Either they were deliberately trying to steal those rights and hoping nobody would notice, or they didn't realise - in which case they are incompetent. This has been tried over and over again. Are they really claiming they didn't know?

... such a clause was the first thing I thought about when you announced Photoshop online. I'm not a bit surprised it's there, and that my snaps are staying where they are.

It's a free world after all

"fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display"

Pic pimping is just the beginning... Sublicense? Derive revenue? (ads, at least?) Public perform!? OK, it's in a "public area", but come on... Who would agree to that? Oh, wait... Almost nobody reads that anyway and just presses "I agree".

Your yellow journalism hacks have insulted the Free Open Source Software movement one too many times.

I will be adding theregister.co.uk to our corporate firewall as soon as this is posted.

You can ram the "freetard" insult up your ass, if there's room in there next to your swollen head.

I'm a Freetard and proud of it. Who's smarter, someone who pays a lot of money for crap software, or someone who gets the same functionality (or more) for free?

You want to spend a king's ransom on proprietary software, be my guest. I have money left to live on. You Paytards are SUCKERS!!!!!

...and it's my ball so I'm taking it home, so you can't play with it, so there!

Totally agree with you - I'm sick and fed up of thisf fucking Freetard shit that the Register, like a 8 year old boy in the playground who has just learned a rude word, thinks is clever to use all the time.

El Reg - serious IT news website or is it turning into a rather odd parody?

"derive revenue"? They want to make sure no lawyer-happy yank can sue them for putting advertising on the site.

And even the perpetual right might come from the impracticality of removing your images from any backups.

Trouble is, covering all those risks to them leaves the users wide open to losing control of their work. There's some nasty little instances of that in US legal history, and a lot of confusion between trademarks and copyrights. That sublicense clause could mean that you post a picture of some newsworthy event, and Adobe could sell it to the press without paying a penny to you.

Morely Dotes? Man! I can't wait for the next Garret book. It's only few months away, right?

It got under my skin a little, too, but El Reg didn't invent the insult, and I like the way they're using it in this article. The way Cade Mez wrote it, you're either a 'freetard' or you liked Adobe's terms of service, and 'freetards' saved the day.

Well, that's a disappointment, I was planning to upload a photo of a hot little pr0n model shitting out a box of Adobe Acrobat or some other overpriced tat.

Fun ruined. I guess I'll just take my copy of Paint and go home.

"El Reg - serious IT news website or is it turning into a rather odd parody?"

What'dya mean turning, it's always been!

The author is a paytard. They have mistaken a second rate, web based photo editor for free software and think free software users should care. Free software users have GIMP, DigiKam, Inkscape and dozens of other excellent and free graphics programs. Only someone who's dedicated muscle memory and money to PhotoShop would care about Adobe let alone think it's something to taunt people with. Next week they will tell us how much we should miss WORD.DOCX editing.

Hurrah - bring out the bunting

No more bullshit postings about how linux is ready for the average users desktop with no support and you NEVER have to drop to a command line

... thinking back to some previous reg stories here....

gmail, flikr, facebook, myspace, MS office live

Upload to someone else's servers = giving them your data (literally). Its not rocket science.

"Freetard" is Fake Steve Jobs' invective against the free/opensource movement. There is absolutely nothing free/opensource about this web-based app. Plus, as others have said, you certainly are running the word into the ground, seeing as how freetard it is freetard about the every freetard third word you freetard use.

"By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant...to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise...to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works...and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing."

Very similar to the Christmas 'ElfYourself' site T&C's actually, although that one had a friendly wording version (ie. plain english) - which said clearly stated something like: "we can use your mugshots and modify/change them for any purpose, including advertising products which you may have a moral objection to."

So, both Facebook and the ElfYourself site could use your face, stick it onto a nude body (rather than an Elf!) and advertise some Adult content, if they so wished.

Surprised no-one has complained about this before then...

