Re: Blocking Gmail ads
On 13/05/2008, Celejar <celejar@gmail.com> wrote:
> I use several Lavabit free accounts, and I'm quite happy with them.
So why are you sending from a Gmail account?
> The intellectual property stuff doesn't really seem so bad:
>
> <Quote>
>
> Intellectual Property
>
> You acknowledge that Lavabit owns all intellectual property related to
> its website and the software used to provide its services. Accordingly
> you agree not to copy, reproduce, modify, alter or create derivative
> works based on the intellectual property of Lavabit.
>
> </Quote>
>
> IANAL, but AFAICT, all they're claiming are the rights to their
> software and website. Is that really so objectionable?
>
Well, the problem with software-as-service is that more and more
software is moving in that direction. Google, to mention the villain
du jour, has been exploiting the ASP loophole to take free software
without giving back. There are rumours of that fabled Ubunut
derivative that Google uses internally, and who knows, maybe it powers
some of their web servers, but Google hasn't released a single line of
code of that derivative, yet they're still profitting off it.
It's understandable that this is why Google doesn't condone the
AGPL[1] which is designed exactly to close this loophole that Google
and presumably Lavabit are exploiting. You take our free code, you
have to give back free code. It seems fair to me, but not to Google.
They keep saying that code is all going to move to the web browser. If
we tolerate non-free code on our browsers for much longer, then all
the work that has been done towards giving us all this free code could
be endangered. The AGPL is a necessity, and I think it's also
important that we insist upon its principles even if it still has a
very small level of adoption.
Well, so it seems to me. I'm open to hearing opposing viewpoints.
- Jordi G. H.
[1] http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/04/11/google_bans_aero/
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