any 
other business besides software, music, DVDs, illegal drugs, extortion, 
and prostitution, you're happy to be making 5% margins on each 
transaction. Even big pharma gets a few hundred percent margins thanks 
to its big evil patent monopolies. Yet the mob, the entertainment 
industry, and the software industry get to charge much higher margins, 
and we can't seem to get the latter two on tax evasion.

Espen Vestre wrote:
> Kaz Kylheku <kkylheku@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> Maybe in the demented minds of some drunken lawyers! But in fact, you do own
>> the copy. You don't own the copyright: the right to make and redistribute other
>> copies.
> 
> Ok, I realise that this might be the current juridical understanding (at
> least in parts of the world?).

It's also bloody common sense. You only lease or rent something that's 
scarce, i.e. while you have it no-one else can have it and duplicating 
it is costly. A printed book, say, or a car. There's no justification 
for treating a transaction as a loan otherwise. There's also no 
justification for allowing the manufacturer of any good to apply 
post-sale terms and conditions of use; either the transaction is 
structured as a sale (or gift) and the recipient owns something 
outright, OR the transaction is structured as a rental/lease, with 
up-front paperwork and agreement to that effect prior to transfer of the 
object. Why should the companies of one SINGLE industry get to have 
their cake and eat it too? Nobody can point to any legislation that 
actually makes it so (copyright certainly doesn't) nor has anybody yet 
even attempted to justify giving that one industry such special treatment.

>>> so you're not free to do whatever you want to it, just like your
>> In fact you are.
> 
> No, you're not.

Yes, you are.

>> Nice try, genius. 
> 
> Why the offensive tone?

Because you're being ridiculous and multiple impacts of the Cloobat(tm) 
with your skull have not sufficed to change that?

>> If I get my own book, I can make margin notes in it, tear out pages,
>> black out or highlight passages, etc.
> 
> But you can't necessarily read it in front of a public audience...

How is that relevant? Nobody is claiming that Title 17 doesn't make 
distribution and public performance exclusive rights. We're pointing out 
that it doesn't make pretty much anything ELSE exclusive rights, and 
that gnubeard has neither redistributed nor publicly performed (whatever 
that would mean in this case) Lispworks.

Alessio Stalla wrote:
> On Oct 9, 9:44 pm, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
>> Where do you draw the line?
> 
> Where your private property ends.

And in this instance, the "door" is in gnubeard's own property -- his 
personal copy of LW.

> Again in my opinion, no one should *ever* be held even partially
> responsible for someone else's actions - or we would have the
> absurdity that one is less responsible for something if somebody told
> him how to do it. Also in these case many legislators have ruled
> differently.

The most ludicrous thing being that since 1999 or so, the US has made it 
illegal to tell someone how to break Blu-Ray copy protection but legal 
to tell them how to blow up the fucking Empire State Building with boom 
clay. The Anarchist's Cookbook is protected speech while I am 
technically in violation for writing "09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 
c5 63 56 88 c0" in this usenet post.

Something is rotten in the District of Columbia.

Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com>
writes:

> On 2009-10-08 18:26:48 -0400, Evan I <tali713@nospam.yahoo.evar.com> said:
>
>>  Unless you want to claim that any astute user of a
>> computer reverse engineers all their software because they guess and
>> confirm how some small part of it works.
>
> Guessing, no. Confirming, yes. Sytematic confirmation of an hypothesis
> of how something operates is the very definition of reverse
> engineering.

Thank you for the clarification, am now considering new profession.

-- tali713

In article <hapavk$es$1@news.eternal-september.org>,
 Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> wrote:

> Assuming 
> generously a one-penny average marginal cost per download 

That is neither generous nor realistic.  It assumes that the cost of 
developing the software and maintaining the servers when not in active 
use is zero.  But those costs are clearly non-zero, and they have to be 
recouped somehow if the business is to make even the 5% profit margin 
you so "generously" allow them.  How do you propose they do that?

rg

Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> writes:

