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On Friday 26 October 2007 01:56, Julian Hall wrote: > Benjamin M. A'Lee wrote: > > My point was that what Microsoft consider to be their rights do not > > necessarily match what UK law, or the law in any other territory, > > considers to be their rights. > > I think we can all agree that Microsoft can 'go forth and multiply' ;) > > > No. You're taking me out of context; part of my email you removed > > mentioned the original purpose of copyright being so that an author > > can earn enough money to make creating a work worthwhile. One of the problems with this is where it can be used to prevent other doing the same work. One of the things that cropped up in the SCO/Novell case was where a set of header files had been written from a standard or RFC. By reading the standard or RFC 999 programmers out of 1000 would all write the same code: #define ARG1 1 #define ARG2 2 etc etc so if you try and copyright that are you preventing others from doing the bleeding obvious? Does my code that looks exactly like your code (even though I've never seen it) breach copyright? > > This is > > perfectly legitimate, though I don't see why a non-free licence is > > necessary just to make money from writing software. So long as you remember that money is not the only motive. ... > When the software companies come round to realising this pattern of > purchase exists, and consumers more vocally demand value for money, I The trouble with a lot of consumers is they will never know what value for money is in the software world. And for some the more expensive the better regardless of quality - especially if you're on commission Tom te tom te tom > hope we will see software prices fall. It's already starting to happen > with DVDs, different market of course, but I hope the logic will follow on. Shame the quality of the content dropped years earlier! Tom te tom te tom -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html