From: David Sternlight <david@sternlight.com>
Date: Thu, 25 Jul 1996 11:10:12 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Netscape
In-Reply-To: <199607241431.QAA05718@basement.replay.com>
Message-ID: <v03007801ae1c71fa1202@[192.187.162.15]>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 7:31 AM -0700 7/24/96, Anonymous wrote:
>Jeff Weinstein wrote:
>>   I'm also curious why these anonymous crusaders did not act
>> sooner?  The US version has been available for sale in retail
>> outlets for about a year now.  Was it not worth $50 to make
>> your point?
>
>If you look real carefully at ftp://utopia.hacktic.nl/pub/replay
>/pub/incoming you'll notice that the "commercial" 2.01 for Win32
>has actually been uploaded.
>
>The reason that is was not done sooner is probably that it felt
>more like stealing to upload software that Netscape expected you
>to pay for. Now that Netscape is finally giving away strong crypto
>versions to anybody who asks for it (and claims to be an American)
>it isn't really stealing in the same sense anymore. It's just ITAR
>we're ignoring, not Netscape's commercial interests.

The above statement is false. You have to agree to the license for the
beta, and the release will likely have the same terms as before--you have
to buy it unless
you're a US student or some such. Netscape is NOT "giving it away". Even
the no-charge users are licensed under carefully crafted terms. And as the
copyright owner, they, not you decide on redistribution policy even for
cases where it is a no-charge copy.

So it IS stealing to redistribute without permission--it is THEIR
intellectual property and only they may decide on what terms others may
have a copy.

And yes, I'm a licensed user and paid for mine.

David