| ??? 10/06/09 07:15 Read: times |
#169469 - I didn't say that Responding to: ???'s previous message |
Richard Erlacher said:
Why are you so dead-set agains a datasheet/specification repository No, I'm not dead-set against it! I agree that it would be a thoroughly useful resource. I merely pointed-out that there are issues - including this particular legal one - in doing it, and that anyone considering it should take proper legal advice beforehand. There are others, and, in fact, most of them charge money to provide copies of old datasheets, yet aren't sued for making them available, even at a profit. Presumably, the charges cover, among other things, a legal department... The fact that they make a charge doesn't necessarily mean that they make a profit. Many of the threads I've watched over the years have gone astray simply because people didn't look at the datasheet, and, of those, I'm quite certain a number went off the rails simply because the proper datasheet wasn't in the proper hands, resulting in unwarranted assumptions or outright guesses. Quite so. I could see someone suing the manufacturer for selling them a product for which the manufacturer is unwilling to provide the very specification that an end-user might require in order to make effective of that product. Now that'd be a good one! If datasheets and other spec's are freely available from multiple sources, why on earth would you assume that keeping an old, previously web-published SD specification on a website where others can download it would produce a legal entanglement? I didn't say it would; I didn't even say it was likely - I only said that anyone contemplating doing it should be aware of the possible issue and take proper legal advice beforehand to ensure that it doesn't happen! You are the one who has chosen to argue that the issue does not even exist - and on that point, as others have agreed, you are wrong. You could have just said, "OK, I'll bear it in mind" - but no. Why haven't the dozen or so websites that now have it been sued? Just because they've got away with it doesn't mean that it couldn't happen - you might be the first... |
