[dpcan]

You break the rules, you pay the consequences. Ignorance is NOT an excuse.

He's "in his situation" (edit) with Wolfram because he didn't do his due-diligence and contact them first before linking to them in his app.

EDIT: He seems to understand this, and admits that he "goofed", yes.

[treeface]

Where does it say he's mad at them? All he's saying is that this policy isn't very web-friendly.

[blahedo]

> You break the rules, you pay the consequences. Ignorance is NOT an excuse.

While this is technically true, I feel that it has slipped to the level of a polite fiction rather than a core civic principle. People pretty much never read contracts anymore because they've gotten so long and dense, and the contract writers know this and make them longer and denser anyway. Apple, among others, presumes you won't actually read their agreement before clicking through---they don't bother to sync up the printable version, don't provide a diff, and their system times out before you could possibly have read even a small part of the document. (I've written about this before, at some length: http://www.blahedo.org/blog/archives/001060.html .)

[__david__]

You're making an assumption that Wolfram Alpha has any right to specify how they are linked to. You can only "break the rules" if you believe this is a rule in the first place.

[dpcan]

Lots of down-votes, but no replies. I can't figure out if the down votes are proving that I'm right or if I totally missed something.

[raganwald]

Or perhaps your point is couched in a way that antagonizes people for some reason? You'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

[Andrewski]

Are there really adults reading hacker news with skins thin enough to be offended by his post? Perhaps e have a lot of web-monkeys who have a business plan to deep-link?

Sheesh.

[raganwald]

Antagonises means "in opposition to" or more commonly "to incur the dislike of." Offends means something else entirely. Writing can easily incur people's dislike without offending them personally. For example, on most forums, excessive use of all caps will antagonise people even if they agree with what is written.

And with that, I'm done with this thread.

[Natsu]

I assume it's because other people noticed the part where he said that he missed that part of the ToS, even though he checked for funky terms. It's pretty normal to be able to link to a website and terms forbidding that are abnormal.

So, yeah, he goofed a bit, but they could have been more flexible.

[derleth]

Have you ever seen The Big Lebowski?

"You're not wrong, Walter. You're just an asshole."

[dpcan]

Really? I'm an asshole. That's absurd.

I'm saying that he did something wrong and he's paying for it. Do you disagree? Do you think they should just let this slide? He didn't follow their TOS, so they should just say "whatever" and let it go? Wolfram has a responsibility to uphold their TOS so that it doesn't get abused.

My point is that I see a lot of posts around here where people go on rants about how they got screwed by a TOS, but the BOTTOM LINE is that they weren't thorough. They didn't do their due-dilligence. They didn't read the TOS, they didn't contact the company who's systems they are using, or some other small detail was missed. Rarely do we see a legitimate reason why someone is RIGHT after they got hit by a company for not complying with a TOS.

Look at companies trying to sell "market" apps in the Android Market, or everyone who is complaining about having to give Apple a cut of their SaaS revenues. The TERMS in the TOS agreements didn't change in most of these cases, but people are complaining when all of a sudden they have to pay the price for not reading, missing, misinterpreting, or ignoring the rules.

But hey, I get get downvoted for having a legitimate opinion, and you can get up votes for calling me an asshole.

It used to be fun here. I used to be able to have an opinion and people would praise the fact that I can look at something from another angle, be the devils advocate. But now, if I don't have a hive mind I'm an asshole.

[javert]

Please don't call people on Hacker News assholes, even by analogy.

I think you might be attempting to say something quite relevant without intentionally calling the person an asshole, but if that's the case, you ought to have explained it in your post.

[scott_s]

How about: there's a difference between being right and being polite.

[dpcan]

How about explaining either way what you don't find polite or right?

[scott_s]

Note that I am not derleth.