21 Feb
2006
21 Feb
'06
10:51 a.m.
Hannu Savolainen <hannu(a)opensound.com> writes:
On Mon, 20 Feb 2006, David Kastrup wrote:
Oh nonsense. Time to read those license agreements again, I guess.
Well, then they might have some expectation to be
able to use it, no?
Without the ability to adapt the software to different devices or
applications, or fix errors (or pay someone to do that), the software
is crippled in its usefulness.
Usually software companies take care of fixing the
errors themselves. If
they fail to fix them then you have the right to get your money back. Yes. If you don't want to pay anything for
software your only choice
is to get some morally clean free sofware with no other
documentation than the source code. This works well if you are a
programmer and have enough spare time to find out how the source
code works.
Who is talking about not paying?
However for large majority of computer users this free
model doesn't
work at all. They simply don't have any capability to modify or even
understand the source code. In fact they don't even know what source
code means.
Like the average consumer who has a circuit diagram in his appliance.
The point is that this makes it possible to get it serviced by
somebody knowledgable in the trade.
--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum