[NTLK] h*cks, kr*ks, SN

[Ryan Vetter]

Hi James:

You make some good points, although Scott sums this up well:

"I think a large portion of the problem with the attempt to grapple
with the ethics of this situation is that there is no analogy for it.
It's not "like" anything."

That's pretty much true.  We can keep up with the analogies but the fact is, there are a slew of people offering free software and free help/support for the Newton.  And they have been doing it for years.  They don't make any money from this. 

When there are people who are pretty much totally indifferent to the Newton ecosystem but still insist on deriving profit from it, there is a case for people using, for instance, Newton software in whatever manner they see fit. 

If we stick with abandonware, I do see the point about it still belonging to the creator.  But like Scott said, this is more complex.  For starters, we are talking about the Newton.  It is not really used by anyone today.  It's long dead.  Even the code used to write Newton software is pretty much proprietary.  It's long left in the dust.

Software that comes with zero support, zero guarantee, where the author fails to respond to queries... that raises lots of interesting questions.  And since they are not actively selling it, it would be very hard to prove any financial damages in this respect. 

An analogy that comes close, although I agree with Scott for the most part, is as follows:

You take your mint-condition, black, italian leather couch, that you paid $6000 for, load it in a van, and drive 10 blocks in the city.  You back into an alley, and unload the couch on the side of the street.  You then drive off.  The police phone you, because there was a receipt in the couch with your name on it.  So they tracked you down.  They leave you a message saying they have found your couch, in case it was stolen.  You fail to respond.  They try calling you again, but you don't respond.  After some time, the couch is placed in an auction and sold off to the highest bidder.  You receive no money for the couch.

Someone ended up profiting from your property, and another person ended up owning that property.  But the point is, you abandoned it, even though it was your property, it became someone else's because you chose to abandon it. 


Life.  Goes.  On.

All the best.


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