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"Andrew Plato" <gilliankitty -at- yahoo -dot- com> wrote in message news:216326 -at- techwr-l -dot- -dot- -dot-
>
> "Chuck Martin" wrote
>
> > "Product Activation is like the door Nazis at Fry's and other
electronics
> > stores: the default assumption is that you're criminal until you prove
> > otherwise, rather than the other way around.
>
> Try this out:
>
> 1. Quit your job (no paycheck!).
> 2. Take your own money and start a company.
> 3. Invest your money and hard work to make a software product.
> 4. Allow your product to be freely downloaded, used, and traded.
> 5. Try to feed yourself with the profits from this enterprise.
>
> It is very hard to pay a mortgage, buy food, and keep your toes warm by
giving
> away your hard work. As hard as you may try, banks do not accept source
code or
> good intentions as payment for mortgages.
Actually, many people have made livings--good ones--by giving away software.
True, they ask for payments, but don't require it. The concept is called
shareware, and has long provided quality alternatives to heavily marketed
corporate produced software.
>
> Companies don't make products for people to steal. Theft from a big,
global,
> monopoly isn't "more okay" then theft from a mom & pop store down the
> street. Stealing is stealing. The problem isn't activation codes and cops
> at the doors of Fry's - its criminals. If nobody stole the software, then
> companies wouldn't need to resort to these measures. Such is life.
I never said, nor would I advocate, people steal software (or anything
else). To imply that was the argument here is disingenuous. The argument is
that the fundemental assumption by companies is that everyone is a criminal
until you prove otherwise. I maintain that this is a really crappy way to
treat someone who has just shelled out dozens, hundreds, or thousands of
their hard-earned dollars on your product. Monopolists get away with it
because there are too few alternatives.
Go after the criminals, not the customers.
>
> Furthermore, such measures often tend to present simple trade-offs. Don't
> like the guys at the door at Frys? Then don't shop there. Go to Best Buy
or
> someplace else. Don't like Windows activation? Don't use Windows, use
Linux,
> Mac, whatever.
In my case, I walk right by the Fry's door Nazis (and Best Buy and others as
well). Once I leave the cash register, what I buy is mine and they have no
legal right to search me or my property without probable cause.
Meanwhile, Windows vs. Linux or Mac supports exactly what I have maintained:
that product activation is used successfully only by monopolists who have a
stranglehold on the market. If Windows had, say, a 40% or 50% share of the
PC OS market, instead of the approximately 90% that it does, they would not
be putting such barriers against its use in place.
Besides, I had a Mac. Planned to use it in parallel with my PC, mostly to
test Web apps. Had to sell it for the down payment on my first home--which I
had to sell in turn when I lost my job. There's America for you. But I do
plan on setting up a spare computer with Linux and using it as a Web server
to eventually host my site. I think it'd be a darn sight cheaper than
Windows Server 2003.
>
> Such is the greatness that is America. If you don't like something
> or have deep moral or emotional problems with something, there is
invariably
> an alternative choice that will more appropriately suit your needs, wants,
and
> preferences.
The fact that there are not always choices, or not good ones because a
company has a stranglehold on a market, invalidates this argument. But then,
you can say there are, I can say there aren't, and we both may be spitting
into the wind.
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