From: Frank Gruendel (newtontalk_at_pda-soft.de)
Date: Mon Jun 14 2004 - 01:20:04 PDT
Hi all,
I know that this thread has been beaten to death, and I
apologize in advance, but I have been following it
closeley with an ever-increasing level of dumbfoundedness.
When I see that Daniel, a helpful and very capable member
of this list, has been accused of having not the right
attitude towards our few remaining developers, I can't
help but chime in. Before I do, please allow me to draw
your attention to the fact that all of Daniel's excellent
software is and has always been freeware. Without his driver
and Doug's Newtway connector I would't be able to use my
Palm keyboard with the Newton.
http://www.ff.iij4u.or.jp/~ngc/eng/newtwave.htm clearly
states, even in red, the following:
Quote:
Never put a copy in other sites.
When it is found, opening to the public of the file is stopped.
Unquote.
Gilgamesh did NOT put this in any other site. Not even a single
copy.
The above-mentioned site also states quite clearly:
Quote:
This software has become ** shareware ** at this version and later.
Unquote.
Now it might only be my personal crooked view of this world, but I have
always thought that shareware means something along the following
lines (which I've taken from one of a couple of hundreds of links that
I got when I just searched the web for "definition of shareware"):
Quote:
Shareware distribution gives users a chance to try software
before buying it. If you try a Shareware program and continue
using it after a reasonable evaluation period, you are expected
to register.
The author specifically grants the right to copy and distribute
the software, either to all and sundry or to a specific group.
For example, some authors require written permission before a
commercial disk vendor may copy their Shareware.
Unquote.
Shareware won't work if it isn't spread by people. You, as Newton
users, should know that. How on earth are people who only have an
eMate or 2100 supposed to register a driver they can't get and try
out because the only chance to get it is downloading it from
Hiroshi's site? Which they, of course, can't do unless they have web
access. Which they can't set up because they have a WLAN card and
a router, but no driver. Could someone kindly explain that to me?
Can we assume that Hiroshi isn't interested in the 10 bucks these
people have already taken out of their purses? No, they can't ask
NewtonTalk for help. They do not have web access yet, remember?
If Hiroshi doesn't want a COPY stored on a website, fine. But still,
shareware must be shared, right? That's where it got its name from.
So what the f*** did Gilgamesh do wrong? He even apologized (for
something that doesn't require any apology in the first place) and
offered buying 6 licenses for the people he sold his cards to.
What else is this fellow supposed to do? It is already way more than
what most people would have done.
You can probably put myself against a wall next to Gilgamesh
and shoot me, too. I herewith publicly admit that I installed the
limited shareware version of this driver on the eMate I sold to
Eric Engle, of course mentioning that this is shareware and
supposed to be registered.
And, oh boy, shame on me, I did even try it out with Eric's mailbox
before I sent the eMate to make sure it'd work.
To make things worse, I'm contemplating selling another eMate soon
and offering to do the same for the buyer: Install Hiroshi's shareware
driver onto it and try it out with the potential buyer's mailbox
if said buyer doesn't feel up to doing this himself or has no chance to
do it for the above-mentioned reasons. And, yes, if
it ever comes to selling my stuff at eBay (which so far I have been
able to avoid), I might even want to mention this offer in the auction
text. Of course, after this thread, I will probably ask Hiroshi first
if he has a problem with that, and leave the list temporarily to
avoid being beaten to death.
If you think I should rather leave this list now because of my
criminal attitude towards our few remaining honest and hard-working
programmers, please feel free to do so. You may even do so by posting
to the list. Once only per person, please. All MY software, by the
way, will remain freeware forever. See the software
section of the site in the signature.
Still puzzled
Frank
-- Newton Software and Hardware at http://www.pda-soft.de
-- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/ WikiWikiNewt for all kinds of articles: http://tools.unna.org/wikiwikinewt/
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