Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!utoday!greenber From: greenber@utoday.UUCP (Ross M. Greenberg) Newsgroups: comp.sources.d Subject: Re: Scareware Message-ID: <1360@utoday.UUCP> Date: 15 Mar 90 17:59:02 GMT References: <14010@s.ms.uky.edu> <125816@midas.UUCP> <635@magnus.Hotline.Com> <34812@watmath.waterloo.edu> <10612@hoptoad.uucp> <1370@utoday.UUCP> <1990Mar10.020747.29783@pegasus.com> <1342@utoday.UUCP> <643@magnus.Hotline.Com> Reply-To: greenber@.UUCP (Ross M. Greenberg) Organization: UNIX Today!, Manhasset, NY Lines: 42 levin@magnus.Hotline.Com (Michael M Levin) writes: >Following up to Ross Greenberg: >> >>That's all. Using shareware without paying for it is wrong. Paying for >>the shareware you use is right. If you're uncomfortable paying for shareware, >>stop using it. >> >>That's all. > >I think the key issue here is getting lost. The "ethics" that you are >referring to, Ross, are by your own words **YOUR** ethics ("...what I consider >to be an ethical way"). I know what I write. I try to be pretty careful in my choosing of words. You might have even noted that I've never stated that I have the right, as a shareware author, to distribute something through Usenet. Given an alternate newsgroup to stick it on, I will. Not until then. Forget the Usenet argument of "you put some bits on my disk, they're mine I tell you, all mine!". I consider it bogus, but so what? The grander issue of registering your usage of shareware is the point I'm trying to discuss. Due to arguments such as the above "it's mine!", there simply isn't that much shareware posted on Usenet. Heck, attitudes like those expressed by my worthy opponents in this discussion are making my next cut of my code be offered at $129/copy through normal commercial means instead of @ $10/copy through shareware. I'll make reams more money that way, people won't have to worry about disk space, and the only ones who *really* end up suffering are the folks who depend on shareware authors to continue providing good code at a good price. I'm not so egotistical to try to represent all the shareware authors in the world, but I am seeing more and more shareware turning commercial. The only reason for that is because it's turning less and less profitable. And the only reason for that is because of the (to me) unethical position many users of other's intellectual property take in their defense of stealware. -- Ross M. Greenberg, Software Concepts Design, greenber@utoday.UU.NET 594 Third Avenue, New York, New York, 10016 Voice:(212)-889-6431 BIX: greenber MCI: greenber CIS: 72461,3212 BBS:(212)-889-6438