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In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

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Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#81

That's pretty cool in some ways. In other ways it's interesting as a reflection of the author's obvious preference for subjective ethics. For example, what is good? A lot of people share concepts of what is good, but a lot of people really don't. Not because they're bad people, but because life circumstances typically go way deeper than good and evil, for instance. So--what is the author saying, really? Subjective st…

> "The author's obvious preference for subjective ethics" I doubt this interpretation, given SQLite's Code of Ethics ( https://sqlite.org/codeofethics.html ). Abrahamic faiths and subjective ethics don't go well together; "I am the way, the truth, and the life" doesn't leave much room for alternatives.

> 16. Visit the sick.

Worst rule ever during a pandemic.

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#82
post #76
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It remains an open legal question (at least in the United States) whether or not an author even can voluntarily release something into the public domain. Hwaci could theoretically decide that, actually, that they never really put SQLite in the public domain and in fact possess full copyright over it and would like not only current and future licensing fees, but also retroactive fees from everyone who's used it over t…

What prevents this scenario is estoppel: the users of sqlite have been told they can use it freely and Hwaci can’t retrospectively withdraw their promise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estoppel

every time I see this word as a non native english speaker it sounds to me as a low level error ESTOPPEL ("Error: Stopped by Eminent Lawyer" or something)

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And just to follow up for anyone who may genuinely be wondering: Yes. Yes they were. Not quite as ubiquitous or well known as "9/11" is today, but they were up there with the statue of liberty as far as Icons of NYC and to a slightly lesser extent icons of the USA. They were, as they say, a big deal, even before they fell.

100% agree. I'd argue they were the #2 landmark in NYC after The Statue of Liberty at the time. 1. Statue of Liberty, without question. 2. Twin Towers - showed up in just about shot of NYC put into mainstream media from the date of inception until destruction. 3. Empire State Building - Yes it is really recognizable but never got the media exposure of the WTC. After that things get a little muddier. If I'm doing a to…

hey, how about the Brooklyn Bridge? I'm pretty sure in the '70s/'80s it was in the top 5, being very popular both in art (e.g. Andy Warhol) and mass media (TV, movies, comics)

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#84
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Reminds me of "the temple of God" operating system and I'm sure there's a lot of other developers who have sort of a spiritual or rapture experience He was a very intelligent individual who’s life was ruined by mental illness. I’m not sure that’s a good thing.

>who’s life was ruined by mental illness If some FOIA request decades down the line reveals that the CIA was actually involved, I wouldn't be surprised. MKULTRA happened after all.

That would be a disaster for them. But I don't think we'd have to wait decades, I'm sure those things are already known.

Although, attributing all the world's ills to a shadowy cabal of corrupt operatives is a pretty crazy conspiracy theory... that might just be the problem.

However, looking at how crazy society is today you can kind of understand how people would reach that conclusion..

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't respons to randerson's comment directly because it's dead, I'd recommend he look at Aquinas' just war theory and other Christian ideas on when war is ok. There are many problems with the military industrial complex we have but that does not mean we should have no defense. Guided missile destroyers fulfill a legitimate defense role and would be needed even if we were much less interventionist.

I didn't dispute whether it can be used for good, I'm glad we have these things and I'm also a huge fan of SQLite. But when your system shoots down an enemy (to you) aircraft, how do you reconcile that with: "Do not murder." "Love your neighbor as yourself." "Honor all people." "Do not do to another what you would not have done to yourself." "Do not return evil for evil." "Love your enemies." the list goes on..

Why Abrahamic religions should care about logic when then have faith? "Honor all people" and "Love your enemies" was done at the Siege of Ma'arra.

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#86
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that US courts do some weird things sometimes but "The author disclaims copyright" is abundantly clear, and also the author has made plenty of public statements clarifying exactly how that is to be interpreted. The situation in civil law countries and especially countries that have inalienable "author's rights" is much less clear and hostile even to the SQLite copyright release.

But even in those countries, it would seem that only the authors, the people with "author's rights", have a claim on anyone's use of the code. If they intend for people to use and copy the code without restriction there is no one else to say otherwise.

> If they intend for people to use and copy the code without restriction there is no one else to say otherwise.

At that point you rely on a statement that is not legally binding and could be changed at any time. Wouldn't be the first time a software dev. rage quit and decided to go scorched earth on his projects.

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no reference to any Code of Ethics in the linked space above, though. Contextually the blessing text is completely subjective. (PS Are you also saying they have objectively measured the existence of God, or the divinity of Christ...?)

I'm saying that Abrahamic faiths generally don't leave any room for "my truth" being different from "your truth." There is only one Truth with a capital T, because there is only one God with a capital G. So if two people differ on some point of doctrine or ethics, one of them must be Right and the other must be Wrong. Mere mortals might not be able to determine which is which with perfect accuracy, but the One True G…

If two people differ, they could both be Wrong, of course. (Imagine a case with three people, all mutually differing on a point. Now take two of them whom you conclude are not Right and...)

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#88

That's pretty cool in some ways. In other ways it's interesting as a reflection of the author's obvious preference for subjective ethics. For example, what is good? A lot of people share concepts of what is good, but a lot of people really don't. Not because they're bad people, but because life circumstances typically go way deeper than good and evil, for instance. So--what is the author saying, really? Subjective st…

> For example, what is good? A lot of people share concepts of what is good, but a lot of people really don't. Not because they're bad people, but because life circumstances typically go way deeper than good and evil, for instance. So--what is the author saying, really?

IBM had the same problem, see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5138866 for the solution :)

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#89
Richard Hipp is a devout Christian, and demonstrates James 2:18: "Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works."

Thanks for the blessings and the beautiful code; you really can be a poet in any language.

Re: In place of a legal notice, here is a blessing

#90
post #9

Has anyone heard of any issues using SQLite in jurisdictions without a concept of the public domain? The copyright page [1] seems to imply that you'd need to buy a license from Hwaci. [1] https://www.sqlite.org/copyright.html

Generally I don't think so, but sometimes legal departments are extremely careful and would rather spend money on an explicit license than relying on something they see as not 100% certain.

Offering this "service" seems like a great way to monetize your software, because it only hits those with overcautious legal departments that really don't care about the money, and everyone is happy: Legal gets their paperwork, company pays some amount that they don't care about, author gets money, engineers get to use it, everyone else who doesn't have a paranoid legal department gets to use it without any hurdles.

I'm pretty sure the author got sick of getting (from his perspective stupid) requests "hey you already said it's free but can you give that to us in writing, our lawyers won't let us use it otherwise" so he turned bureaucracy into money.

Edit: It's also a convenient way for companies to support the project with money. Very few companies have a "donate to this open source project" process, most have a "buy this software" process, so a company where the people using SQLite would like the company to pay for it now has a convenient way to do so.

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