I just wanted to post a quick reminder about the forum rules. Firstly - they are located here.
When you signed up for the forum, you agreed to abide by these rules.
Secondly, even though it is listed last, please note that moderator decisions are final, and are not open to discussion in the forum.
Just as a quick refresher, the moderators are myself (Cory5412), LCGuy, Bunsen, and Trash80toHP_Mini. Moderator posts are identifiable in thread, as their screen name appears in green or red.
These are the people who have been granted the rights and the technical capabilities to (at least)
...should the occasion occur.
Officially, our banning policy is that you have three strikes. (This is outlined in the rules.) This rule is enforced entirely at moderator and admin discretion.
For example, threatening physical violence against anyone, be they a member here, a moderator, an admin, or an unrelated third party; is considered extremely severe and the offending member will be banned immediately and permanently.
Thirdly, I wanted to call out our rule on obeying the law. This forum is physically hosted in the United States of America, and the administrator -- whose personal name is on all of the registrations and accounts -- also lives in the USA.. This means that for all intents and purposes, "the law" means the law as it stands today in the United States.
Fortunately for all involved, many laws that affect what we might do on this web site are fairly similar throughout the Anglosphere, but in case you weren't aware...
"Abandonware" is not a concept that is recognized by American law.
Almost any commercially available software you can think of for 68k and PowerPC Macintoshes was shipped by companies that still exist in some form today. Adobe bought Aldus and Macromedia, Claris has always been a subsidiary of Apple, Metrowerks was bought by Motorola, and so on. In addition, even though there's not a precedent of companies doing so, it is up to any individual company to decide whether or not they want to take legal action for something like that copy of Aldus FreeHand youv'e posted on the web.
Regardless of your personal feelings about these laws or interpretation of them, approximately zero percent of you are actual IP lawyers or judges. Whether or not you consider your actions legal or moral is not subject to debate here. Being the sole bearer of risk as the legally responsible person for this web site, I will take whatever actions I consider necessary to minimize that risk.
You are of course free to take whatever risks you like on a web site for which you are legally responsible.
Book scans, magazine scans, software, movies, music, et al are all covered by American intellectual property law and as such are all covered by this forum's rule about obeying the law.
Litigation in the United States is expensive -- whether you are in the right and could reasonably expect to win or not -- and we would absolutely like to avoid it at all costs, even if the cost is some convenience and functionality found on other web sites.
If anybody has any questions about anything here or anything else, please feel free to contact me directly, using the forum's PM system or at the e-mail address coryw@68kmla.org.
I may not reply immediately, but i do take queries sent to that address seriously and do my best to respond to them in a reasonable amount of time. If you use my e-mail address, please include your forum user name.
Additionally, if you ever have a question about something a moderator has done (myself or any other) you are welcome to contact me directly in the same manner.
Contacting me directly with questions is almost always infinitely more useful than to air your concerns in public. As mentioned previously, the latter is a breach of site rules, and we tend to view it as an attempt to discredit the moderators, which never ends well for anybody. We all put in significant hours, entirely voluntarily, to keep this site functioning as productively as possible. None of us is perfect, but we all do the best we can as ordinary human beings.
On a slightly less severe note, I wanted to remind everybody that I host this forum on my own server, I take care of it on my own time, and generally I pay for it with my own money.
I work a full-time job and have other in-person commitments, so it doesn't necessarily get all of the technical work it could probably use. With that in mind, I am always pleased know that we have such a large, generally quite smart, nice, and diverse base of active users. To that end, when something is reported that looks fixable, I do my best to fix it (eventually) and when something is reported that I can't fix in a reasonable time-frame, I ensure to make a note of it for such a time when something can be worked out.
I do quite like this community, and would like to ensure it's long-term success. I see so much ingenuity and hard work go on doing software and even hardware development (which is a new thing on the Mac scene, it didn't happen at the hobbyist and preservation level just three to five years ago, at least not anywhere I could see) and it's always nice to see the work that goes on on the preservation front.