> Espen Vestre wrote:
>> Dave Searles <searles@hoombah.nurt.bt.uk> writes:
>>
>>> Well, tough. It's called free speech, and if in my opinion
>>> intentionally crippling software is evil, I have a right to state that
>>> opinion.
>>
>> You're free to buy an uncrippled version of the same software whenever
>> you want.
>
> Or to not do so. That's called freedom of transaction. I'm also free
> to modify my private property in almost any way I choose. That's
> called property rights. REAL property rights. Oh, and I'm free to talk
> about it. That's called the First Amendment.
>
>> I have some sympathy for the /principles/ you and others are advocating
>> here, but I don't approve of using a small friendly lisp company as a
>> target.
>
> I don't consider any company charging a 150,000% markup (no that is
> not a typo, read on for the math) on something "friendly". Assuming
> generously a one-penny average marginal cost per download and the
> previously stated $1500 price tag -- that's 0.01 dollar expenses,
> $1500.00 revenue, and therefore $1499.99 profit per transaction. That
> isn't "a small friendly lisp company", it's highway robbery. In any
> other business besides software, music, DVDs, illegal drugs,
> extortion, and prostitution, you're happy to be making 5% margins on
> each transaction. Even big pharma gets a few hundred percent margins
> thanks to its big evil patent monopolies. Yet the mob, the
> entertainment industry, and the software industry get to charge much
> higher margins, and we can't seem to get the latter two on tax
> evasion.


I really had no intention of continuing on this thread, but I believe
you are missing the detail whre paying them for the software helps them
to eat and continue working on making it better.  It them same vein as
you don't really own, you just license(not particularly in support of
the model but it's not my call) you also aren't really paying for the
software so much as you are paying for continued developement and
support .  Expecially when dealing with a small group of programmers.
Just my two cents.

For the record: I advocate buying software if you think it is worth
doing so, and using free, as in beer (or otherwise), software if you
don't feel the cost of the non-free software is worth it.  But everyone
has the right to make their own decisions, and be called on them.

-- tali713 

Ron Garret <rNOSPAMon@flownet.com> writes:

> That is neither generous nor realistic.  It assumes that the cost of 
> developing the software and maintaining the servers when not in active 
> use is zero.  

Thank you for pointing that out. 
-- 
  (espen)

Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com>
writes:

> On 2009-10-09 12:50:45 -0400, Kaz Kylheku <kkylheku@gmail.com> said:
>
>> So for instance, you don't consider it moral to tell creators that they
>> can't log your keystrokes, or turn your computer into a member of a thousand
>> element botnet which attacks machines no the net?
>
> If the license says this ***Don't Use the Product!***
>
>
> If you find a license disagreeable for some reason you are free not to
> enter into it.
>
> Just because you find some clause of a license objectionable doesn't
> give you the right to unilaterally redefine the license. Just don't
> enter into the license.

There is one little detail that seems to be missed in this discussion.
There is nothing stopping the creators from including a clause of the
form...  “A, B, C etc... are limitations with LispWorks Personal Edition;
any circumvention of these limitations is a violation of this license.”

Now since this is not included, one is left wondering, If this were the
intent, then why wasn't such a phrase included?

The only conclusion that I can draw is that it was not the intent.  Or
the license has a loophole no lawyer would have allowed, and the authors
should have hired one.

But as reading the license will demonstrate, this is probably not the
case; as in clause two they manage to clearly close issues involving
time limited evaluation copies.  Since it would only take adding a few
words to this clause, “or avoiding limitations in Personal Edition”, to
achieve the intent that has been implied exists, we are again left
wondering.  Why not?

Further the readme gives clear intent of these limitations, which must
be assessed before deciding whether said intent has been violated.

To paraphrase.  Just because you believe some clause of a license to
have an intent doesn't give you the right to unilaterally redefine the
license.  Unless of course you authored the license in which case, all
future licenses can be redefined.


-- tali713

Relevant Docs Below

1.1.* from the README


Copyright (c) 2008 by LispWorks Ltd. All Rights Reserved. 

1 Introduction

1.1 LispWorks Editions
LispWorks is available in three product editions on the Mac OS X,
Windows, Linux and FreeBSD platforms.

The main differences between the editions are outlined below. Further
information about the LispWorks Editions can be found at

  www.lispworks.com/products 

Note: on Solaris and HP-UX LispWorks is licensed differently to other
platforms, as detailed in LispWorks for UNIX.