Actually - found a copy of those T&C's on a blog post @ http://andyriga.wordpress.com/2007/12/06/elf-yourself-a-merry-christmas/

"Registrants automatically grant...a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, sublicensable (through multiple tiers), assignable, fully paid, royalty free, worldwide license to use, copy, modify, adapt, publish, make, sell, create derivative works of or incorporate into other works such Registrant Content, derive revenue or other remuneration from, communicate to the public, distribute (through multiple tiers), perform or display such Registrant Content (in whole or in part) and/or to incorporate such Registrant Content in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing through multiple tiers of sublicensees, including the right to exercise the copyright, publicity, and any other rights over any of the materials contained in such Registrant Content for any purpose, including for purposes of advertising and publicity on the Website and elsewhere. OfficeMax shall not be limited in any way in its use, commercial or otherwise, of any such Registrant Content, and Registrants hereby waive any moral rights in, or approval rights to, such Registrant Content. Further, we have the explicit right to incorporate any Registrant Content posted to the Website or otherwise conveyed by any Registrant to OfficeMax into any further work, in any medium, without prior consent or review, and without payment of any royalty or fee whatsoever."

Scary innit?

This is how the "before" picture of Aunt Mabel gets used in As Seen on TV adverts. Or as an endorsement for $offensive_candidate. Or v1/-\gra ads.

ready for the average users desktop with no support and you NEVER have to drop to a command line. Morely may be gone but I am not and freetard doesn't change the truth.

Yes, we are ALL SICK OF YOU using the term "freetard". Why?

1. It's pathetic and childish.

2. It sounds like a term invented by the RIAA.

3. There's nothing "retarded" about disagreeing with the RIAA.

4. Using this term implies that there is something wrong with the idea that we should be free to let our friends listen to our music and read our books.

And the result of all these is that:

5. We don't want to read your stupid publication any more. Which is a shame for me as I've been a huge fan and avid reader for ... well, since the start.

Recommendations for alternative news sources welcome.

If you want to stop alienating and losing all of your readers (if we just wanted badly written lightweight IT-related crap we're spoilt for choice - the reason we used to read The Reg was BECAUSE you were the type of people who would NEVER have used the term "freetard"), you might want to have a word with these morons writing your articles and tell them to go and spend some time studying how the world works instead of writing ill-informed rubbish.

"No more bullshit postings about how linux is ready for the average users desktop with no support and you NEVER have to drop to a command line"

What do you mean "no support" please? I've had some of the best support experiences of my career with Linux products. Please show me a how, as a small user, I can get hold of the developers of part of Windows and discuss a bug with them or how it could better meet my needs. We're talking about the company the majority of whose OS installs are shipped with a note that basically says "If it doesn't work go to the people that sold it to you as we won't support it." Since the vendor didn't write Windows their ability to support it is limited and if they can't fix whatever is broken quickly you'll probably get told to reimage the machine from the original discs (if they actually gave you any.) The majority of support for both OSes comes from the communities.

Bugs can creep into anything. As a user, it's getting those bugs acknowledged, taken seriously and fixed that's important to me.

"NEVER have to drop to a command line..." Of course, Windows users never need the command line. All that time I've spent having to use it to scrape malware off my customers' fully-patched Windows desktops was clearly a figment of my imagination.

To continue your example, I'd love to know who thought the Windows registry was a good idea. "Let's roll up all configuration data into a monolithic mass, the corruption of which is likely to cause mass system breakages. Let's make it so the system will parse a key with a null in it but make the editor unable to change it and make it non-human-readable so if something gets broken it can't be checked and fixed by hand."

Please carry on using the ___tard word, it's fine by me.

Although using freetard in respect to Adobe is pushing it a bit; they're one of the meanest bread-headed corporates to exist in the web space. Everything they do is aimed at extracting their bars of latinum. When Adobe do something for "free" it has to come at a cost somewhere else. So one should hardly be surprised that they would pimp pictures of your grandmother.