When you signed up for the forum, you agreed to abide by these rules.
Secondly, even though it is listed last, please note that moderator decisions are final, and are not open to discussion in the forum.
Just as a quick refresher, the moderators are myself (Cory5412), LCGuy, Bunsen, and Trash80toHP_Mini. Moderator posts are identifiable in thread, as their screen name appears in green or red.
These are the people who have been granted the rights and the technical capabilities to (at least)
- issue warnings,
- edit your posts with or without your permission at their own discretion,
- and ban you
...should the occasion occur.
Officially, our banning policy is that you have three strikes. (This is outlined in the rules.) This rule is enforced entirely at moderator and admin discretion.
For example, threatening physical violence against anyone, be they a member here, a moderator, an admin, or an unrelated third party; is considered extremely severe and the offending member will be banned immediately and permanently.
Thirdly, I wanted to call out our rule on obeying the law. This forum is physically hosted in the United States of America, and the administrator -- whose personal name is on all of the registrations and accounts -- also lives in the USA.. This means that for all intents and purposes, "the law" means the law as it stands today in the United States.
Fortunately for all involved, many laws that affect what we might do on this web site are fairly similar throughout the Anglosphere, but in case you weren't aware...
"Abandonware" is not a concept that is recognized by American law.
Almost any commercially available software you can think of for 68k and PowerPC Macintoshes was shipped by companies that still exist in some form today. Adobe bought Aldus and Macromedia, Claris has always been a subsidiary of Apple, Metrowerks was bought by Motorola, and so on. In addition, even though there's not a precedent of companies doing so, it is up to any individual company to decide whether or not they want to take legal action for something like that copy of Aldus FreeHand youv'e posted on the web.
Regardless of your personal feelings about these laws or interpretation of them, approximately zero percent of you are actual IP lawyers or judges. Whether or not you consider your actions legal or moral is not subject to debate here. Being the sole bearer of risk as the legally responsible person for this web site, I will take whatever actions I consider necessary to minimize that risk.
You are of course free to take whatever risks you like on a web site for which you are legally responsible.
Book scans, magazine scans, software, movies, music, et al are all covered by American intellectual property law and as such are all covered by this forum's rule about obeying the law.
Litigation in the United States is expensive -- whether you are in the right and could reasonably expect to win or not -- and we would absolutely like to avoid it at all costs, even if the cost is some convenience and functionality found on other web sites.
If anybody has any questions about anything here or anything else, please feel free to contact me directly, using the forum's PM system or at the e-mail address coryw@68kmla.org.
I may not reply immediately, but i do take queries sent to that address seriously and do my best to respond to them in a reasonable amount of time. If you use my e-mail address, please include your forum user name.
Additionally, if you ever have a question about something a moderator has done (myself or any other) you are welcome to contact me directly in the same manner.
Contacting me directly with questions is almost always infinitely more useful than to air your concerns in public. As mentioned previously, the latter is a breach of site rules, and we tend to view it as an attempt to discredit the moderators, which never ends well for anybody. We all put in significant hours, entirely voluntarily, to keep this site functioning as productively as possible. None of us is perfect, but we all do the best we can as ordinary human beings.
On a slightly less severe note, I wanted to remind everybody that I host this forum on my own server, I take care of it on my own time, and generally I pay for it with my own money.
I work a full-time job and have other in-person commitments, so it doesn't necessarily get all of the technical work it could probably use. With that in mind, I am always pleased know that we have such a large, generally quite smart, nice, and diverse base of active users. To that end, when something is reported that looks fixable, I do my best to fix it (eventually) and when something is reported that I can't fix in a reasonable time-frame, I ensure to make a note of it for such a time when something can be worked out.
I do quite like this community, and would like to ensure it's long-term success. I see so much ingenuity and hard work go on doing software and even hardware development (which is a new thing on the Mac scene, it didn't happen at the hobbyist and preservation level just three to five years ago, at least not anywhere I could see) and it's always nice to see the work that goes on on the preservation front.
Last edited by a moderator:
