[PD] [OT] Law (was Re: Percolate)

[Chris McCormick]

On Thu, Mar 08, 2007 at 03:05:53PM +0100, Yves Degoyon wrote:
> >It would be good to find out what the legal status of code
> >that is illegally licensed. We've had this issue before with the
> >not-for-military-use clause that Yves added to his software, rendering
> >it technically illegal. A lawyer could tell us if it's a) in legal limbo
> >land where nobody is legally allowed to use it b) defaults to public
> >domain c) something else weird.
> >
> in fact, i'm glad of considering my software 'illegal'
> when you see what the 'law' ( mainly american )
> and the OMC are able to achieve with tricks.

Yep, I understand and completely sympathise with this viewpoint. In my
country (not the USA) there are some really really stupid and petty
laws, and I know that some people have to break them on a weekly or
daily basis just to live normally.

Just the other day the police department started a new television campaign
called "Eyes on the street" who's logo is a giant pixellated eye. The
advert says that there are people all around us, watching all the time
to see if anything is wrong. They also have advertisements that have a
cop pointing his finger at the camera saying "Watch out. If you do
something wrong we will get you." At my university I saw one of these
cars with a giant pixellated eye on the side, and I couldn't help
laughing out loud.

I don't even know where to start protesting this; I can't even make
a joke about it because it's so self parodying and ridiculous. Seems
like everyone just writes a complaint in their blog instead of actually
doing something.

Oh well. Time to move to Europe or Asia I guess.

Best,

Chris.

-------------------
chris at mccormick.cx
http://mccormick.cx