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Path: utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!glee
From: glee@cognos.UUCP (Godfrey Lee)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga
Subject: Re: Unauthorized Sale of Redristributable Software
Message-ID: <263@cognos.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Nov-86 12:35:29 EST
Article-I.D.: cognos.263
Posted: Thu Nov  6 12:35:29 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 7-Nov-86 10:03:46 EST
References: <212@sas.UUCP>
Reply-To: glee@northstar.UUCP (Godfrey Lee)
Organization: Cognos Inc., Ottawa, Canada
Lines: 52
Summary: 

In article <212@sas.UUCP> toebes@sas.UUCP (John Toebes) writes:
>First a little background:
>I opened up the latest issue of AmigaWorld to find an advertisement for
>a company in CA advertising HACK for sale.  Claiming to be 'The Public Domain
>Connection', they list 2 disks containing Hack:
>001: Hack. Incredible graphics version.
>002: Hack. Text version, for Connoisseurs.
>

...
>What can be done:
>
>In my case it looks as if there are only a few choices:
>  1) Sue them!  This can get expansive for me and them (In their case, they
>can use the money they are making off my work!)
>  2) Stop producing freely redistributable software.  This is an extreme
>solution, but with AmigaWorld working against me it is a reasonable one.
>  3) Ignore the situation and let them walk all over me and anyone else
>who is working for the betterment of the Amiga.
>  4) Force them to stop selling it and make the situation so others do not
>attempt to do the same.
>
>I strongly lean toward solution #2 - unfortunately with my employment
>restrictions it means no more software on the Amiga.  Hence I request
>assistance on solution #4.

I hope that you do not choose #2, since that will be letting them destroy
the wonderful exchanges that happen here. We should probably take precautions
in the future in safeguarding our rights to our own work, without limiting
distribution.

I support the idea of a letter campaign, to both the company (probably a waste
of time), as well as to the magazines. Write them as letters to the editor,
see if they have the guts to publish it. If not, I would be willing to
contribute to putting in an open letter as an ad, they can't refuse that!

The only long term solution is probably to establish a distributor for
the free software, with the proper spirit (no profit - or as Fred Fish
puts it: low profit), and compete openly.


[There is free enterprise for you!]
-- 
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Godfrey Lee
Cognos Incorporated
3755 Riverside Drive
Ottawa, Ontario
CANADA  K1G 3N3
(613) 738-1440
decvax!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!glee
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