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Re: server hardware
On Sun, 15 Nov 1998, Itamar S.-T. wrote:
> > So much of "property ownership" :-(
>
> I got Microsoft in Israel's Windows 98 brochure in the mail. They have
> an threat (in the form of an "article") about the BSA. Tells about some
> aluminium company raided by the BSA, they found 3 unlicensed copies of
> Autocad and various microsoft programs which were copied illegally.
> Now, not only did they have to pay for the software, which makes sense
> to me, they claim that the company had to pay a 50,000 NIS fine to the
> BSA!
What has this got to do with improving the performance of a legally
purchased device for personal use or for resale ?! You do not duplicate
Celerons, you rather halve them by making one out of two ;) I want to see
the warrant that accuses you of having bought two devices and having
halved them into one by gluing them together with some solder at your
own risk and expense ;)
Me, for one, BUY *legal* copies for ALL the OSes and development tools
that I own. Yes, BG has made a few dollars on me. But so has O'Reilly,
Howard Sams, John Wiley, Red Hat, Cheapbytes, cdrom.com and others. I will
never undestand people who buy a new system for $1200 and then 'loose' the
OS cdrom and go begging for a copy from other places. imho no-one serious
can afford to deal with such people. I don't for one thing.
> If you steal money from a bank, you have to pay the bank back, and pay a
> fine to the government or serve jail time, but you DON'T pay a fine to
> the Bank-owner's association!
If you steal something and get caught then you suffer what is known as
'the rigor of the law', which may include anything up to hanging and
amputation for you & your family members and such depending on where you
are. You're on your own.
However if you loosely float around pieces of an OS for 5-6 years such
that no-one is in the clear anymore what is a freebie and what not in an
effort to undermine the concurrence by price dumping (to 0) and then crack
down on someone without warning then you might get sued for predatory
business practices (for dumping the prices so you can raise them later of
course).
Peter