O
omega
B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson said:
Hey, no clarification should have been needed --
IF ONLY the self-indulging intelligentsia 'round here would've had the
foresight to conduct their intricate digressions in separate chambers.
J'accuse!
Hey, no clarification should have been needed --
IF ONLY the self-indulging intelligentsia 'round here would've had the
foresight to conduct their intricate digressions in separate chambers.
J'accuse!
O
omega
Susan Bugher said:
This is an extremely good idea. Otherwise we risk that people are only
going to vote according to their affection (or dislike) for a certain
product, and without showing the least evidence of considering the issue
at hand.
For example, pretend XXCopy was up for dispute. There, I would need to put
myself in check. It's one of my favorite freewares of all time. So I might
feel the impulse to casually vote yes on keeping it on Ware ballot. But if
I had to carefully way the fact that it writes to a weird part of my reg
every time I run it, in order to track my total days' use, and to then
time out periodic nags...then I should be expected to be able to justify
why I judge it to fall on one side vs another of nagware vs "pure"
freeware.
Here is the draft that I see as effective and concise. Excerpt from a post
by the BeAr <[email protected]>
: MS regards all components of IE as part of the operating system. They
: had been sued on giving away the IE for free as an accompanied program
: to Win9x (when they started to conquer Netscape). [....]
:
: If you read the EULA for every kind of IE downloads (full, components,
: service packs, and so on) you'll always read the following:
:
: | Note: If you do not have a valid EULA for any "OS product" (including,
: | without limitation, Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows NT 4.0,
: | Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Millennium Edition, Microsoft Windows
: | XP, or any other Microsoft operating system that is a successor to any
: | of the foregoing operating systems) you are not authorized to install,
: | copy, or otherwise use the OS components and you have no rights under
: | this supplemental EULA.
:
: Hence: It is *no freeware*.
:
Of course, amongst all of us who fall on the one side of the OE issue,
it might well be eternity before we could ever agree on how to sum our
perspectives...
That said, I still have been beginning to try to mull out the idea of
whether there should end some sort of something on the Pricelesswarehome
page, for long-term (reference points for when someone raises the question
mid-year), to represent why OE, or other controversial programs, were
decided, after ware ballot results, to be freeware or non-freeware.
But on that possibility, I don't have any clear thoughts.
Please note there will be only *one* ware ballot this year.
Where's the fun in that?! It was a trippy ride last year viewing those
posts last year that were voting both sides. <g>
B
Bjorn Simonsen
omega wrote in <[email protected]>:
Thanks for the elaboration. Remains to be seen if the argument will
"sink in" though. ISTM some are very persistent when it comes to
software that falls in to their "I like" category.
Nor have I.
All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen
Thanks for the elaboration. Remains to be seen if the argument will
"sink in" though. ISTM some are very persistent when it comes to
software that falls in to their "I like" category.
Nor have I.
All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen
B
Bjorn Simonsen
omega wrote in said:
scary...cf the other message just posted
<[email protected]>
quote: "ISTM some are very persistent when it comes to
software that falls in to their "I like" category.
"And yes to Susan, good idea!
All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen
O
omega
[edit]
I goofed here. I entirely misread (my imagination had got in the way as
the interpreter) the statement I thought I was replying to.
On the actual proposal, a summary (else a reference doc) included on the
ware ballot: Yes, good idea.
As to where my imagination had led. I was wishing for something further.
That voters on the ware ballot summarize (even if only five or six words)
why they are voting one way or another. I want this because of my concern
that votes would otherwise have tendency to reflect a program's popularity,
without evidence that there was careful consideration of whether the
disputed programs do or do not rate as pure freeware.
On that proposal of mine, I anticipate some disagreement. Bring it on,
then. Agree or disagree, either way, it'd be appreciated. This especially
as this is not a thought I am able to adequately develop out all on my own
(short attention span limits, etc).
I goofed here. I entirely misread (my imagination had got in the way as
the interpreter) the statement I thought I was replying to.
On the actual proposal, a summary (else a reference doc) included on the
ware ballot: Yes, good idea.
As to where my imagination had led. I was wishing for something further.
