Idiotic.
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| dinotrac Jan 07, 2008 9:20 AM EDT |
McAfee passing out FUD by including a disclosure in its annual report? Hello!! Is anybody awake in there? Annual report is a report for the benefit of your stockholders, not a marketing instrument -- though a nice annual report can do double duty. In the US, companies are subject to the reporting requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and most are complete idiots about it. My guess is some lawyer, especially in light of the GPLV2 v GPLV3 changes with specific reference to Novell, the fact the GPL has not been extensively tested in court, and the fact that the real license -- and its interpretation by the licensor -- is between the licensor and the licensee, not the license drafter and the licensee, leaving lots of room for an army of potential litigants, said - "Maybe we should include something about that in our disclosures." It's called butt-covering, not FUD. |
| hkwint Jan 07, 2008 1:41 PM EDT |
Quoting:Annual report is a report for the benefit of your stockholders... Quoting:It's called butt-covering, not FUD. Well, I'm afraid I never ran into a stake holder able to understand such license details, so they might have left it out as well, except if they did their butt wasn't covered. Anyway, when now reading this disclosure, they will ask "Darn, why have I bought myself into this license mess?" They, the poor Mac Caffee (oh no, wrong one) stockholders, are the real once having FUD: Fear of what al this Uncertainty might cause, and Doubt if these license issues they normally don't care about will do anything with the value of their shares. On the other hand, no mercy on them: They were stupid enough to buy shares in Windows-only technology, so they were not knowing what they were doing and they were not up to date with the business anyway. It would be better for their shareholders if Mac Caffee had a disclosure telling how more and more people are starting to dislike Windows and start looking for alternatives; while Mac Caffee doesn't. |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 07, 2008 1:43 PM EDT |
@dino: True. But the interesting thing is that McAffee has used GPL2/3 code at all in it's products. I didn't know. And last time I checked (which is admittedly quite a while ago) it did not include a copy of the GPL or even an acknoledgement that GPL code was used. Let alone (an offer for) the source. |
| hkwint Jan 07, 2008 1:45 PM EDT |
Hmm, yes, that's true. I wonder when McAffee will be GPL'ed and ported to Linux. Child sentiments I guess, I miss my virusscanner! |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 07, 2008 2:01 PM EDT |
Quoting:I miss my virusscanner! Yeah, like a bad tooth ache. The thing I love most about my move to Linux is that I don't need A/V software anymore. |
| techiem2 Jan 07, 2008 2:08 PM EDT |
And if you REALLY REALLY miss your virus scanner, you could always install clamav and set it to scan your system once a year - you know, just in case you got infected with those fabled linux viruses. :) |
| dinotrac Jan 07, 2008 3:12 PM EDT |
Sander - I may have missed it, but I didn't realized that anything referred to McAfee using GPL'd software in their products. It's possible that, like many other companies, uses a lot of free software internally and some lawyer is just being especially careful. |
| Sander_Marechal Jan 07, 2008 3:19 PM EDT |
@dino: Only if the McAffee lawyers missed the mark. From McAffee:Quoting:"Use of GPL software could subject certain portions of our proprietary software to the GPL requirements, which may have adverse effects on our sales of the products incorporating any such software." So apparently it's in something they sell, not in something they use internally. I'm sure they sell more things than just AV software for Windows but it does get me curious. Perhaps McAffee sells plug&play network appliances that scan your network for virusses or plug&play firewalls or e-mail filter appliances. Perhaps those appliances incorporate GPL code. |
| dinotrac Jan 07, 2008 6:09 PM EDT |
Sander - I missed that part. Hmmm. Would be interesting to know just what they're doing. |
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