Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!rochester!uhura.cc.rochester.edu!lm03_cif
From: lm03_cif@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Larry Moss)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Shareware - does it really work?
Message-ID: <3385@ur-cc.UUCP>
Date: 18 Oct 89 17:28:16 GMT
References: <4707@wpi.wpi.edu> <126416@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <4901@wpi.wpi.edu>
Reply-To: lm03_cif@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Larry Moss)
Organization: University of Rochester
Lines: 48

In article <4901@wpi.wpi.edu> spinner@wpi.wpi.edu (B. Wang) writes:
>>In article <4707@wpi.wpi.edu>, spinner@wpi.wpi.edu (B. Wang) writes:
>> To be blunt, your friend is a thief.  Wonder if he'd feel differently if he
>> were writing software.
>>
>> Or maybe painting pictures...and not getting paid for them.

I agree completely.  What's the difference between someone that spends
hours carving a wood sculpture and someone rearranging the layout of
little magnetic spots on a disk.  The second one is just easier to copy,
but I'm sure that everyone would agree that taking the first away is
stealing.

>	Ahh.... I asked that very same question.  His futile response was:
>		"I don't expect them to pay me... I don't care."
>

It sounds to me like your friend should be working for Richard Stallman
at FSF (Free Software Foundation).  Of course, RMS would insist that he
stop using his Apple.

>	Continuing...
>
	[ stuff about how copying software isn't stealing]

>	So far I have heard responses from ShareWare Programmers,  how about
>	the end users' view?

Well, I am a programmer now, and I have made a reasonable amount of money
writing software, but for the first few years I had a my computer I only
used stuff that other people wrote.  So I hope you are willing to take my
opinion as one of an end user.  I feel the only copying that is justified
(of things that are copy written) is for a short period of time to test
stuff.  I do believe it is fair for me to see if I like something first.
If I don't like it, I erase it.  If I do like it, I buy it.

Now back to what I said before about FSF protesting Apple computer, I was
wondering what people around here think about that.  I've been following
gnu.misc.discuss recently and even people that have been supporting FSF
are starting to complain.  In short, Stallman is smashing Macs as a
protest against Apple's claim to the "look and feel" of the Mac. Is this
along the lines of book burning?


-- 
lm03_cif@uhura.cc.rochester.edu / CLARKE'S THIRD LAW:
lmo3_ss@db1.cc.rochester.edu   / Any sufficiently advanced technology is
lmo3_ss@uordbv.bitnet         / indistinguishable from magic.