Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Commercial software in comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Message-ID: <2987@looking.UUCP>
Date: 21 Mar 89 19:10:59 GMT
References: <6191@bsu-cs.UUCP> <2967@looking.UUCP> <6203@bsu-cs.UUCP> <2971@looking.UUCP> <2987@epimass.EPI.COM> <54288@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 19

And more to the point, what people sell when they sell software is not
bits in a file, but the right to run them.

So if somebody gives you a series of bits on a disk that happen to be
Lotus 1-2-3 or PC-Write, you do indeed have the bits, and you don't
have to return them if you don't want them -- but you haven't paid
for the right to run them.

Most shareware authors licence a limited right-to-run, ie. the right to
try the program out for a while to see if you like it.

All commercial packages sell you both the bits on the disk and the
right to run them.  Nobody would buy the packages if they didn't come
with the right to run.

PC-SIG sells you just the data, and not the right to run it.  That right
is granted only by the author.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd.  --  Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473