1.1.1 Personal Edition
LispWorks Personal Edition allows you to explore a fully enabled Common
Lisp programming environment and to develop small- to medium-scale
programs for personal and academic use. It includes:

* Native graphical IDE
* Full Common Lisp compiler
* COM/Automation API on Microsoft Windows

LispWorks Personal Edition has several limitations designed to prevent
commercial exploitation of this free product. These are:

* A heap size limit
* A time limit of 5 hours for each session.
* The functions save-image, deliver, and load-all-patches are not
  available.
* Initialization files are not available.
* Professional and Enterprise Edition module loading is not included.

LispWorks 5.1 Personal Edition has no license fee. Download it from

  www.lispworks.com/downloads

1.1.2 Professional Edition
LispWorks 5.1 Professional Edition includes:

* Fully supported commercial product
* Delivery of commercial end-user applications and libraries
* CLIM 2.0 on X11/Motif and Windows
* 30-day free "Getting Started" technical support

1.1.3 Enterprise Edition
LispWorks 5.1 Enterprise Edition provides further support for the
software needs of the modern enterprise, including:
* All the features of the Professional Edition
* Database access through the Common SQL interface
* Portable distributed computing through CORBA
* Expert systems programming through KnowledgeWorks and embedded Prolog
  compiler



LispWorks¨ Software License Agreement

Personal Edition

IMPORTANT: IN ORDER TO INSTALL THIS SOFTWARE, YOU MUST
FIRST READ THE FOLLOWING TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND THEN
CLICK THE "CONTINUE" BUTTON. BY CLICKING ON THE "AGREE"
BUTTON THAT FOLLOWS, YOU ARE EXPRESSLY AGREEING TO BE
BOUND BY ALL OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS
AGREEMENT.  IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ALL OF THE TERMS AND
CONDITIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT, CLICK ON THE "DISAGREE"
BUTTON AND QUIT THE INSTALLER. YOU MAY THEN RETURN THE
SOFTWARE TO THE VENDOR FOR A REFUND.

1. License Grant.  This agreement ("Agreement") sets out
the terms and conditions on which LispWorks Ltd ("the
Vendor") grants to you, the Customer ("you") a
non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the
Vendor's LispWorks Personal Edition software product and
related documentation ("Software") solely for the
purpose of developing and testing applications written
in the Lisp programming language.

2. Other Versions and Products. You acknowledge that the
media on which the Software is supplied may contain
multiple versions of the Software as well as the
Vendor's other products, including, but not limited to,
the Professional Edition and Enterprise Edition of the
Software. You agree that, unless you have a time limited
license for the purposes of evaluating the Software
prior to purchase ("Evaluation License"), you are
licensed to use only the version or product for which
you have paid. If you have an Evaluation License your
license will terminate immediately on the termination of
the time-limited evaluation license key issued to you
and in any event not later than the expiration of one
month from the date when your evaluation license was
issued. You agree not to use the Software after this
period for any purpose without obtaining a license from
the Vendor. If you order and pay for licenses for
another version or for an optional or additional
product, then such version or product shall become
licensed Software under this Agreement, and your use of
it shall be subject to the terms and conditions of this
Agreement.

3. Non-Commercial Use Only. You may only use the
Software for not-for-profit purposes including teaching
and research and personal use. You may also use the
Software for evaluation purposes. Use of the Software
for the development of any commercial software product
is strictly prohibited under the terms of this Agreement
and such use shall serve to automatically terminate the
license granted hereunder.

4. Installation. This license allows a single user to
use a single "Installation" of the Software at any one
time. For the purposes of this Agreement, an
"Installation" means a single deployment of the Software
whether on a physical computer or on a virtual machine
(being a single instance of an operating system running
on physical hardware where such hardware may also
support other operating systems each of which operates
as a virtual computer).

5. Copying, Modification and Distribution. You may not
copy the Software except as necessary to exercise your
rights under this Agreement and to make one (1) copy of
the Software in machine readable form for back-up or
archival purposes only. You may not translate, reverse
engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify or create
derivative works based on the materials, except as
expressly permitted by the law of this Agreement.  You
may modify the Software and/or merge it into another
program solely for your use in accordance with this
Agreement.  Any portion of the Software merged into
another program will continue to be subject to the terms
and conditions of this Agreement.  Except for the
distribution of runtime versions of the software
("Runtimes") in accordance with the following paragraph,
this license does not permit the distribution of the
Software, or any part thereof, to any third party.

