Interesting email from Bre Pettis

[William Saturno]

For those following the current replicator / thingverse controversy, this may be of interest.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: bre pettis <brep...@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 1:04 PM
Subject: Re: [hackerspaces] Idea: things.hackerspaces.org now that Thingiverse is not ok anymore
To: Hackerspaces General Discussion List <dis...@lists.hackerspaces.org>


Hey folks, having started NYCResistor, I'm on this list too!

The terms are not bad, they are just written by a lawyer. I'm working
with the lawyers to make them much more readable so folks don't freak
out anymore than they already have.

Our goal with upgrading the terms is to protect the system that we're
so proud of. Seriously, sorry for the lawyer speak, we're working on
it because we care about our users.

Bre

MakerBot Industries
http://makerbot.com
Video - Time Magazine Game Changer: http://ti.me/nGtIrJ
Print - NYTimes: http://nyti.ms/oKITfc

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On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 12:49 PM, Daniel Harmsworth
<atr...@caffeinator.net> wrote:
> There's a member at the Artifactory that has build a CouchDB based
> distributed thingiverse-like system with distributed rendering, gcode
> simulation and other cool stuff (basically for his own internal use), In
> light of recent developments I have suggested that we install a publicly
> accessible version of it on the Artifactory servers. Will report back when
> we have it up for experimentation, there is a fairly limited UI at the
> moment.
>
>
> On 24 September 2012 00:35, Walter van Holst <wal...@revspace.nl> wrote:
>>
>> On 2012-09-23 18:01, Sparr wrote:
>>
>>> Has anyone gotten an actual lawyer's opinion of the new TOS?
>>
>>
>> As mentioned in my blog post, I am a lawyer. Not an attorney, mind you and
>> not practicing in the USA either.
>>
>>
>>
>>> I do not
>>> see that the new language is significantly different from the old
>>> language. The new TOS doesn't say they can use your designs to make
>>> new closed source hardware, they are still only allowed to use it to
>>> display it on their website.
>>
>>
>> No, it literally talks about "incorporate into other works, and otherwise
>> use your User Content", per section 3.2 of the Terms of Use. As already
>> quoted in my blog post. You could argue that the last bit of that sentence
>> "solely for the purposes of including your User Content in the Site and
>> Services" applies further than the sublicensing bit, but to me it reads
>> rather ambiguously and I wouldn't feel safe to say it applies any further
>> than the grant to sublicense. Not to say that the old terms weren't
>> ambiguous either, but since they limited themselves to derivative works, it
>> made life much easier because that is specifically a copyright term. On top
>> of that the assertion about transmission and display in the old version read
>> much broader.
>>
>> And yes, natural languages are a pain, ambiguity-wise. But we have to make
>> do with them.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>>  Walter
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Discuss mailing list
>> Dis...@lists.hackerspaces.org
>> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>
>
>
> --
> Daniel Harmsworth
> Chairman, The Perth Artifactory Inc.
> http://www.artifactory.org.au
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Dis...@lists.hackerspaces.org
> http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
_______________________________________________
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[Jeff Myer]

Thanks for sending this out Bill.... somehow, I did not receive any of the messages on this thread even though I am subscribed to the list?!?!?   I have been following along with all of the drama surrounding Makerbot possibly releasing their next offering as a closed source machine with closed source software.

I have my feelings regarding this move by Makerbot but I will spare this list as arguments on both sides of the coin are available all over the internet.

An observation based on Bre's is that I believe that he fails to understand that the strict meaning of the language in the Thingiverse TOC would be under much less scrutiny (and in fact was under much less scrutiny) if the community at large retained good faith in Makerbot's intent and adherence to the open source ideal. I believe that much of that "good faith" is now damaged and people are asking themselves what is next from the company they feel betrayed by.

That is all for now on this. 

Jeff

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