Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:13312 comp.sys.misc:995 comp.sys.ibm.pc:10755 comp.sys.mac:11187 comp.sys.atari.st:7015 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!burl!codas!killer!elg From: elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.atari.st Subject: Re: Shareware & Honesty (Was: Software (and other kinds of) copying) Message-ID: <3037@killer.UUCP> Date: 23 Jan 88 19:08:10 GMT References: <469@aimt.UUCP> Organization: Bayou Telecommunications Lines: 65 in article <469@aimt.UUCP>, breck@aimt.UUCP (Robert Breckinridge Beatie) says: > Xref: killer comp.sys.amiga:14114 comp.sys.misc:1089 comp.sys.ibm.pc:12546 comp.sys.mac:12485 comp.sys.atari.st:7324 > In article <6649@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, mwm@eris (Mike (My watch has windows) Meyer) writes: >> As for fair, that means according to the rules. The rules (laws) in >> the US state that if you give somebody something, it's *theirs*. You >> can get neither payment nor the return of the thing, unless there's a >> prior agreement about such. > I think that the laws state that you can not be required to pay for unsolicited > stuff that you get in the mail. But you do not get to keep the stuff. > Of course, I'm not a lawyer. This is just what I've been led to understand > by people who have received (for example) unsolicited magazine "trial > subscriptions". You're wrong. One of my vices is reading the advice columns in the local rag, including the BBB & Legal Questions columns as well as the national ones. Over the past 10 years, the problem of getting something that you never ordered has been dealt with over and over again, and the answer is this: If you recieve something in the mail, and you didn't order it, congratulations. You are now the proud owner of a free gift! There is no obligation to send it back, or pay for it... although you may have an obligation to contact the vender and notify him that you did not order it, especially for things like magazine subscriptions. See the appropriate parts of the U.S. postal codes.... In general, the law works much like Mike mentioed... if it's free, someone can't come back and tell you later that it's NOT free. > Then there's no problem. Don't use the Shareware stuff. Just use the free > programs that people are standing in line to let you (you wonderful guy you) > use. Continue to sponge off the hard work of people around you. Continue > to refuse to give payment for value received just because the person neglected > to wait until your check cleared. Be a man and don't give in to the blatant > extortion implicit in shareware. America will be proud of you for it. Oh sure, real leach, huh? Mike Meyer has probably written more public domain software in a year than you've written in your entire life. He doesn't just stand in line to use other's software... he contributes, too. A friend here in Lafayette has a shareware program out that prints mailing labels in various fonts, with Print Shop graphics on them. He doesn't make random exhortations about "software leeches" or anything like that (for one thing, he's a gentleman, in all senses of the word, and doesn't do things of that sort). He doesn't ask for tons of money -- he already has a full-time job, and besides, the friggin' program prints mailing labels, it don't do dishes or anything else. Mostly, it's just a way for people to get the latest version for a donation of $10 or equivalent (for example, someone in Australia with access to a printing press sent him 500 beautiful diskette labels, gold-color, with the program's logo on them...). And, incidently, an excuse to get lots of mail from around the world (he probably spends more on stamps than he gets in donations :-}. Whenever I see something that asks for tons of money to use, I mostly chortle and toss it across the room into a growing pile of disks that one day I'll have to scavenge... there's very, very few things that I use often enough to pay for (like that mailing label program, for example, which I used so often that I finally sent the guy $15 -- which, now that I think of it, is about the only shareware that I've EVER used, since my main use for my computer is software development, and most development tools either cost money or are a quick "C" hack). -- Eric Lee Green elg@usl.CSNET Asimov Cocktail,n., A verbal bomb {cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg detonated by the mention of any Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 subject, resulting in an explosion Lafayette, LA 70509 of at least 5,000 words.