PC-DOS 3.3

[Jules Richardson]

Jim Leonard wrote:
> Chuck Guzis wrote:
>> On 12/13/2005 at 4:12 PM Jim Leonard wrote:
>>
>>> I'm curious, what is it that makes your blood boil more?  The 
>>> distribution
>>> of the software itself, or the hypocrasy of not even trying to ask for
>>> permission?
>>
>> It's honestly hard to say--suppose after a business trip, you arrived 
>> home
>> to find your car gone.  Two hours later, your neighbor shows up with it.
>> You confront him and get any or all of the following:
>>
>> "I borrowed it because you weren't using it"
>> "I called but you didn't answer your phone"
>> "I didn't ask because I knew you'd say "no""
>>
>> Which would make you more angry?   How angry would you get if your 
>> neighbor
>> kept borrowing your car without asking?  How angry would you get if he
>> allowed his friends to drive it also?
> 
> I like the above MUCH more than any single-sentence answer you could 
> have given me.  You, sir, are awesome :-)

Except we're talking about software here which doesn't deteriorate or get 
damaged by someone else using it. If the same were true of cars, I'd have *no* 
problem in someone else making use of my vehicle if it wasn't inconveniencing 
me in any way. It wouldn't make any difference to me whether they used it or not.

That doesn't mean I think people should go around copying software without the 
owner's permission - and should also respect their rights if the author thinks 
they're going to make money out of it some day. But the car analogy doesn't 
stand up...

What annoys me though is companies who drop old software but don't make copies 
of the binaries freely available (source code I can understand due to IPR 
issues).  I mean, when seriously are MS going to go selling copies of MSDOS 
again? Providing nobody goes reselling it for their own financial gain, 
where's the harm in releasing the binaries? It's not like the binaries can't 
still be found in places on floppy...

cheers

Jules