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From: lippin@ronzoni.berkeley.edu (The Apathist)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Questions on shareware fees.
Message-ID: <1990Mar21.051932.17769@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 21 Mar 90 05:19:32 GMT
References: <3262@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU> <52@ithink.stanford.edu> <1990Mar16.025655.23368@agate.berkeley.edu> <427@helens.Stanford.EDU>
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Recently meldal@anna.stanford.edu (Sigurd Meldal) wrote:

>However, all shareware I have seen is quite clear on the point of
>payment: If you continue to use the product after trying it out, the
>price is xx$.

If you read this message, go jump in a lake.

The drier among you have realized that one is not obliged to obey
every command on finds on usenet.  My slaving over a hot workstation
(for minutes on end!) to create and send this posting doesn't allow me
to lay conditions on those that I send it to.

[For those who came in late: I'm not arguing that one should not pay
shareware fees.  I'm simply unwilling to consider failure to pay a
form of thievery.  Please pay shareware authors.  And the better
street musicians.  And definitely subscribe to public television.]

[Also, I'm arguing the ethical point, not the legal one.  My opinion
on the legal point is that one is not required to pay for shareware
under US law.  However, this opinion is of little value, as I'm not
trained in legal matters.]

In any case, I think my major point is made: the ethics of shareware
are non-trivial.  (It is largely due to such considerations that I've
only written free and commercial software.)  I suggest that we agree
to disagree.

						--Tom Lippincott
						  lippin@math.berkeley.edu

	"Hume's watershed reversal is systematically delineated
		and enunciated by the marxist philosophy."