🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <44174@brunix.UUCP>, omh@cs.brown.edu (Owen M. Hartnett) writes:
> We know what you're writing in these license agreements, what we're saying
> is
> that they're *not valid*.  No shrinkwrap agreement has ever been tested
> in court and a company would be committing fiscal suicide to rely on one.
> I'm not saying that people should go out and copy your software, I'm saying
> that there is *no* contract between two parties.  Suppose your license
> agreement said that if I broke the seal, title to my house passes to you.
> If I break the seal, do you own my house?  A company could put any wording
> it likes in this so-called agreement, and, according to you, it would be
> valid.  How about if the seal arrives broken in transit?  or missing?
> How could you prove someone broke the seal?  Is there no agreement if the
> seal is intact but the envelope with the disks has been slit open at the
> bottom?  Sorry, but I'm a software developer, too, with products on the
> open market, and I don't believe any of these shrinkwrap agreements
> are going to pass muster.

Understood.  I have posted a suggestion to that in a followup.  (Which happens
to be *before* this post.)

>>Let me throw this at you:  I can see your argument against liscense agreements. 
>>If you have a system that will work for *all* companies to A) Protect their
>>software from piracy, B) Keep their profit margins in the positive, C) Protect
>>the users from poor software, but also from deceiving companies, and D) Is
>>simple, clean and efficient, then I'd be more than willing to try it.
> 
> I don't think that your license agreement will accomplish A,B,C or D, and
> if you try to enforce it, could result in a negative B.

Owen, I said I understood.  I asked for a system, not an evaluation you already
covered. I was sincerely asking for a better system.  That was not a sarcastic
remark.

>>I'm am all for a new system, if you like.  Givbe me the system, the numbers,
>>the cost, the employees it will require, the machines, the advertising costs,
>>the insurance costs, the lawyer fees, etc., and then put those figures against
>>the time it will take to implement the system, make it work for the company and
>>the user, and show me that it will keep the profit margins at the highest level
>>possible.  I'll be the first one to implement it.
> 
> Well, you can probably save on packaging costs by leaving out those
> expensive shrinkwrap seals and you'll have the same amount of protection
> and will probably not be likely to take on the costs of a shrinkwrap
> litigation case.

Packaging costs are figured into the pricing strategy of the package.  That's an
extremely minor figure.  It amounts to money that the company isn't even
spending, so it doesn't even scratch the surface of the problem.
  
> -Owen

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Andrei Herasimchuk			Disclaimer:
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					'cause he hears them everyday already!
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