Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!usc!apple!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!gauss!markv
From: markv@gauss.Princeton.EDU (Mark VandeWettering)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Paying for Shareware (Was: Re: v09i070: newsclip 1.1...)
Message-ID: <13011@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 17 Jan 90 19:10:58 GMT
References: <137@sneezy.tcom.stc.co.uk> <15398@well.UUCP> <1134@utoday.UUCP>
Sender: news@phoenix.Princeton.EDU
Reply-To: markv@gauss.Princeton.EDU (Mark VandeWettering)
Organization: Princeton University
Lines: 49

In article <1134@utoday.UUCP> greenber@utoday.UUCP (Ross M. Greenberg) writes:

>As a shareware author, allow me to be the first to tell you that your
>attitude sucks?  The reason I come out with shareware is because of the
>honest people in the world -- they send in the bucks that allow me to
>continue to develop software.  There are people like Larry Wall who opt
>to produce freeware - and that's great. The net owes their thanks to
>Larry and those like him.

	Larry Wall is indeed super human in his ability to write and 
	maintain incredibly useful stuff, as well as warp, one of my
	personal favorites for games :-).  Applause for the man!
	(Any hints about a new rn? :-)

>Some of my stuff, though, does have a price tag on it.  My free stuff you
>can use without paying for.  But, you're obliged, ethically, to pay for
>the shareware. Don't like it, then don't it.  That's pretty simple.

	He is not obliged to do anything of the sort.  Ethically or 
	otherwise.   If you post something on a bizillion bulletin boards
	saying "Send me a dollar." and everyone downloads it, do you think
	that everyone is bound to send you a dollar?

	There is indeed a great amount of free software that I would pay
	money for.  There is a much larger volume of shareware (should
	be called "for-money-ware") that, to quote Theodore Roosevelt, 
	"ain't worth a bucket of warm spit".  

>But, if you're going to proclaim you're dishonest, unethical and willing
>to use another's intellectual property without paying for it (that's
>called theft), then please do the shareware authors of the world a favor?

	There is nothing dishonest in this.  You published your intellectual
	property.  You would have a very hard time proving theft.  

	And what is so ethical about charging for intellectual property in
	the first place?  "It's the American way...."

>Keep your ethics, or lack thereof, to yourself? It disgusts those of us
>who *do* rely on the honest and ethical people of the world..

	Sigh.  Shareware irritates me even more than the irritating GNU
	copyrights.  REALLY people, if you want to write software, do so, 
	and let it go where it will, freely distributed.   If you wanna 
	quibble about dimes, or make a real living from software, then
	go get a real job.  It will give you far less headaches, and pay
	better to boot.

Mark