6. Distribution of Runtimes. You may not copy or
distribute any Runtimes.

7. Purchase Orders. You agree to pay the appropriate
license fees to the Vendor within thirty (30) days of
the invoice date. Acceptance of the Software shall be
deemed to occur on the tenth day after shipment. In no
event shall the terms of any purchase order become
binding on the Vendor even if an acknowledgment copy is
signed by the Vendor.

8. Ownership; Confidentiality. You acknowledge and agree
that the Software contains the confidential and
proprietary information of the Vendor and its licensors
and is provided solely under the terms and conditions of
this Agreement.  All right, title and interest in and to
the Software, including, but not limited to, patent
copyright, trade secret, trademark and all other
intellectual property rights are and shall remain in the
Vendor or its licensor. You shall not remove any product
identification, copyright notices, or other legends set
forth on the Software and shall reproduce all such
notices on any copies.  You shall have no right in the
Vendor's or its third party licensors' trademarks in
connection with the Software, or with its promotion or
publication, without the Vendor's prior written
approval.

9. Limited Warranty. The Vendor warrants for a period of
thirty (30) days from the date of original delivery that
(a) the Software will perform substantially in
accordance with the accompanying user documentation when
used as described therein; and (b) that the media
containing the Software will not prove defective under
normal use.  The Vendor does not warrant that the
Software will be error free or that the Software will
meet your requirements.  The Vendor's sole
responsibility under this warranty will be, at its
option, (1) to replace at no additional charge any
defective media containing the Software that are
returned within the thirty (30) day warranty period or
(2) to use reasonable efforts to correct errors that are
reported to the Vendor within the foregoing warranty
period or (3) to refund to you license fees paid for use
of the Software.
THE REMEDIES SET FORTH IN THIS SECTION 9 ARE YOUR SOLE
AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDIES AT LAW OR IN EQUITY FOR BREACH OF
WARRANTY. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE
VENDOR DISCLAIMS ALL OTHER WARRANTIES OR
REPRESENTATIONS, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF QUALITY AND
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

10. Limitation of Liability. EXCEPT IN RESPECT OF
PERSONAL INJURY OR DEATH CAUSED BY THE NEGLIGENCE OF
LISPWORKS LTD OR ANY OTHER LIABILITY WHICH MAY NOT BE
EXCLUDED BY LAW IN NO EVENT SHALL THE VENDOR OR ITS
LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, LOSS OF
BUSINESS, LOST SAVINGS LOSS OF DATA OR ANY DIRECT OR
INDIRECT SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
EVEN IF THE VENDOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY
OF SUCH DAMAGES IN ADVANCE.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
VENDOR'S LIABILITY EXCEED THE AMOUNT OF LICENSE FEES
PAID BY YOU FOR USE OF THE SOFTWARE. NOTHING IN THIS
AGREEMENT LIMITS LIABILITY FOR FRAUDULENT
MISREPRESENTATION.

11. US Government Restricted Rights. This Software is a
commercial computer software program developed at
private expense and is provided with restricted rights.
The Software provided herein may not be used,
reproduced, or disclosed by the Government except as set
forth in this EULA and as provided in DFARS
227.7202-1(a), 227.7202-3(a) (1995), FAR
12.212(a)(1995), FAR 52.227-19, and/or FAR 52.227-14 Alt
III, as applicable.  Manufacturer: LispWorks Ltd, St
John's Innovation Centre, Cowley Road, Cambridge CB4
0WS, UK. You agree to include this Notice in any
software application, including any associated
documentation, you distribute using this Software, in
whole or in part.  Rights reserved under the copyright
laws of the United States.

12. Statutory Rights. This license gives you specific
legal rights and you may also have other rights that
vary from country to country. Some jurisdictions do not
allow the exclusion of implied warranties, or certain
kinds of limitations or exclusions of liability, so the
above limitations and exclusions may not apply to you.
Other jurisdictions allow limitations and exclusions
subject to certain conditions. In such a case the above
limitations and exclusions shall apply to the fullest
extent permitted by the laws of such applicable
jurisdictions. If any part of the above limitations or
exclusions is held to be void or unenforceable, such
part shall be deemed to be deleted from this Agreement
and the remainder of the limitation or exclusion shall
continue in full force and effect. Any rights that you
may have as a consumer (that is, a purchaser for private
as opposed to business, academic or government use) are
not affected.

