Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!questor!aberno From: aberno@questor.wimsey.bc.ca (Anthony Berno) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Adobe Type Manager to NeXT Message-ID: Date: Sun, 21 Apr 91 09:18:08 PDT References: <479@heaven.woodside.ca.us> Organization: Questor - Free Internet/Usenet*Vancouver*BC::+1 604 681 0670 glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) writes: > Hardy writes > > This has even broader implications: if I have paid money for, e.g., > > Wordperfect for MS-Dos and later for a Macintosh, whcy shouldn't I be > > entitled to Wordperfect on the NeXT and just pay for the media/manual? > > Why *should* you be entitled to it? It's an entirely different product. > > Just because you have more than one computer doesn't mean that you should > get more than one copy of the software for free. The only reason > you even consider this a possibility is because you can generate > perfect copies of digital media, so it seems less like a product to many > people. > > Even if the files were binary identical, you are not entitled to a free > copy. They are different products. > > I bought a set of five tires for my Jeep Cherokee the other day. I was > really incensed when the tire dealer didn't give me a free set of tires > for my Chevy; after all, I had already *paid* for the *very same product* > for my Jeep. All they did was make the same tire in a slightly different > size, and they want me to pay full price for it. Sheesh :-) > > As it is, an enormous amount of software is pirated. Indignant users > tend to forget the damage that they do to the entire industry (and hence > themselves) by stealing software that they are "entitled to". Just because > the media cost is so low and copying is so easy doesn't lessen the value > of the product. > If I recall, the original topic here was about using ATM fonts for some other computer on the NeXT. I think that some people, in their zeal for political software correctness, are kind of missing the point and getting carried away. This bit about WordPerfect is a bit of a dead horse - clearly, the person that wrote the above passage had a misunderstanding about the relationship between software versions for different platforms. As for the guy with the fonts, why shouldn't he use them on his NeXT if he can convert them? The conversion process is trivial, and he probably isn't going to be using them on BOTH computers! There are some that would argue in favor of one-computer licenses, and some companies attempt to enforce this by various copy protection schemes. This would mean that if you upgraded, say, a Mac Plus to a Mac IIfx, you would have to buy all new software? That's ridiculous. How about when you upgrade your hard disk? Or your 030 motherboard to an 040? Although this is fundamentally different from upgrading an IBM to a NeXT, ethically I say it is the same - if you can't keep whatever software that you can still use in the IBM-NeXT upgrade, the same thing should apply to a Mac-MacII upgrade, or whatever. As a final note - I don't agree with piracy, but there are degrees of piracy, some worse than others. An entire accounting firm, making millions of dollars a year, using copies of some accounting program written by some small, struggling software company and having pirated it, sure, that is unconsciable. But what about the starving student, who has a choice between Microsoft Word and his tuition, while Bill Gates frets about importing his $600,000 Porsche into the country? I would frankly advise him to copy it. Likewise, I will confess that I have pirated software in my day, for the sake of curiosity, to see what a product is like. If I don't use it, and wouldn't buy it anyway, nobody knows and nobody is worse off. However, if I do use it and find it important to me, I'll buy it for upgrades, manuals, support, and in order to do my fair share supporting the company by paying them what is rightly theirs. There are no cut and dry solutions - the software industry is in a very strange state right now, and can't really be compared to the publishing industry. (Actually, the only comparason I can make is in the publication of orchestral scores, where the royalties can be so exorbitant that they are actually curtailing the production of modern music where royalties must still be paid to the composer.) Time will sort things out - I can only hope that the resolution is *not* elaborate 1-CPU copy protection schemes! --- Anthony Berno (aberno@questor.wimsey.bc.ca) The QUESTOR Project: Free Public Access to Usenet & Internet in Vancouver, BC, Canada, at +1 604 681 0670.