Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran
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From: silvert@cs.dal.ca (Bill Silvert)
Subject: Re: Help: MS-DOS FORTRAN
Message-ID: <1991Jun28.133034.5804@cs.dal.ca>
Sender: silvert@cs.dal.ca.UUCP (Bill Silvert)
Reply-To: silvert%biome@cs.dal.ca
Organization: Habitat Ecology Div., Bedford Inst. of Oceanography
References: <1991Jun26.130615.20595@cs.dal.ca> <677@equinox.unr.edu> <1991Jun28.054732.1424@weyrich.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 91 13:30:34 GMT

In article <1991Jun28.054732.1424@weyrich.UUCP> orville@weyrich.UUCP (Orville R. Weyrich) writes:
>>So the software is legal, right? Now he sells the computer. Does
>>the software license transfer along with the computer and software,
>>or does it stay with the original owner, who kept the floppies but
>>does not now have a computer?
>
>Generalizations are not possible as a rule :-). You have to read the
>license agreement for each software product. Also keep in mind that
>some software licence agreements are unenforceable (many of the
>shrink-wrap agreements).
>
>Personally, my recommendations are:
>
>	1) If you don't have the distribution disks yourself, you
>	   probably are on thin ice.
>	2) If you do have the distribution disks, and have software
>	   produced by slime-ball companies [you figure out who I mean]
>	   but are not the original purchaser, they may use their legal
>	   muscle to make your life miserable even though if you had
>	   sufficient financial reserves you could likely fight and win.

This is pretty extreme.  In cases where I have heard of action being taken
it is usually a large organization with at most one copy of the software
that everyone uses.  So far as individual users are concerned (and we
are talking compilers, not WP or spreadsheets in this group, right?), I
think the issue is ethics.  When I sell software I turn over the
complete package, disks, manuals, etc., without worrying about whether
the publisher gives me that right.  I run only one copy of the software
at a time, sometimes on different CPU's -- modern licensing agrements
generally accept that, although older ones don't (if your machine goes
into the shop and you get a loaner you are expected to buy new software
-- what nonsense!).

Instead of getting into legal hassles, why not just use software
ethically?  If you have a single-copy license, run just one copy at a
time.  With regard to the original posting, since the seller of your
machine retains the software masters, he/she presumably retains the
right to run the software, so you don't.



-- 
William Silvert, Habitat Ecology Division, Bedford Inst. of Oceanography
P. O. Box 1006, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, CANADA B2Y 4A2.  Tel. (902)426-1577
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