El Reg is wonderful. Whingers can bugger off to some other news site that just republishes press releases or writes obsequious advertorial crap. We love the fact that Apple don't invite you to their events.

We relish that even BAA don't consider you as an appropriate news site. Now there's a bunch of fucktards.

Sorry, am I using the term "we" when I can only speak for "me"? @Alex -- only the queen is allowed to use the Royal We.

Paris as she's a blondetard. And a selfpublicisttard. And a brattard.

that, in the wonderous way our language morphs with usage, that "freetard" had become a compliment.

It is in my book.

A bit touchy?

I have to say that I don't even see the freetard term as an insult

(If was really intended as such then, it's laughable)

Let's adopt Freetard, just like certain other unmentionable terms that were previously intended at insults. At least it's easy to say..........

C'mon Morley calm down and keep el Reg visible.

spegru

While The Register commentary drifts a little bit towards outright bloggery sometimes, I think that even the most JeremyClarksonesque article is worth a look. We hone our ideas on debate and the course stone of the El Reg rant is just as important as the fine grit of intelligent intellectual dialog.

If you have a problem with a term or an idea or a series of ideas, dont just disengage. Even "owning the word" isnt right. The ideas are a challenge that should be met head on - and then, not as a confrontation. There are probably things for both sides to learn.

People are reacting to elements of the free movement. It is understandable - just as the free movement reacts to elements of the recording industry or software companies. Someone becomes emblematic of something you find ojectionable and then everyone associated with that "someone" via common ideas or shared values - even if the commonality is benign - becomes tarred with the same brush. Like Marx and Stalin, and recording companies and the RIAA there is something in the free movement that engenders hostility and defensiveness and it is something that is common enough to be picked up by regular folk. Perhaps rather than getting defensive it might be beneficial to find out what these barriers are and see how they might be torn down or made less harmful.

I am sure the free movement could do with a lot less of the rhetoric that gets bandied about. There are some personalities and ideas that the regular person on the street could quite easily find objectionable and alienating.

Perhaps rather than complaining about the negative publicity, you should be asking why your positive publicity isnt hitting the mark. If you have the winning story, tell it.

.. I know.. tl;dr

I think in this article freetard means a fool who thinks they are using Free software because it's free of charge. Real Free software does not come with a stack of clauses which steal your rights and your ownership of your content.

This service is not free, it's expensive.

How dare you read the Reg's precious articles and people farmed opinions you freetards.

Why aren't you paying for it don't you know cocaine and hookers cost money. Don't even get me started on all of you using add blockers and how dare you ignore that stupid wheel that keeps pooping up.

Go away all of you freetards stop reading this unless you buy something...

I said stop reading this without paying me....

Stop it....

you have not stoped yet you %^&$£$ freeetards

really stop it now....

Aurrrgh! I need move cocaine

"El Reg - serious IT news website or is it turning into a rather odd parody?" .... By Anonymous Coward Posted Friday 28th March 2008 21:47 GMT

AC, You wouldn't consider it, Iconic ..... Boldly Going ...?

And please pray tell how it works, Alex, although is there a valid clue and/or everything you need in the question? ..... "go and spend some time studying how the world works instead of writing ill-informed rubbish." ... By Alex Posted Saturday 29th March 2008 03:51 GMT

I don't like the word freetard, but not because I support open source; I dislike the term because I have several mentally disabled people who I deal with (real disabilities, not managers, and not developers) and they take offense to the term.

My people think that associating them with the free software/open software movement is insulting and demeaning to mentally challenged people everywhere.

The penguin, because if you could see under him, you would see he is shitting all over the IT industry.

Hahahaha

Hahaha

Haha

Ha

Ha

Thanks man, you make my day.

Thin-skinned wussies.

Anyway - I'm off to upload my collection of pR0n to PhotoShop Express. I'd like to see what they do with them.

Oh, one more thing: FREETARD MOBE FREETARD MOBE FREETARD MOBE

Not a bad shot at FotW, but you used punctuation correctly and spelled everything right. Rookie mistake.

