🚀 go-pugleaf

Jason Clifford wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 27 Oct 2000, Angus McBastard wrote:
> 
> > Your analogy is weak to say the least, but even using such a tool, you
> > have to agree that the closed source equivalent under this frame of
> > reference is selling a piece of music and then *forbidding* the singing
> > of the *song*.
> 
> Wrong analogy. I think you're trying to suggest something more along the
> lines of licensing you to perform the song in a particular venue only for
> you to find that your license is violated if you perform the song in a
> different key or with a slight variation of the wording that would be more
> appropriate to the audience.


Well it wasn't my analogy, but I would point out that in this analogy,
the "source-code" is the song itself, and it is distributed free with
every recording, whatever the key :-)



> 
> > The fact is that a piece of software supplied without source code is a
> > product unfit for consumption. This has been demonstrated empirically
> > time and again. Further, shrink-wrapped software licencing as it stands
> > today supplies no guarantees as to fitness of use of even *object* code
> > and as such contravenes just about every consumer standard you can think
> > of.
> 
> This should certainly be seen as a key point in my opinion. When you
> purchase a peice of software that you have no right to fix or otherwise
> alter you are entirely reliant upon the promises of the supplier in terms
> of suitability and fitness for the purpose it is sold to meet.
> 
> A computer program or suite of programs that crashes and causes data
> corruption due to errors in the programing is not fit for the purpose.
> 
> In no other sector would it be seen as reasonable to require the consumer
> to accept that a product is fit for the purpose it is sold for without
> having first seen and tested the product properly.

And not have the right to fix it if it goes wrong, or alternatively not
have a guarantee that allowed you to return it to the manufacturer if it
was a piece of unreliable shit.


> 
> > Software companies, far from suffering from piracy, have been stealing
> > and profiteering from consumers for decades.
> 
> Perhaps however if people continue to purchase from such companies this
> problem cannot be resolved. Alas Microsoft has a monopoly which severely
> reduces the ability of consumers to choose an alternative.

Well most open-source people would I think say that the problem is
endemic to the production system. Consumers have always had an
alternative, but they've never had the collective knowledge to realise
when they are being stolen from.

Angus


-- 
It said WinNT 4.0 or better on the box.
So I installed Linux.