A
Achim Nolcken Lohse
On Wed, 28 Jan 2004 23:24:26 +0100, "Bjorn Abelli"
....
It wouldn't take much research to disprove the latter statement.
Since there's a lot of debate about the ethics of software use and
distribution here, "abandonware" is certainly a fitting topic of
discussion, since it involves unethical behaviour by the copyright
holders.
In my opinion, the critical characteristic of abandonware is not that
it's no longer developed, or that it's no longer supported by the
copyright holder, but that one can no longer purchase a license for
use.
While I can imagine situations when suppressing a piece of software
would be justifiable, most of the instances I've encountered don't
fall into this category. What maddens me especially is when software
companies buy up unique and useful programs and simply kill them.
This happened with a number of PC dictionary and translation programs.
Language Assistant got purchased by Globalink, and Globalink was then
taken over by L&H, which then took all the PC-based programs it had
bought off the market before exiting the field itself altogether.
Another instance is Transparent Language, which killed its own
innovative foreign language training system, using specially prepared
literary texts. They now market only conventional and rather dull
language learning modules, and appear to have taken all of the
original material off the market.
In my view, this is reprehensible, and morally justifies distributing
such material in spite of the EULA. I find it strange that some
software authors can't understand this. I image they would understand
it if someone found a global cure for cancer, and then used his patent
to deny everyone except his friends and family the benefit of it.
Achim
axethetax
....
It wouldn't take much research to disprove the latter statement.
Since there's a lot of debate about the ethics of software use and
distribution here, "abandonware" is certainly a fitting topic of
discussion, since it involves unethical behaviour by the copyright
holders.
In my opinion, the critical characteristic of abandonware is not that
it's no longer developed, or that it's no longer supported by the
copyright holder, but that one can no longer purchase a license for
use.
While I can imagine situations when suppressing a piece of software
would be justifiable, most of the instances I've encountered don't
fall into this category. What maddens me especially is when software
companies buy up unique and useful programs and simply kill them.
This happened with a number of PC dictionary and translation programs.
Language Assistant got purchased by Globalink, and Globalink was then
taken over by L&H, which then took all the PC-based programs it had
bought off the market before exiting the field itself altogether.
Another instance is Transparent Language, which killed its own
innovative foreign language training system, using specially prepared
literary texts. They now market only conventional and rather dull
language learning modules, and appear to have taken all of the
original material off the market.
In my view, this is reprehensible, and morally justifies distributing
such material in spite of the EULA. I find it strange that some
software authors can't understand this. I image they would understand
it if someone found a global cure for cancer, and then used his patent
to deny everyone except his friends and family the benefit of it.
Achim
axethetax