🚀 go-pugleaf

In the referenced message, greenber@utoday.UUCP (Ross M. Greenberg) wrote:
}As a shareware author, allow me to be the first to tell you that your
}attitude sucks?

The feeling is quite mutual, I assure you.

}                 The reason I come out with shareware is because of the
}honest people in the world -- they send in the bucks that allow me to
}continue to develop software.

Ignoring the worthless moralizing, this is incorrect, due to being an
incomplete statement.  I'll complete it for you.  The vast majority of
the support you receive for your software is in the form of the free
distribution you have come to depend on, exploit, and ignore.  But it's
not really free -- nothing is.  Real people are paying real money to
distribute your software.  The fact that you choose to ignore this
support in order to look better in the eyes of those you are trying to
dupe only makes you into a scum, it does not make the support stop
existing.

}                               There are people like Larry Wall who opt
}to produce freeware - and that's great. The net owes their thanks to
}Larry and those like him.

You're welcome.  However, I don't produce free software for thanks.  I
produce it for me.

}Some of my stuff, though, does have a price tag on it.  My free stuff you
}can use without paying for.  But, you're obliged, ethically, to pay for
}the shareware.

No, I'm not obliged to pay, ethically, morally, legally, or in any
other way.  And if I had the desire to use any of your software
(extremely doubtful), I wouldn't pay.

}               Don't like it, then don't it.  That's pretty simple.

All right, I won't it, just as soon as you tell me what not itting is.

}But, if you're going to proclaim you're dishonest, unethical and willing
}to use another's intellectual property without paying for it (that's
}called theft), then please do the shareware authors of the world a favor?

Not at all.  As has already been pointed out, it's not theft.  Neither
is is dishonest (obviously) or unethical (by definition).  What I'm
proclaiming is that *you*, and other shareware authors, are dishonest,
unethical, and willing to use another's physical property without
paying for it.  And I think you are fairly scummy for the dishonesty
and lack of ethics, but the use of other people's property is fine,
since it is with their permission.

}Keep your ethics, or lack thereof, to yourself? It disgusts those of us
}who *do* rely on the honest and ethical people of the world..

Again, likewise.
---
Jef
                                   
  Jef Poskanzer  jef@well.sf.ca.us  {ucbvax, apple, hplabs}!well!jef
 "Freedom is still the most radical idea of all." -- Nathaniel Branden