13. Export Control. You may not export or re-export the
Software or any underlying information or technology
except in full compliance with all applicable laws and
regulations of all applicable countries.

14. Governing Law. This Agreement shall be construed in
accordance with the laws of England and the parties
submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the English
courts.

15. Non-Assignment; Entire Agreement. Except as in
accordance with this Agreement, you shall not sell,
assign, sublicense or otherwise transfer the Software
without the Vendor's prior written consent. Any such
attempted transfer shall be void.  This Agreement
constitutes the entire agreement between the parties and
supersedes all other communications between the parties
relating to the subject matter hereof.  This Agreement
may only be modified by a writing signed by the Vendor.

16. Termination. The Vendor may terminate this Agreement
if you fail to comply with any of the terms and
conditions of this Agreement.  Upon termination, you
shall cease using the Software and shall destroy or
return to the Vendor all copies of the Software.

Copyright © 2008 LispWorks Ltd.  All rights reserved.
LISPWORKS is a registered trademark of LispWorks Ltd.


 -----

Madhu wrote:
> [BAD ANALOGY LIMIT EXCEEDED]
> 
> * Pascal Costanza <7j9i4eF35035bU1@mid.individual.net> :
> Wrote on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 21:44:13 +0200:
> | Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> |>> If I change a key that I own to open a lock that I don't own to enter
> |>> a room that I'm not supposed to enter, did I act "lawful" just because
> |>> I made modifications _only_ to my own personal key? I am allowed to
> |>> modify what I possess, no?
> |>>
> |>> Stop thinking like a geek, please! ;)
> |>
> |> We have to be precise.  Modifying my own key cannot be unlawful.
> |> Using it to open a door I'm not allowed to open might be unlawful.
> 
> [..]
> 
> | Am I allowed to give instructions to other people how to create a key
> | that can open that door, as soon as I know about a modification of a
> | key that opens that door? Am I at least partially responsible, then,
> | if others actually enter that room with a key they created based on my
> | instructions?
> 
> 
> I think the limits of the analogy are being stretched too much. 

Well, I don't think so.


Pascal

-- 
My website: http://p-cos.net
Common Lisp Document Repository: http://cdr.eurolisp.org
Closer to MOP & ContextL: http://common-lisp.net/project/closer/

On 2009-10-10 06:49:38 -0400, Evan I <tali713@nospam.yahoo.evar.com> said:

> There is one little detail that seems to be missed in this discussion.
> There is nothing stopping the creators from including a clause of the
> form...  “A, B, C etc... are limitations with LispWorks Personal Edition;
> any circumvention of these limitations is a violation of this license.”

It does. You're just not reading the lawyer-speak carefully:

"You may not translate, reverse
engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify or create
derivative works based on the materials, except as
expressly permitted by the law of this Agreement."

Circumvent is a proper subset of "translate, reverse
engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify or create
derivative works." You can't circumvent a limitation without reverse 
engineering how it works.

-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
>On 2009-10-10 06:49:38 -0400, Evan I <tali713@nospam.yahoo.evar.com> said:
>
>> There is one little detail that seems to be missed in this discussion.
>> There is nothing stopping the creators from including a clause of the
>> form...  “A, B, C etc... are limitations with LispWorks Personal Edition;
>> any circumvention of these limitations is a violation of this license.”
>
>It does. You're just not reading the lawyer-speak carefully:
>
>"You may not translate, reverse
>engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify or create
>derivative works based on the materials, except as
>expressly permitted by the law of this Agreement."
>
>Circumvent is a proper subset of "translate, reverse
>engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify or create
>derivative works." You can't circumvent a limitation without reverse 
>engineering how it works.

Do the licence terms really matter ? 

I would have thought that the OP's actions would be prohibited by the
DMCA.

On 2009-10-10 10:02:20 -0400, Robert Swindells <rjs@fdy2.demon.co.uk> said:

> Do the licence terms really matter ?
> 
> I would have thought that the OP's actions would be prohibited by the
> DMCA.

