OE is free, isn't it?
No, it isn't. It's a windows technology and gets shipped with Windows. You
don't pay for it directly but indirectly. Come to think of it, how do you
pay the coding team? Donations? It's not out of the advertising budget, as
suggested, unless I'm deeply mistaking.
In theory, since OE is shipped with Windows, OS crashing because of OE
fault will render the OS unusable because of MS's fault in which case I
could return the OS and ask for a refund. This is in unless you read EULA
.
There are alternatives, even free ones, no?
I got used to it. I also have a few years of news and mail activity
burried deep in its structures. I have .dbx file with "created" timestamp in
'97.
Or what about, gasp, a commercial newsreader? "You get what you pay for"?
Your irony has not gone unnoticed. As I explained before, this isn't some
free tool I got off the web. This is a product that ships with Windows and
is, therefore, paid. If you buy a car and it ships with pedals, it doesn't
mean pedals are free. Neither does it mean that if the pedals pop off and
you crash the company isn't responsible for it. Or that you can't send the
wreck back to them. I know software doesn't get shipped back and is fixed
in-place, still.
I bought the package. If this *was* a free addon you just get off the net
after deploying the OS, I would have thought deeper.
From the other end of the pipe, this *is* a commercial newsreader. Why
would I consider [insert your company here]'s newsreader as better than MS?
They DO provide hi-quality software, mission critical software, they CAN
code.
Leaving aside finance, they do have hundreds of issues addressed and they
keep addressing other issues. What's the point in fixing one connection
error and skipping others? That was my question after all, it wasn't about
no support whatsoever. They fixed stupid stuff one user encounters once
every 2 years and skipped things I get each and every day.