And I think all us freetards will hear that word for a while, just because it spurs the flamers into action. And that's a good thing.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/01/12/how_to_write_a_flame/

Your mother is a hampster and your father smelled of elderberries.

What's so special about Adobe's contract? The BBC have been signing up freetards for years.

And then had the bloody cheek to worry about DRM on their crippleware.

'Oooo! 'ark at her!' 'Sticks and stones' etc etc Come on you lot, I've always assumed (dangerous I know) that 'us' techies are all growed up, like, and oblivious to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

I have to admit that to me 'freetard' had transmogrified into a vaguely humorous epithet. I mean, getting called an Apple fanbois is vaguely amusing too, in a smug way of course!

Put away those sharp objects in case you hurt someone and get back to reading El Reg as (probably) the most interesting IT read around.

- - Jobsie - as I'm reading his unauthorised biography 'iCon'. Now there's someone who can REALLY throw his toys out of the pram.

Complain about the lack of an IT angle and you get more stories unrelated to IT.

Complain about the number of Paris Hilton stories and you get more stories about Paris Hiltion,

Complain about the use of freetard and...Spotted a pattern yet?

By the way, speaking as someone who has recently switched their entire home network over from Windows to Linux, if the likes of my Dad decided to install it I'd be running for the hills before the phone calls started. Everyday luser's replacement desktop OS it is not.

How about:

"iTard" - Someone who thinks big corporations care as much about people as they do about money, and that they are often motivated by doing good for society.

For example: "Joe says the big record labels need money so they can foster new talent and encourage innovative music. What an iTard!"

Or: "The MS rep said that MS buying Yahoo would increase competition in the search engine market. He must think we're all iTards."

Also: "Only an iTard would believe that Apple don't rip off consumers just as much as MS or Sony."

Finally: "New Labour are a bunch of iTards."

Freetard, wintard, ,mactard, lintard - That's me

Calm down dear - it's an article

El Reg is clearly a firm believer in the maxim that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Several of the self-confessed drunken louts that masquerade as journalists here think it is hi-f'g-larious, getting so many of their readers so incensed.

After all, we're all freetards here, as none of us pays to read this site. And most of us are going to stay, as, in between the crap, they do have some wonderful coverage.

But I do have one question for the "journos": Are you all 12 years old?

Freetards, eh ? No sense of humour. I use and develop on a mixture of MS and Linux flavours, and have a pretty balanced of view of them both, like the majority of people.

Part of me wishes I could believe that those of you who have publicly spat out your dummies above will never again return to litter the glorious comments of El Reg with your megabytes of hilarious drooling zealotry, because it shortens the life of my scroll wheel.

Of course another part of me doesn't want to, because baiting you is like an ethical bloodsport, and provides many hours of amusement.

But I don't believe it. You won't be able to resist. It's like squirrels with nuts, or perhaps more apposite, penguins with whatever it is that penguins eat, fish probably, or given the linux jihad's propensity for bitter infighting, other penguins.

Yes, that's mine, the one with the asbestos lining and the copy of "How to write software and actually get paid" in the pocket, and the "Honey, get _over_ yourself" logo on the back.

Bleh freetards are so boring. They can't even whine well.

As an aside stupid tool is stupid just make a non commercial license for the product and sell it cheap. With a big "You can not use this version of photoshop for profit or in a company blaahhh" type thing. Gotta be cheaper adding a clause to a license then writing shite versions of the program. If you could get a legit copy of photoshop for £30 there wouldn't be as much point pirating it at home.

Not that I do any photo editing - I have a real memory and like to go out and visit new places frequently.

Freetard is the new "IT/Paris Hilton angle" I guess. I'm amused by the term, though. Does that make me 12? Probably so. Carry on! I drip with anticipation on what another self-righteous twit will object to.

...has anyone considered incompetance and miscommunication?