True enough in the US, but LispWorks is a UK company with customers in 
Europe (and, I imagine, other world markets as well) so in 
jurisdictions where the DMCA is not the law these license terms may 
well be necessary to prevent circumvention, reverse engineering, etc.


-- 
Raffael Cavallaro

On 2009-10-10, Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com> wrote:
> On 2009-10-10 06:49:38 -0400, Evan I <tali713@nospam.yahoo.evar.com> said:
>
>> There is one little detail that seems to be missed in this discussion.
>> There is nothing stopping the creators from including a clause of the
>> form...  ???A, B, C etc... are limitations with LispWorks Personal Edition;
>> any circumvention of these limitations is a violation of this license.???
>
> It does. You're just not reading the lawyer-speak carefully:

I never read this garbage. The concept of a license is completely
meaningless to me.

Proprietary software is usually not redistributable.

If there is no permission to redistribute, there is no license.

License means a kind of permission!

A piece of propritary, non-redistributabl software just needs
a notice like this:

  Copyright 2009 Software Corporation
  All Rights Reserved

The ``All Rights Reserved'' part means that the copyright holder
has not waived any of their rights. This means you can't copy
the work.

Other than that, there might be some text about warranties:
the software can set your computer on fire, but they don't
owe you a penny more than the price of the software.

And that's the end of it.

A license is necessary in the situationw hen not All Rights are Reserved.  In
that case, permission is being given. That's what a license is:
the permission to do something.  The purpose of a license accompanying a
copyrighted work is to spell out the ways in which the rights are not reserved. 
Those rights have to do with attributino, distribution and making of derived
works.

You do not require a license (i.e permission) to run a program,
look at the code, or any of those things.

Licensing simply does not enter into the transaction of
purchasing a copyrighted work.

> "You may not translate, reverse
> engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify or create
> derivative works based on the materials, except as
> expressly permitted by the law of this Agreement."

Text like the above is the /wishful/ spewage of a psychotic mind.
It is not connected to anything that can be called reality.

You do not require anyone's permission to do any kind of
computing you want.

On 2009-10-10, Evan I <tali713@nospam.yahoo.evar.com> wrote:
> Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro@pas.espam.s.il.vous.plait.mac.com>
> writes:
>
>> On 2009-10-09 12:50:45 -0400, Kaz Kylheku <kkylheku@gmail.com> said:
>>
>>> So for instance, you don't consider it moral to tell creators that they
>>> can't log your keystrokes, or turn your computer into a member of a thousand
>>> element botnet which attacks machines no the net?
>>
>> If the license says this ***Don't Use the Product!***
>>
>>
>> If you find a license disagreeable for some reason you are free not to
>> enter into it.
>>
>> Just because you find some clause of a license objectionable doesn't
>> give you the right to unilaterally redefine the license. Just don't
>> enter into the license.
>
> There is one little detail that seems to be missed in this discussion.
> There is nothing stopping the creators from including a clause of the
> form...  ???A, B, C etc... are limitations with LispWorks Personal Edition;
> any circumvention of these limitations is a violation of this license.???

There is no violation of anything if you do not redistribute the software.

The license text is a bunch of demented spewage that you can ignore.

> Now since this is not included, one is left wondering, If this were the
> intent, then why wasn't such a phrase included?

Because LispWorks is a development tool, its principal value lies in being
able to develop and ship software.

The trial version of the software ships with a limitation, the circumvenion
of which results in a derived work.

Under copyright law, you cannot redistribute this derived work.

This is what protects the principal value of the software. In order to develop
and ship software using LW, you cannot use the modified version where the time
limit has been circumvented.

Ther are other kinds of programs out there which come in the form of
a crippled demo version (freely downloadable) or some full version
to which you can upgrade.

Most of that software does not have a principal value connected
to its redistribution (like the run-time of a development tool).
For instance shareware games, utilities editors, and the like.

Such software is not protected in any way.

You can modify it to produce the full version, if you are so inclined.

You do not require anyone's permission to do whatever computing you want to do
on your own machine. Computing is an extension of thinking.

Reverse-engineering is a thoughtcrime (to borrow a fitting Nineteen Eighty-Four
term).

