What ethical problems? Decompiling is perfectly moral and ethical. Whether it is illegal is a seperate and, for me, almost irelevant issue. If I legally own a copyrighted work I am allowed to read it, period and end of story. Corporate licences excepted, software is SOLD, not licensed despite the scary words on the box and the dread click through EULA.
Hell, I learned assembly by writing a disassembler (in BASIC) and reading the Microsoft BASIC roms, then l
What ethical problems? Decompiling is perfectly moral and ethical.... If I legally own a copyrighted work I am allowed to read it, period and end of story. Corporate licences excepted, software is SOLD, not licensed despite the scary words on the box and the dread click through EULA.
I disagree here. I am a strong believer that people should be able to trade goods/services for prices/conditions they mutually agree upon. If I write software and say I will sell it to you for $x on condition that you do Y
(I wasn't the author of the grandparent post) What if I buy some software but do not get to see the EULA until after I have purchased it (say, it isn't available online) and, after purchasing it and reading the EULA, I am not permitted to return the product for a refund? Am I still obligated to follow the EULA in that case?
Personally I don't think a EULA that is hidden like that should be binding. I'm not pro-tricking consumers. If a seller wants to place limitations on how his product is used, he needs to make the limitations crystal clear to the potential buyer before any money changes hands. The buyer should then think about whether the goods/conditions are worth the price being asked, and make their decision based on that balance.
What about EULAs that are deliberately written in a style/technical language unreadable to the majority of the buyers ? Or written with intent to discourage complete reading (a EULA of 125 pages for instance, with 75% of its scentences longer than 10 lines and each one containing 15 buzwords that you have to go lookup online. NOBODY should be asked to read and accept all that. It's just plain stupid)
That sounds reasonable to me. Unfortunately, with the exception of EULAs that are available online, I do not know of a single local software store here that would allow you to return software because you did not accept the EULA (but had opened the software). Granted, I live in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, so it may be different in the U.S., or even in other cities in Canada. But I have tried returning software before when I did not accept the EULA, to CompuSmart and to FutureShop, and neither place would a
Their idea of an offer you can't refuse is an offer... and you'd better
not refuse.
What ethical problems? (Score:5, Insightful)
What ethical problems? Decompiling is perfectly moral and ethical. Whether it is illegal is a seperate and, for me, almost irelevant issue. If I legally own a copyrighted work I am allowed to read it, period and end of story. Corporate licences excepted, software is SOLD, not licensed despite the scary words on the box and the dread click through EULA.
Hell, I learned assembly by writing a disassembler (in BASIC) and reading the Microsoft BASIC roms, then l
Re:What ethical problems? (Score:3, Insightful)
I disagree here. I am a strong believer that people should be able to trade goods/services for prices/conditions they mutually agree upon. If I write software and say I will sell it to you for $x on condition that you do Y
Re:What ethical problems? (Score:2)
Re:What ethical problems? (Score:2)
Re:What ethical problems? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What ethical problems? (Score:2)
Re:What ethical problems? (Score:2)
Re:What ethical problems? (Score:2)