Adobe developers build web photo service, adobe devs ask laywers for the terms of use. Lawyer thinks "oh, we're publishing their photos, we need the right to do so", sticks that and any other related rights he thinks are, or might be, needed (he's not too sure exactly what this service does or will or might do) and punts it back to the devs. The devs briefly skim over the terms of use but don't look too closely because a) noone ever does, and b) they aren't lawyers anyway. Result: something that implies things the people making policy wouldn't want it to, had they thought about it or known about it.

Witness the Apple Safari on Windows lawyer-speak that said you could only install it on apple computers. Or what about tech support departments that don't know what's going on in their own ISPs? (Or indeed, the outsourcing of tech support and managers' belief that it doesn't actually reduce quality).

No big company EVER does anything with one mind, legal fictions notwithstanding. Personally I find the idea that this sort of thing is all down to lack of communication a lot more terrifying than any conspiracy would be

You're nuts, you know?

Heh. Next they'll be equating themselves with religious minorities and claiming persecution and wanting a land to call their own. How about we give them Antarctica - that's where the penguins are.

"[Linux is] ready for the average users desktop with no support and you NEVER have to drop to a command line. Morely may be gone but I am not and freetard doesn't change the truth."

Ummmm ... riiiiiight. Meanwhile, back in the real world ...

Ubuntu is getting there, but still has a long way to go before it matches the usability of OSX or even *cough*Windows*cough*. As a server OS, Linux is damn near unbeatable IMO, but a desktop OS for Joe Random Luser? Nah.

Command line FTW.

Tux, 'cos if I'm a fanboi of anything then it's Linux. I've only been using it since 1992 after all.

Even if Adobe is trying to claim the right to use the photographer's copyright, that still wouldn't give them the right to reproduce images of any people featured - there's no implicit consent granted for the personal image rights involved.

Here's hoping they *do* use something without full permission.

*LOOKS FOR BOB LOBLAW'S BUSINESS CARD*

How long have you people been reading The Register? I first started in around 2000 and have, on and off, kept up with it. The standards of journalism are not falling. We're not seeing a reversion to childhood. The Register takes a lighthearted and irreverent look at the stories which matter to IT people. This is what The Register is, it's what it has always been and, god help us, it's what it always will be. A clue? You can mark a comments with an icon which means 'what's the Paris Hilton angle?'. That in turn allows all the Hiltards - people whose only raison d'etre is to show they can think of a double- (or, being honest mostly single-)entendre linking Paris into the story - a reason for commenting. IT people are, almost exclusively - and self-included, little boys (or girls) with a childish desire to make things-that-bleep bleep louder, stronger and faster, safe in the knowledge that only they can do it best. One day I might meet one who doesn't fall into that category but I'm not ceasing pulmonary inspiration in anticipation.

You people who complain - and over the years there have been plenty - are the worst kind of idiot. The ones who think the world has to work for them. The ones who believe that they have a divine right to not be slighted, insulted or challenged in their life - even accidentally. I'd love to know which other news organisations you read because, apparently, you have to agree with every word which appears there or you must throw your dolly out of the pram and refuse to read another word.

Do I like the word freetard? Not particularly. But it has been coined and is in use and happens to be a convenient way to refer to 'over-zealous exponents of the free and open source software movement' (and before you complain, all freetards are over-zealous - if you're not over-zealous then you're not freetarding correctly).

The point is that El Reg would not refer to someone who they thought was daft or stupid as a "retard" because it's offensive to people who have mental health problems or learning difficulties. Bit like they wouldn't use the word "spastic" or "spazz".

So using "freetard" everywhere is actually pretty unacceptable too. It was offensive, but mildly funny, the first time I heard it. Now it's no longer funny, it's just offensive, and I for one am getting thoroughly sick of hearing it.

A poster above had it right - it's like an eight-year-old kid who's just discovered the word "fuck" and thinks it's funny.

And if that makes me over-sensitive, or part of the PC brigade, then so be it.