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On Fri, Oct 26, 2007 at 01:56:06AM +0100, 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. This is > > perfectly legitimate, though I don't see why a non-free licence is > > necessary just to make money from writing software. > > > I didn't take anything out of context. I'm simply stating the basic fact > that a person who writes a program is just as much an author as one who > writes a book or a piece of music, and by that has the right to have > their work protected, and as you just said 'to make creating the > [program] worthwhile. You did, since you took my comments about Microsoft et al. as applying to private individuals, small businesses, etc., when I specifically stated that my objection was to software companies that abuse copyright to make as much money out of their customers as possible. I'm all in favour of copyright when it's used appropriately; perhaps it wasn't obvious from my previous messages that I do consider programmers to be "authors" as far as copyright goes. > > What I *strongly* object to is a company like Microsoft charging ?400+ > > for an *office suite* and having the nerve to stick a ridiculous licence > > on it, that all but requires one's first-born son to be posted to > > Redmond. > > > We all have the right to choose not to buy software we believe to be > ludicrously priced (on that example I agree with you). Games for example > - I happen to like the game Max Payne, but I refused to buy the sequel > when it came out at ?30. I've just purchased it second hand on Play.com > for ?5. > > When the software companies come round to realising this pattern of > purchase exists, and consumers more vocally demand value for money, I > 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. As far as I'm concerned, proprietary software is much more trouble than it's ever worth, and it's much easier just to stick to free software than worry about how much Microsoft are charging for the next version of Office. "Writing non-free software is not an ethically legitimate activity, so if people who do this run into trouble, that's good! All businesses based on non-free software ought to fail, and the sooner the better." (Richard Stallman) -- Benjamin A'Lee :: benjamin.alee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subvert Technologies :: http://subvert.org.uk/ "For if a thing is not diminished by being shared with others, it is not rightly owned if it is only owned and not shared." - St. Augustinus
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