> But as reading the license will demonstrate, this is probably not the
> case; as in clause two they manage to clearly close issues involving
> time limited evaluation copies.  Since it would only take adding a few
> words to this clause, ???or avoiding limitations in Personal Edition???, to
> achieve the intent that has been implied exists, we are again left
> wondering.  Why not?

Probably because they don't give a damn if anyone does this!

If someone needs more than five hours to develop someting with LispWorks, who
gives a damn, if that developer eventually ships something for which he buys
the full version?

> To paraphrase.  Just because you believe some clause of a license to
> have an intent doesn't give you the right to unilaterally redefine the
> license.  Unless of course you authored the license in which case, all
> future licenses can be redefined.

That is wrong. The license itself is a copyrighted work. You don't have
a right to modify the license and then redistribute it.

On 2009-10-10, Robert Swindells <rjs@fdy2.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Raffael Cavallaro wrote:
>>On 2009-10-10 06:49:38 -0400, Evan I <tali713@nospam.yahoo.evar.com> said:
>>
>>> There is one little detail that seems to be missed in this discussion.
>>> There is nothing stopping the creators from including a clause of the
>>> form...  ???A, B, C etc... are limitations with LispWorks Personal Edition;
>>> any circumvention of these limitations is a violation of this license.???
>>
>>It does. You're just not reading the lawyer-speak carefully:
>>
>>"You may not translate, reverse
>>engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify or create
>>derivative works based on the materials, except as
>>expressly permitted by the law of this Agreement."
>>
>>Circumvent is a proper subset of "translate, reverse
>>engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify or create
>>derivative works." You can't circumvent a limitation without reverse 
>>engineering how it works.
>
> Do the licence terms really matter ? 

Licenses only apply to redistribution. A license is a permissino,
and you don't need permission to do anything you want with
a copyrighted work that you have properly obtained.

> I would have thought that the OP's actions would be prohibited by the
> DMCA.

Only to those who live in your fucked up country.

So what?

In some other fucked up country, if you're a married woman, your husband owns
you.  If he dies, you stop being a person.

He can divorce you at the drop of a hat, but if you want to divorce
you need a licen^H^H^H^H^H^H^H permission from the husband.

The point is, don't use your fucked up country's laws in discussions
about what is right.

Kaz Kylheku <kkylheku@gmail.com> writes:

>
> Probably because they don't give a damn if anyone does this!
>
> If someone needs more than five hours to develop someting with LispWorks, who
> gives a damn, if that developer eventually ships something for which he buys
> the full version?
>
>> To paraphrase.  Just because you believe some clause of a license to
>> have an intent doesn't give you the right to unilaterally redefine the
>> license.  Unless of course you authored the license in which case, all
>> future licenses can be redefined.
>
> That is wrong. The license itself is a copyrighted work. You don't have
> a right to modify the license and then redistribute it.

Which is why it was not modified in any way when I included it in my
post, not even the line breaks.  But for the record an author of any
work ALWAYS has the right to create a new version if they feel their
prior is lacking.  This does not alter the prior, merely the new work.

Whether you agree with license or not, whether, the morality of the act
is just or not, whether it is by the laws of your county or mine; the
one truth remains...

A clause this ambiguous and easy to interpret from different readings is
NOT going to end up being binding.  It is either a) a poorly worded
license with ambiguous intent or b) a well worded license that clearly
and explicitly prohibits (binding under your local laws or not) what it
intends to and leaves gray areas where it intends to.

Judging on the entirety of the license, I believe the latter to be the
case, others believe the former.  My belief is based on the notion that
non-ambiguous wording exists elsewhere in the license.  And is further
demonstrated by how easy it would be to have clearly stated...

"NO CIRCUMVENTION OF ANY LIMITATIONS IN THIS SOFTWARE ARE ALLOWED"

Notice the complete and utter lack of ambiguity.  If this can not be
legally binding, then neither can implying it.  This of course differs
depending on local law.

I refuse to address issues of morality in the same breath as issues of
law.  One informs the other and if you don't know which way that
relationship works, there is little hope.
             
Ideally a license should be ethically founded, unambiguous to lawyer and
layman, and legally binding.  The three are not equivalent and only the
latter two matter to a court.

-- tali713