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From: rowland@hpavla.HP.COM (Fred Rowland)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Re: Old Software: what's legal/ethical?
Message-ID: <1130011@hpavla.HP.COM>
Date: 5 Jan 90 12:29:50 GMT
References: <1990Jan4.152944.8744@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Avondale Division
Lines: 22

It's interesting that there's such a lack of agreement on this
issue, even among software developers who would be expected
to resist the idea of a "for free" earlier copy. 

I'm a user, not a developer, and I would feel uncomfortable
treating the original as a separate possession.  The license
might help if it isn't legal to the point of being
incomprehensible.  If it's a right to use license, I would feel
that one such license should exist for each working copy of
the software.  If it's a "you own it" license, I'd look
for specific wording about making copies.  

On a related matter, what is the status of software that was
legally purchased from a company which has since gone out of
business?  And what if you bought a site license and are
heavily dependent on that software?  There's nobody to buy
copies from, and nobody to buy a site license add-on from,
so what do you do?


Fred Rowland
Hewlett-Packard/Avondale Division