[LAU] CENSORING public archives (Was: Problem post)

[Rob]

On Tuesday 02 February 2010 01:08 pm, fons at kokkinizita.net wrote:
> Some details of the original post could be considered
> confidential (even if of little value). But not the
> name of 'the other company'.

If divulging the use of winelib to link to a Windows copy protection blob 
(duh) built against a specific, obsolete version of the Linux kernel is 
enough for Pace to threaten a lawsuit, I'm thinking they were looking for a 
reason to end their relationship with Muse.  It sucks to be Muse if that's 
the case, but even if they're legally in the right, Pace are being jerks 
about it.  And now the entire world knows it, the world is not subject to 
any NDAs, and if Pace starts sending threatening letters to all the 
different mailing list archives out there, people are going to start 
blogging about it and Pace will look like bigger jerks than SCO.

Considering how thoroughly the Windows version of Pace iLok appears (from a 
quick Google search) to have been expunged from cracked software, and how 
openly distributed that cracked software appears to be, I think they have 
better uses for their legal budget while they still have clients.

Also, I don't know what it looks like in the public archives, but I 
received two verbatim copies of Ost's original post, dated one minute 
apart.  Even if that's just a glitch on my end, there are a number of posts 
subsequent to Ost's which quote Ost's entire post verbatim, each of them 
likely available in all the public archives.  I don't think Pace is really 
trying to suppress knowledge of the use of DLLs in their implementation, 
and they're certainly not trying to distance themselves from iLok (look at 
their home page).  It's hard for me to believe that a company with a 
technical bent could think a person can take back a public post over 3 
years later and have that post disappear from all the places it ends up on 
the Internet.  So this looks like Pace trying to get out of a business 
relationship by force.  (This is actually the most flattering speculation I 
can come up with.  I like to give people the benefit of the doubt.)

And now the other proprietary software vendors who may be reading this list 
or finding this whole sad affair while researching iLok will know that Pace 
is that kind of company.

As for the statement that the post's continued existence will keep other 
proprietary software vendors from sharing their knowledge on Linux mailing 
lists: if they can't do so without coming back 3 years later in a legal 
tizzy, perhaps they shouldn't.  If they can, there's no need to worry.

Rob