Regarding the vBHosting Hack

[Morrus]

Originally Posted by Wayne Luke

Actually, this is exactly what the hack does. It allows every person on a site running this to create their own sub-community with a unique look and feel, control over their members, multiple forums and so forth.

Wayne, this is where you're going wrong.

You're fixating on the issue of creating new "communities". However, that nebulous term is not part of the licensing agreement which everyone here read, agreed to and then paid for. Communities are irrelevant.

Your licensing agreement refers specifically to the software, and the distribution/leasing/sale thereof. The software is what has been licensed, and Jelsoft has very deliberately entered into a specific, binding agreement with those people who purchase such a license.

If licenses were flexible artifacts, where the licensors/licensees were able to enforce "spirit", interpret the terms how they chose and so forth, then the whole concept of licenses would break down. That's not what a license is, and that's not what it's for.

Everyone here expects you to enforce the license (according to the letter), and everyone here has no doubt that Jelsoft would not hesitate to do so were it to see someone actually violating that license. That's not a problem, and nobody is going to argue against that. But, the flip side of a licinsing situation, is that the licensee is going to do the same thing.

It seems to me that Jelsoft need to completely revise their licensing strategy so that it meets their aims more adequately. Right now, they are in the position where they have accepted money from people, and are bound specifically by the terms under which they accepted that money, in the same way that those people are bound specifically by the terms under which they purchased their licenses.