Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!bionet!ames!saturn!xanthian From: xanthian@saturn.ADS.COM (Metafont Consultant Account) Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Re: Proposed New Newsgroup - comp.shareware Message-ID: <10619@saturn.ADS.COM> Date: 25 Jan 90 09:32:24 GMT References: <139@sneezy.tcom.stc.co.uk> Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Mt. View, CA (415) 960-7300 Lines: 46 It is probably quite important to distinguish adequately between true shareware, and crippled/demoware, before deciding whether the non-commercial requirements of USENet permit/require such a group. With a couple of notable exceptions (PC Write, Procomm) that have been commercially viable, most shareware is in no real sense commercial software. Instead, the shareware notice in a piece of software is the expression of a dream by the author that his/her efforts will somehow be adequately rewarded although they did not create a commercially viable product. The experience of those waiting by the mailbox for the checks to start rolling in has been pretty bleak (speaking both from net reportage and from personal experience), with the above noted exceptions. Somehow, to me, those exceptional cases are analogous to the folks at the top of a pyramid scheme - yes, it is true that somebody, somewhere gets rich, but for me, it is jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but never jam today. I think, given the low likelihood of actually violating the non-commercial requirement of the net (noticing in particular that shareware notices in software are by their nature non-enforcible, so that recipients of the software are legally, though perhaps not ethically, within their rights to refuse to pay for the software while continuing to use it), that such postings can safely continue in the machine specific source or binary newsgroups in which they now occur. In contrast, cripple/demoware is not, in purpose, software, but is instead _advertising_ for software. That the advertising takes the form of an executable piece of software does not modify its essential nature, which _does_ pretty directly violate USENet guidelines. I suggest that this, like CLARINet, needs to be isolated so that those sites prohibited by, e.g., government funding regulations from carrying commercial materials will have an easy way to exclude them. (My personal preference would be not to allow them at all, but I realize that there are now many subscription public access USENet sites that are _not_ under non-commercial rules, and to which the commercial materials may well be a welcome additional way to attract subscribers, so I'm not terribly interested in making my preferences net.law _in this case_!) -- Again, my opinions, not the account furnishers'. xanthian@well.sf.ca.us xanthian@ads.com (Kent Paul Dolan) Kent, the (bionic) man from xanth, now available as a build-a-xanthian kit at better toy stores near you. Warning - some parts proven fragile. -> METAFONT, TeX, graphics programming done on spec -- (415) 964-4486 <-