Joe said:
If this is the will of the majority, I'm happy to go along with it. However,
I'd like to add another word or two in defense of my own position: Suppose
you were posting here, seeking a freeware program that would perform a
particular function, and it so happened that there is no free software that
would perform this function satisfactorily, but there *is* a piece of
software or hardware that you could obtain at modest cost that would solve
your problem. Then suppose that others reading your post knew all this, but,
adhering to the agreement that commercial software or hardware should never
even be *mentioned* in this newsgroup - even in the context of comparing it
to freeware designed to serve the same function - refrained from responding.
We've heard all the arguments for recommending commercial hardware and
software solutions time after time after time in this group. They all
overlook the fact that this group is named "alt.comp.freeware" and is
for the discussion of freeware. Period. Staying on topic is one of the
fundamental traditions for making usenet work.
You, like all the others, think that this would be an infrequent
occurance and that it's okay if you do it "just this one time" or a
few times. That's not the way it is though. You'll be opening the door
for this group becoming polluted with discussion of commercial
software as well as stuff like adware and spyware. God knows we have
enough problems in this group with idiots trying to pass off crap like
that as freeware.
Hey, if you want to find out if everybody is on your side or not....
just hold a vote. Start a thread.
Your post would then receive no responses. You might then wonder, "Is
everyone just ignoring me for some reason? Was my post not disseminated to
most Usenet servers?
Maybe, but that's just the way it works here sometimes. Life's a bitch
and then you die. However, I often search for solutions and when I
fail, post a reply that this is the case. Others do likewise.
Again, if you have a non-freeware solution to offer, it's better to
offer to take it to a more appropriate group or to email.
Or are there truly no freeware solutions for what I'm
trying to accomplish?" More to the point, you would be no closer to being
able to do whatever it was you were trying to do in the first place.
Now, I understand your point that if someone knows of a non-freeware
solution, that person can privately e-mail the original poster. My only
objection would be that readers other than the original poster would not
benefit from the advice.
Yours is the attitude of an advertiser. Use the shotgun affect to
distribute a message. You overlook all those in this group (and that
would undoubtedly be the majority) who have no interest in an
off-topic answer.
I can certainly understand the desire to keep discussion of non-free
software out of this group. I would only add the caveat that, taken to its
extreme, this attitude could defeat the objective of making this group as
helpful as possible.
Taking THAT to the extreme, what's to stop this becoming another group
like 24hoursupport.helpdesk? The purpose of this group is NOT to solve
every problem somebody throws at it. If that were the case, it
wouldn't be very long before nobody came here looking for freeware
because the static to sound ratio would be too high.
As for your recommendation of BSplayer for playing DVDs, I was intrigued and
decided to give it a try. I downloaded it, and found I was totally unable to
play DVDs with it, let alone play them well. As far as I can see, BSplayer
has no menu item specifically for playing DVDs, as does Media Player
Classic. I tried opening .VOB and .IFO files with it directly, and met with
failure in both instances.
My bad, that wasn't the program I've used at all. It was Media Player
Classic, which I agree, doesn't work at all (sound, but no video.) In
fact, from BSPlayer's FAQ:
"15.) Can BSplayer play DVDs?
* Not, yet. However, BSplayer can play decrypted . vob files which
consist an unlocked dvd "
But did you REALLY REALLY look for a freeware solution? There are a
couple of freeware DVD players listed here:
http://www.nonags.com/nonags/mm32_1.html
Specifically Xenorate and Slawdog Dojo Media Player. There's also Viplay:
http://viplay.cjb.net/
Here's a couple others:
http://www.fwnetwork.com/description/dsplayer.html
I've tried several freeware DVD players, and have so far found Media Player
Classic to be the least terrible of a terrible lot. Nothing else works
nearly as well for me as...well, respecting the wishes of this newsgroup (to
the letter, if not the spirit), I'll just say that it's impossible for me to
play DVDs on my computer, and leave it at that!
Have you tried downloading and installing a newer version of DirectX?
--
Regards from John Corliss
No adware, cdware, commercial software, crippleware, demoware,
nagware, shareware, spyware, time-limited software, trialware, viruses
or warez please.
Because Andy Mabbett is stalking me in this group, I have him killfiled.
