🚀 go-pugleaf

In <ABADDON.92Dec16112629@suprenum.uk.ac.liverpool.scm.suprenum>
	abaddon@uk.ac.liverpool.scm.suprenum (Kevin o donovan) writes:

>Absolute rubbish. Just because you decide something is too expensive
>you have the right to steal it? Good one. There's this really nice
>video recorder in a shop by mine, but its 600 pounds and I couldn't 
>afford to pay that much. Perhaps I should steal a car and drive through
>their window and just take it? If they were selling it for 100 pounds
>then I wouldn't need to do this, so its their own fault. Then again, it seems
>silly to pay 100 pounds when I can get it for nothing...

	Well, it works for people in LA. ;-)

	One point left out of this discussion comparing software to VCR's is
that at least with a VCR, if it doesn't work, you have the right to take
it back and have it fixed or replaced. I'd like to see a VCR
manufacturer try to sell VCR's on which half the features don't work, or
don't work corrrectly, and then try to get more money from the purchasers
for an "update" that fixes the features originally advertised. I'm sure
that would go over well with consumers. Yet software companies have
somehow convinced consumers that this is acceptable in software. And if
the feature you needed is broken, the software is basically useless to
you, but can you return it? Not too likely, without being accused of
pirating the software. Have this happen a few times with >$100 packages,
and you might decide to make sure the package works as advertised before
getting ripped off for the money first. And that's basically what it is,
isn't it? If you sell someone something that doesn't work as advertised,
you are ripping them off. 

	So I guess that means that not only software pirates are theives,
so are some software companies. At least with Gnu software, if it
doesn't do what you want, you have access to the source, and can either
fix it to do what you want or pay someone else to do it. Most software
companies seem more interested in adding new features to software to
justify upgrade fees than actually fixing problems in existing software,
which only counts as maintenance upgrades, which they can't charge as
much money for. And just why should the consumer have to pay for the
fixing of something that shouldn't have been broken in the first place?


-- 

 "If Rush fans were braindead, why are there so   Bruce Bufalini
 many people posting to alt.music.rush?"              PSU