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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!beth
From: beth@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (JB)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Cleaning up net.sources.mac
Message-ID: <1236@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 24-Oct-85 10:14:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.1236
Posted: Thu Oct 24 10:14:53 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Oct-85 03:59:12 EDT
References: <8965@ritcv.UUCP>
Organization: Wits' End
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Xref: watmath net.news:4142 net.micro.mac:3141

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From: mjl@ritcv.UUCP (Mike Lutz), Message-ID: <8965@ritcv.UUCP>:
>Let's keep things straight here.  It's irrelevant whether shareware in
>general or a given program in particular is of professional quality.

So far, so good.

>What is relevant is the fact that shareware authors (or their friends &
>admirers) are using this net to publish software on which they are
>making (or at least hope to make) a profit.  No other profit making
>venture that I know of can use a distribution channel at no cost to
>itself.  I am having a hard enough time justifying the volume of stuff
>from net.micro.mac, which is running at 1.2Mbytes for the first 1/2 of
>this month *alone*, without having to explain why we're giving a free
>ride to the creations of entrepreneurs.

Well, how do you justify providing net.sources.* at all?  Why do you
subscribe to it?  Isn't it because you have users who Want access to the
programs that get posted to it?  These are NOT rhetorical questions - I
really want an answer.

Your major complaint seems to be that someone's getting something for
free from net.sources.  But we're ALL getting something for free from
net.sources.  When I download a public domain program I get something for
free, namely a program to use or not as I see fit.  When I download a
shareware program I also get something for free, namely a chance to demo
a program in the privacy of my own home on my own real data/applications.
No money changes hands, nothing has been sold.  In both cases I, as a
reader of net.sources, have gotten a program to use or not as I see fit
for free.  If I use the shareware, I will send money to the author (not
necessarily the poster) as a matter of courtesy.  But the small amount of
gain the author gets in no way diminishes the benefit to me as a reader
of the net.  And if your answers to the questions in the previous para-
graph are what I expect, the benefit to readers is the whole point of
subscribing to the newsgroup.

You can talk about the agreements regarding the use of the net for
commercial purposes, and we can argue about whether or not providing
free demos of programs (note again that no money necessarily changes
hands) is in fact a commercial use.  But maybe we should question
instead whether or not providing shareware to readers is in conflict
with the real point of Usenet.  I don't think it is.
-- 

--JB        (Beth Christy, U. of Chicago, ..!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!beth)

"What if the after-effect of the terrible bomb is unusual beyond belief?
 Wouldn't you rather the whole population had listened to somebody like
    the old Indian chief?"   (The Roches)