Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!snorkelwacker!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!sumax!polari!root
From: root@polari.UUCP (The Super User)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Get shareware off the network
Summary: Fair play
Keywords: You want to make money off of me?  Pay me rent!
Message-ID: <1294@polari.UUCP>
Date: 21 Feb 90 21:47:46 GMT
References: <1287@polari.UUCP> <1990Feb20.220848.7809@wang.com>
Reply-To: root@.UUCP (The Super User)
Organization: PolarServ, Seattle WA
Lines: 32


  I'm not sure what the wang guy's point is.  I do contribute to the network
directly and indirectly, with free feeds for several systems in the seattle 
area, cheap access for folks who can't get access any other way, and by giving
away more than 500 hours of connect time every month.  I'm contributing the
exactly the same things that uunet is, the only difference is in scale.  

My point on shareware is that in using usenet as a distribution channel, and
then claiming that you can't use the product unless you pay (however vacuous
that claim is) they're not contributing anything in particular to the network
as a whole.  In fact, the majority of the machines that recieve the shareware
CAN'T use it.  There are better distribution channels for shareware than usenet
and I'd like to see them stop using net bandwidth for their own personal gain.

Now if they gave copies away to site admins or worked out some deal where 
interested site admins could subscribe to a shareware distribution mailist,
that'd be great, but this unasked-for use is a tremendous waste of net
resources.  (Which I feel a little more than most because I pay for it out
of my own pocket.)

  The analogy here is if I started posting frequently to all of the groups
that I carry an advertisement about my system; that's unsolicited purely 
commercial activity, and I'd call that the same as shareware in this case,
and I'd be writing an equivalent note about it.  It so happens that there are
places to announce new products (comp.announce.newprods) and there's a public
service listing of public access unix systems (nixpub) but both of those 
venues work WITHIN the network structure.  Shareware is a commercial venture,
and should probably have a seperate venue for it. 

  I'll stand by my statement.  Shareware authors want a distribution channel?
They should be prepared to trade something of value for it.  This distribution
channel is not free.