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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watcgl!onfcanim!dave
From: dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Cleaning up net.sources.mac
Message-ID: <14700@onfcanim.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 15-Oct-85 10:29:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: onfcanim.14700
Posted: Tue Oct 15 10:29:04 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 17-Oct-85 00:07:43 EDT
References: <1134@sdcsvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale)
Organization: ONF, Montreal
Lines: 30
Xref: watmath net.news:4061 net.micro.mac:2981

In article <1134@sdcsvax.UUCP> jww@sdcsvax.UUCP (Joel West) writes:

>Recently, however, I've noticed that the net is becoming a distribution
>channel for profit-making software enterprises.  That's right, I'm talking
>about
>	SHAREWARE 
>	(aka freeware, though the software is neither shared nor free)
>
>Shareware is useful, but I don't think various sites should pay
>their TelCo for someone else's marketting.  I propose we either
>	1.  Ban shareware from the net or
>	2.  Confine it to specific newsgroups (mod.shareware)
>	    that sites may or may not carry.
>
>I would define shareware as anything that includes a statement
>	"You {must, should, will be a slimeball unless you} send
>	 $X to someone...."

How about a modified contribution rule?  If you like a "shareware" product,
send the author the suggested amount of money MINUS the estimated telephone
costs for shipping that software between the originating site and your site.
Then donate that money to your local USENET site - they don't deserve all
of it, but the authors certainly don't deserve it either.  Or, take your
local USENET administrator out for dinner - he or she has done a lot of
work, probably for free, that you've benefitted from.

I think it's rather illegitimate to make a profit on such software while
forcing other people to pay the phone bills for distributing it.

	Dave Martindale