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From: rgale@pnet01.cts.com (Ryan Gale)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Shareware & Honesty (really: unsolicited?)
Message-ID: <2422@crash.cts.com>
Date: 27 Jan 88 17:16:12 GMT
Sender: news@crash.cts.com
Organization: People-Net [pnet01], El Cajon CA
Lines: 29

holtz@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Fred Holtz) writes:
>In article <486@sdacs.ucsd.EDU> wade@sdacs.ucsd.EDU (Wade Blomgren) writes:
>>
>>When was the last time anybody received truly _UNSOLICITED_ shareware?  Do 
>> . . .
>>The reality is each and every one of us either explicitly downloads such
>>programs from a bbs or timesharing service, or receives floppy disks
>
>This only makes sense if the shareware has only been posted by the author to:
>a)  his own BBS which has shareware guidelines,  or
>b)  a BBS or individual from which a specific request for the software was made.
>
>Otherwise it has been sent unrequested.  The BBS on which it resides may have
>guidelines for its use,  but most do not.  If the sysop does not care that you
>copy and use unrequested software then you have the right to do so.

You miss the the point.  It may have been sent unsolicited to the BBS, but
unless it's *your* BBS it wasn't sent to you.  It takes a good deal of
deliberate effort on your part in order to receive these "unsolicited"
programs you're talking about:  you have to call the BBS, invoke its
downloading facility, transfer the file to your system, probably uudecode or
unarc it in order to be able to run it, etc.  None of these steps happen by
themselves; every one of them is under your conscious control:  no way did
that software arrive on your machine "unsolicited"!
---  
  Ryan Gale
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