Re: VAX software available for download

From: Thomas Jahns (Thomas.Jahns_at_epost.de)
Date: 06/28/05 

Date: 28 Jun 2005 01:22:42 +0200

bill@cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes:
> m.kraemer@gsi.de (Michael Kraemer) writes:
> > OK, but as a car customer I have the choice to lease or buy.
>
> Not in most cases. You have to accept whatever they offer or go
> elsewhere. They have no requirement to accomodate your desires.

Could you give a specific example of a car only available on lease?

> > And my choice does not depend on legal issues but on
> > financial ones or on my personal situation.
>
> Actually, it depends much more on what the owner of the product
> wants to offer. He is free to sell the car, lease the car, give
> the car away, or set it on fifre in front of his showroom. After
> all, it is his property. (see where this is going!)

But the owner of a car is still free to do as he pleases, and normally
people can become owners of a car. The situation is radically different
with software where a customer only gets a copy and almost no rights to
it.

> > With their restrictive "licensing" schemes software makers
> > do not offer this choice.
>
> And the have no responsbility to. If you don't like it, go
> elsewhere. They don't hold a gun to your head and say "sign
> here".

They are not forced to by the law. Please don't confuse justice and law
or moral responsibility and legal duty. These are usually quite
different from one another. Just let's say they are not forced to.

> > And if this is the current law,
>
> It's called contract law. Two parties are free to negotiate
> whatever they want.

I don't know about the U.S. law. But here in Germany people are not
allowed to freely negotiate anything in a contract. There's no way for
anyone here to give up their fundamental rights like free speech, equal
vote and a few more. Also contracts which grossly disadvantage one party
are not legally binding here.

> > it should be changed,
>
> Why? What would further government involvement accomplish? The
> problem seems to be that you think your way is the best and if the
> law was changed it would change in your favor. There is nothing
> I can see that supports this premise.
>
> > IMHO. (OK, I'm aware IP lobbyists would fight
> > that until the bitter end)
>
> So, should I take it you don't believe in IP? You believe that my time
> and labor are not mine to do with as I choose? Without IP rights you
> end out like the collapsed Russia. Decades of life where work got you
> nothing more than those who chose to work less resulted in breeding
> all ambition out of the entire country. The collapse was inevitable.

Evolution does not affect that much on the scale of only two or three
generations.

> If I could write an OS as good as VMS with all the features that
> everyone is likely to want how likely is it that I will put in the
> necessary work if in the end I will get no more than the guy who
> sweeps the floor at the end of the day?

You don't know anything about the situation in the former soviet states:
the problem was not the relative income of workers but how they related
to the people actually in a position of power and the fact that most
produced goods where not in turn used to produce more but simply put in
unproductive stuff like weapons.

> > *No* restrictions on the use of software, except pirating of course.
>
> That's strictly a contract matter. I am sure if you were willing to
> pay enough you could negotiate such a contract with most any company.
> But to expect it for nothing really is kind of silly.

Fair treatment has always been a question of law-making. People somehow
like to use any advantage they might have gained, unfairly or
otherwise.

Thomas Jahns 

-- 
"Computers are good at following instructions,
 but not at reading your mind."
D. E. Knuth, The TeXbook, Addison-Wesley 1984, 1986, 1996, p. 9

Relevant Pages

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  • Re: You gotta love it...
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