Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!purdue!decwrl!eda!jim
From: jim@eda.com (Jim Budler)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Software Development And Piracy (Spurred By FTL replies)
Message-ID: <403@eda.com>
Date: 18 Dec 88 21:25:30 GMT
References: <555@icus.islp.ny.us> <2363@ddsw1.MCS.COM> <1334@leah.Albany.Edu> <6390@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <287@s1.sys.uea.ac.uk>
Reply-To: jim@eda.com (Jim Budler)
Organization: EDA Systems,Inc. Santa Clara, CA
Lines: 54

In article <287@s1.sys.uea.ac.uk> jrk@s1.sys.uea.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway CMP RA) writes:
| In article <6390@killer.DALLAS.TX.US>, chari@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Chris Whatley) writes:
| > In article <245@taniwha.UUCP> michael@taniwha.UUCP (Michael Hamel) writes:
| > >Whoa thar! We are talking about copying. This has *nothing* to do with theft.
| 
| Right.  Too many people are saying, here and elsewhere, that copying
| is theft.  Theft deprives someone of the use of their property.

Exactly. Copying deprives the manufacturer of the profit he
would have earned on the sale. THIS IS THEFT.
| Copying does not.  This doesnt mean that copying is not wrong, just that
| it's not theft.

WRONG. I repeat copying deprives the manufacturer. Where did use come into
the definition of theft?
|
| > >Maybe you *can* copy my car if you can't afford one yourself. Wouldn't that
| > >make for a kinder, gentler nation?
| > I'm sorry but that is the most ludicrous concept. Pure fantasy! Is this not
| > a capitalistic economy? Said copying seriously devalues the software 
| > product.
| 
| Copying software does not change its value one whit.  It reduces the
| *price* the manufacturer is able to sell it for.  The only difference
| other peoples' illegal copies of the software I use can make to me is
| that it hurts the fortunes of the companies who wrote it, who may therefore
| not write any more.  The idea that copiers have stolen something from the
| software itself is the ludicrous concept.

Look at that. This bozo just proved my point for me. Copying reduces the
value to the intellectual owner. Therefore it is theft. This bozo describes
how it hurts the creator of the software, and how it may cause them
to stop supporting the software, but cant expand his intellectual horizon
far enough to understand how this hurts the software and why it is theft. He
actually *sees* the damage it does, but since he can still use the software
he doesn't consider it's value reduced.
| 
| > It DOES NOT make any sense to say otherwise. If in your fantasy-land (you
| > know, the "kinder and gentler nation", Ha!) we could copy others posessions
| > and then those posessions would be worthless and the company who made them
| > would likely go bankrupt. Gee wouldn't that be great!
| 
| Ever heard of the FSF?
| I don't mean Fantasy and Science Fiction :-)

The Free Software Foundation is a wondeful organization which has chosen
to give their property away. The fact that they chose to give *their*
software away has absolutely nothing to do with the rights
of the owners of other software.


-- 
Jim Budler   address = uucp: ...!{decwrl,uunet}!eda!jim OR domain: jim@eda.com
#define disclaimer	"I do not speak for my employer"