That voters on the ware ballot summarize (even if only five or six words)
why they are voting one way or another. I want this because of my concern
that votes would otherwise have tendency to reflect a program's popularity,
without evidence that there was careful consideration of whether the
disputed programs do or do not rate as pure freeware.
On that proposal of mine, I anticipate some disagreement. Bring it on,
then. Agree or disagree, either way, it'd be appreciated. This especially
as this is not a thought I am able to adequately develop out all on my own
(short attention span limits, etc).
B
Bjorn Simonsen
omega wrote in said:
Yes that was fun, at least when you look back at it now,
although maybe not for those "caught in the act" at the time
All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen
O
omega
Bjorn Simonsen said:
My post was a bit sloppy. I don't mean my usual typos that sometimes
cause a few sentences to kaleidoscope into tricky reading. I mean that
I didn't intersperse your text in the best possible choice of placements.
But, if you yourself forgave that, I feel better.
Remains to be seen if the argument will
"sink in" though. ISTM some are very persistent when it comes to
software that falls in to their "I like" category.
It's a bit frustrating.
If we ever do, I'll keep my word. I'll petition, or at least vote, that
such a product is, just like OE, ineligible for Pricelessware.
B
B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson
^^^^^^^^^^!! <- This does *not* refer to a part of IE/OE but
*to the whole thing*!!
Not only that. The more import point is: OE *is part of* the OS! That
means we have to view it even more restrict than lets say notepad or
the windows calculator. Both are called Accessories / Additional
components. That means they are regarded as merely provided as bonus,
while IE/OE are an integral part of the OS. But that's mere academic.
Parts of the OS (which kind ever) are non-freeware.
It's the same with small utilities which are often part of commercial
programs. You can't separate them from the whole program and call them
freeware. (As long as there is no unambiguous additional license for
these tools declaring them free. And that is *not* the case with IE/OE
for windows!)
BeAr
B
B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson
Please reconsider this! A little citation of the license agreement for
MS Developer tools (VisualC++, VisualBasic, .Net, and so on):
| C. Distribution Requirements and License Limitations.
| 1. General Requirements.
| a. If you choose to redistribute Sample Code, Redistributable Code,
| VC Redistributables, or Server Redistributables (collectively,
| the 'Redistributables'), you agree:
[...]
| ii. That the Redistributables only operate in conjunction with
| Microsoft Windows platforms;
You have to throw out *many* of the programs available at this time!!
A whole lot of programs depends on MS redistributables (= runtimes).
As I said in the partial thread about the Mac version: I regard all
programs free which are *legal* to be used free within a 'common'
software environment. That includes all programs which are restricted
to a usage onto the genuine platform they were written for.
The usage inside an emulator is such a specialized field of application,
that it should not matter when it comes to the decision 'freeware or
not'. Remember: The restriction to home-usage is *much more* severe
for the common fields of usage. But it is (mostly) agreed within acf
that such programs are okay here.
BeAr
B
Bjorn Simonsen
B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson wrote in
Yes, but does their licence say you can not use them if you do not
have a valid Windows license? One thing is the program will not work
if you don't have the "runtimes", another thing if it is legal to use
the app or not. No?
All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen
Yes, but does their licence say you can not use them if you do not
have a valid Windows license? One thing is the program will not work
if you don't have the "runtimes", another thing if it is legal to use
the app or not. No?
All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen
?
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=
Personal attack, cute.
Don't you just love language?
Arbitrary - "Based on or subject to individual judgment or
preference." You've arbitrarily dismissed OE as a candidate for
the Pricelessware list.
C'mon. Admit it. It won't hurt.
Arbitrary: Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity,
reason, or principle.
Do you also claim that you arbitrarily support inclusion of OE on the PL?
?
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=BBQ=AB?=
I think it would be better to put pointers to this discussion thread on
the ware ballot, with encouragement for those who intend to vote to
read it (if they haven't already). IMO voters should be base their
decisions on the full discussion rather than on brief summaries.
My argument wrt OE is pretty simple, but others have advanced more
complicated ones that I don't think I could make concisely.
S
Susan Bugher
C4U - SpywareSusan said:
This is the format I propose for the Ware Ballot:
**********************
NetLaunch
Not acceptable because ______________
_____________________________________
_____________________________________
agree - unacceptable
disagree - acceptable
--------------
Free Agent
Not acceptable because ______________
_____________________________________
_____________________________________
agree - unacceptable
disagree - acceptable
**********************
Voting would be done by leaving the "agree" or "disagree" statement a
voter agrees with and removing all other "agree" or "disagree" statements.
