I wanted to place on public record my opposition to the legal statement
that I have had to sign as part of the Open JDK challenge.
"I hereby grant to the Sponsor the absolute right and permission to use
my name, address and/or photograph in any and all advertising and
promotional materials, or to refrain from doing so, in any manner or
media whatsoever, worldwide, for advertising and promotional purposes in
conjunction with promotions for the Contest without notice to me and
without further compensation. I shall have no right of approval, no
claim to any compensation, and no claim arising out of the use,
alteration, distortion or illusionary effect or use in any composite
form of my name, address, photograph or likeness."
Specifically, I object in the strongest terms to giving Sun Microsystems
full and absolute rights to publish my entire private home address as
they see fit. I don't know whether this was just bad legalese, or
whether privacy means less in the US, but signing this has been a big
deal for me. (It is possible that this is a legal requrement for
competitions, and if so then I withdraw the complaint).
I hope this email serves as a warning to any other challenge entrant as
to exactly how much they are signing away. Should the challenge concept
be repeated, I would ask that this clause (address) be reviewed.
thanks for listening,
Stephen