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Re: M$ IL latest craze



Hi.
many people answered in private mail to my pre. post. Since I don't want to
answer each one of them separately (I hardly have time to read my mail
nowadays...) I'll send all my comments here, no names mentioned, though.

People wrote and said that hardware is harder to create since you're not only
one compile away whenever you make little design changes. Well, AFAIK, this is
not quite true. Every hardware manufacturer has some simulators for the 
hardware they design that can check the product without actually creating it 
(only defining it with software products). This is only true for all the bugs 
that are found before actually manufacturing. The only claim that I might 
consider is that when you buy hardware you actually feel that you get something
PHYSICAL for your money.

Some other people wrote and said that they use several expensive software
tools and cannot work without them even though the quality is not high enough. 
My answer is simple : For all the people that wrote about Corel products: Have
you tried the Gimp ?
Anyway, if you use those products to make money (or even to save you some
effort) you should pay them for creating such products. 

Some of you said that computers cannot run without software tools, so you have
to get them somehow. 
When people buy cars they also buy only some hardware that cannot run without
gas, and still you don't find a lot of people complaining about it, or
stealing from gas-stations....

Another car point. Someone wrote about being able to look under the hoods
and see how the car is built. This had nothing to do with having to pay for
the SW products you use. This is called reverse engineering, and I will be
willing to discuss it with you when I have more time (briefly: I believe that
users should be able to reverse engineer the products they use)

About being able to share hardware but no software: I truly believe that
people should be able to give each other the license for a software (that is,
let another person use that software, while the first person cannot use it at
the same period of time. Just like in HW or other things.)
If someone give you his old computer as a gift, and all the software is
legally licensed, you don't have any problems. That nice person cannot use
other instances of the same software without either of you buy another
license. It is exactly the case when that nice person decides that he still
needs his old sound card : if you want you new (old:)) computer to make noises
at you, you should buy a SB.

A point about 80% honest people being criminals: Most peoples are not even
aware of the fact that they should pay for the SW they use. We have to educate
people how to use SW products legally. The fact that a lot of people do it
does not make it legal. (If enough of them really believe that you should not
pay for SW products you could start up a party and run for the Knesset. Had you
won you could have changed the rules (or at least for people that use illegal
software for more then 5 years in a row :) ), till then all of those 80% are
criminals!)
Since they don't understand that they should pay for their SW the price
doesn't matter.

The fact that RedHat, Cygnus and other companies pay their programmers, is not
a good counterexample for my suggestion that if people didn't pay the SW
companies they would not be able to pay the programmers, since people do pay
RedHat and big corporations pay Cygnus! The fact that those people don't have 
to pay RH, does not mean that they don't do it.

About my almost last paragraph (about enforcement) it was a joke (it was so 
absurd that I didn't think anyone would believe I actually meant it) and I 
thought it was obvious. Apparently it was not :(. 
For other comments about  enforcement: some people suggested some drastic
punishments, I don't think  that this should be done. People should only be 
maid to pay for the software  they use, and the expanses that the police had 
to get that money.
The agents idea is unrealistic, but some other way might be better (didn't
have time to think of one, though).

I hope that this message cleared some things up.
Enjoy yourself,
Liran.
-- 
__________________________________________________________________________
Liran Zvibel.                            | " Give a man a fish and you
System Programmer, System Administrator. |   feed him for a day;
email : liranz@actcom.co.il              |   teach him to use the Net  
phone : 972 - 3 - 6493939                |   and he won't bother you
home  : http://www.math.tau.ac.il/~liranz|   for weeks. "
UIN: 708004 ; WHOIS : LZ615              |   
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