I think we need an "unacceptable because" statement for each app on the
ballot. IMO an "acceptable" because (rebuttable) is not necessary but
can be added if someone submits one.
Comments and proposed "unacceptable because" statements please.
Susan
S
Susan Bugher
omega said:
I could create a PL2005 Ware Ballot web page for future reference - ISTM
that might be a good idea if we have "unacceptable because" info on the
ballot.
Susan
B
B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson
Most authors bundle the runtimes. Anyway, what use has a program which
will not run because of lacking components? An author decides for a
programming language for a certain project and - implicitly - accepts
all adherent restrictions (technical *and* in law).
BeAr
S
Susan Bugher
»Q« said:
Agree about basing decisions on the full discussion but. . .
US ballots usually have a paragraph summarizing each proposal that is up
for a vote. IMO that's a good idea to adopt for the ware ballot.
Susan
J
jo
Susan said:
Looks fine to me. I had a look at it, er, finally *blush*
Adaware pronounces it clean.
The only niggle is it defaults to trying to auto connect to the main cnn
site on launch, but that's no real problem. Easy enough to disable auto
connection, and easy to delete cnn if you don't want it.
I
Iain Cheyne
:-D
O
omega
Susan Bugher said:
I tested out FA 2.0 today. It was an awful, repellent experience.
Definitely crippleware.
I'm not bringing in the subject of whether any features it is missing
are important or not. Not the following subject:
http://www.forteinc.com/agent/features.php
no filters (neither the rulesets, nor the dynamic kill/watch thread)
no crosspost managment (mark read when appears in later groups)
no import/export newsrc
no yenc
no email
no folders
no custom views on message lists
no customizable toolbars
no multilingual spellcheck
no trash folder (hard deletes only)
What concerns me is the mode of interaction with the user, the interface.
It is filled with so many false commands. False commands that serve strictly
to advertise the pay product. Clicking any of those numerous commands, it
feels like repeatedly stumbling into a pit, the way one gets so many times
the result of an annoying message, with the function deliberately amputated.
Here's a quick list of some of the False Commands:
==================================================================
(1)
!! BLANKO ("...is not available in Free Agent")
http://www.redshift.com/~omega/clips/var/FAdemo/fa-blanko.png
[From the Main Options Dialog]
Spell Checking
Inbound Email
Checking for Email
Email Alerts
Default Email Folder
Kill Filter Initial Settings
Watch Filter Initial Settings
Toolbars
Navigation and Menus
Message Views
Message Sorting
Confirmations
[From the Default Group Properties Dialog]
Message Filters
Crosspost Management
----------------------------------------------------------------
(2)
!! NAG POPUP
(Buy or FOAD message)
http://www.redshift.com/~omega/clips/var/FAdemo/fa-popup.png
[From the Main Menu]
File > Import Messages...
File > Import/Export RC
Edit > Global Search
Edit > Add URL to Favorites
Edit > Paste Header Fields
Group > New Folder
Message > Filters > Add Watch filter
Message > Filters > Add Kill filter
Message > Copy to Folder
Message > Move to Folder
Message > Add Author to Address Book
Group > Rename Folder
Group > Apply Filters
Group > Sort Messages By > Subject
Group > Sort Messages By > Author
Group > Sort Messages By > Date
Group > Sort Messages By > (etc)
[From the Message Editor Window]
Edit > undo
Edit > redo
Email address > pick addresses
Online > check for new email
Message > spelling
==================================================================
Menu commands in the interface of a -freeware- product are there
for purpose of allowing the user to execute them.
When a software instead uses menus for purpose of advertisement,
creating false commands, while refusing the function: then it is
not freeware and does not qualify for Pricelessware.
Free Agent is no freeware. It is a demo advertisement product.
S
Susan Bugher
omega said:
Just checking to make sure I understand. Some Liteware apps have greyed
out commands. I believe you're saying that FA doesn't - that you can
only tell if a command is usable by clicking on it? At which point if
the command is unusable you see an ad for the PRO version?
Is that the way it works?
Susan