🚀 go-pugleaf

Recently meldal@ithink.Stanford.EDU (Sigurd Meldal) wrote:

>Let me make my major point first: Using shareware without paying is
>(morally, at least) theft, and on a par with shoplifting.

If this were true, then, to an ethical person, shareware would differ
from commercial software only in that it is distributed over public
networks and bulletin boards.  I would then consider the distribution
to be an unreasonable abuse of these services.

Using a piece of shareware is like going to see Shakespeare in the
park -- its creators have appropriated public resources to bring you
their product, and this appropriation is acceptable since they are
providing a public service: a free product.

However, as with Shakespeare in the park, one must realize that it is
unreasonable for many shareware authors to continue to produce
significant quantities of high-quality software without reimbursement.
Thus, one may drop a bill into the extended hat to encourage similar
activities in the future.

If there's a sign next to the hat saying "A five dollar donation is
requested," then that should be taken as a measure of how much it will
take to keep the enterprise going.  But there's nothing wrong with
dropping in any other amount, or even nothing at all.

					--Tom Lippincott
					  lippin@math.berkeley.edu

	"This is not a rental car; this is privately owned."
					--David Byrne, "True Stories"