Ion3 removal (Re: Ion3 license violation)

[Paul Schmehl]

--On Thursday, December 13, 2007 10:17:16 +0000 Tuomo Valkonen 
<tuomov at iki.fi> wrote:

> On 2007-12-13, Mark Linimon <linimon at lonesome.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Dec 13, 2007 at 08:30:06AM +0000, Tuomo Valkonen wrote:
>>> The copyright holder reserves the right to refine the definition of
>>> significant changes on a per-case basis.
>>
>> In other words, a moving target -- which implies, to me, that to be
>> legally in the clear, that we would first have to vet every possible
>> change or modification, including patches.
>
> Notice the "a priori": it means you're allowed to do that without legal
> threat until further notice to the contrary.
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Geez, IANAL, nor do I have a dog in this fight, but if *you* can't see that 
the underlined phrase places the object of the clause in constant and 
persistent legal jeopardy, then perhaps *you* need to hire a lawyer.

Let me see if I can boil this down to simple English.

The license is what is is, unless and until I say it's not.  Therefore, you 
can use it, for now, but you need to pay close attention because I might 
change it at some point in the future and *then* you will be liable.

<sarcasm>Yeah, I'm going to sign up for that one.</sarcasm>

While watching this thread, I at first thought the decision to remove your 
software was a bit arbitrary.  You have convinced me otherwise.

-- 
Paul Schmehl (pauls at utdallas.edu)
Senior Information Security Analyst
The University of Texas at Dallas
http://www.utdallas.edu/ir/security/