Repost of prediction

[Susan Bugher]

Agreed. I believe that PC-Write pre-dated EULAs. It was an honor system
-- how do you classify this? However, there was the ethical expectation
that the user would pay if he/she approved and wanted to use it after
trying it.

There are still authors who use the honor system (for example Total
Commander). There is a legal obligation to pay - enforcement is another
matter. Let your conscience be your guide. . .

Good points; thanks for the clarity.

Clarity is the goal of the Ware Glossary. The ACF definition of Freeware
is a prime example - I've come to appreciate it more and more. Few
people agree *entirely* if we try to define Freeware by using "free
enough for me" as the criteria - hence this discussion. . .

OTOH there is a fair amount of agreement that some things are NOT
Freeware by any stretch of the imagination. My suggestion: let your
conscience be your guide when you post - perhaps mostly stick to the
middle of the road re "free enough for me" out of consideration for
other people.

Just my 2 cents. . .

Susan
--
Posted to alt.comp.freeware
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Pricelessware: http://www.pricelessware.org (not maintained)

 

[Franklin]

We can twirl on this one, I think.
The program that leapt to my mind was Sygate Personal Firewall,
which is protecting me right now. It's a "lite" version of the
paid product. But, dig it: how "lite" is "light?"

Free Sygate is a very nice proggy. As you say, the Pro version
doesn't do a whole lot more. Would love to run it myself but when
I had it it somehow affected the windows shutdown to make it take
a very long time.

Hey, make sure you have been thru your progam list and removed
server rights from each of them. I guess you probably know about
this but I mention it just in case you don't.

ISTR Sygate got taken over recently and the Sygate firewalls are
affected. Awwww.

 

[Franklin]

Since John is not responding, I will say this: John has said
clearly
that he KNOWS he cannot 'control' an unmoderated group. He
simply believes, (as I do), that the name of the group ought to
mean something and be respected. Posting a reminder of the
stated topic now & then is hardly 'control'.

I personally have been reading this group for about 7 years,
because I LIKE freeware alternatives to M$ and other programs,
and I hate opening an interesting looking thread and maybe
downloading a program, only to discover it is 30 day 'trialware'
or severely crippled...etc.

I have theories about why some people refuse to keep their
discussions narrowly limited to true freeware, but speculation
leads to serious flame wars, and I have no wish to see more of
that.

Bill, it's not the argument in John's message which indicates to
me his need for control but the fact that he intends to keep
posting his missive. What's the REAL point of that? All of us on
the group here have read as much as we want to of it. We don't
need it yet again. To us extra copies of the same thing is a
nuisnce and borders on spam.

John seems to need to post it again in order to catch any
stragglers who are not paying attention at the moment and also any
newcomers. But newcomers don't need to encounter some doctrinaire
statement. They have come to the group in good faith to discuss
freeware and in all probability that is exactly what they will do.

Meanwhile John says that if there are any transgressions to his
way of seeing things then we will be all in the fast lane to
purgatory and eternal damnation.

My! Let's chill. John wants the group to function in the way he
believes it should but others may hold a different view for how
the group functions. John's doomsday scenario and the implied
attitude of "I am right" and "I told you so" and "I saw it
coming" seem to indicate that he is so convinced of his vision
that he believe dissenters simply need the facts explaining to
them, loud and clear and often, and then the dissenters will get
to see the real truth.

And *that* is what I mean by "control".

 

[Craig]

Bill, it's not the argument in John's message which indicates to
me his need for control but the fact that he intends to keep
posting his missive.

My! Let's chill.

Indeed. Help me out here, Franklin. What I'm getting from you is that,
after careful consideration, you are convinced John has some
deep-seated, psycho-social, jungian-archetypal need for control.

Was there anything else?

-Craig

 

[Richard Steinfeld]

Free Sygate is a very nice proggy. As you say, the Pro version
doesn't do a whole lot more.

I suspect that the paid version has a more humane, flexible interface
(not that the interface of the free version is unusually bad). It also
has no rule limit -- this can be significant.

Would love to run it myself but when

I had it it somehow affected the windows shutdown to make it take
a very long time.

Sygate runs processes quite frequently.

Hey, make sure you have been thru your progam list and removed
server rights from each of them. I guess you probably know about
this but I mention it just in case you don't.

Please explain. I missed this one! I'm still using ME on one machine,
setting up XP on three boxes.

ISTR Sygate got taken over recently and the Sygate firewalls are
affected. Awwww.

I agree. Symantec, the buyer, is an outfit that I dislike, based on
experience. However, I understand that it's still possible to download
the program someplace. I had no trouble "registering" two new
installations; I tend to save my downloads (except for troublesome or
terrible programs).

Richard

 

[Bill Day]

John seems to need to post it again in order to catch any
stragglers who are not paying attention at the moment and also any
newcomers.

yes, I suppose so.

But newcomers don't need to encounter some doctrinaire
statement. They have come to the group in good faith to discuss
freeware and in all probability that is exactly what they will do.

Now you slip into speculation....the truth is, that anything worth
repeating ...like "don't run red lights", needs to be repeated and
'some' folks need reminding.

Meanwhile John says that if there are any transgressions to his
way of seeing things then we will be all in the fast lane to
purgatory and eternal damnation.

*grin*...I must have missed the 'curse' post. Gee, I thought he said
the group would slowly be diluted with off-topic stuff until it lost
much of its relevance.....but maybe that IS Purgatory.

My! Let's chill. John wants the group to function in the way he
believes it should but others may hold a different view for how
the group functions.

That's the whole point...'others' who see off-topic posts 'may'
shrug and decide anything goes.

John's doomsday scenario and the implied
attitude of "I am right" and "I told you so" and "I saw it
coming" seem to indicate that he is so convinced of his vision
that he believe dissenters simply need the facts explaining to
them, loud and clear and often, and then the dissenters will get
to see the real truth.

Often? Once every couple of months? Clear? Yep! Loud? John doesn't USE
CAPS! Doomsday? Well, 'doom' is kinda an exaggeration of what was
predicted. The whole point is to avoid ever needing to say "I told you
so." A reminder might help avoid it.

And *that* is what I mean by "control".

Since it has already been established that John and others who agree
with him can't "control" an un-moderated group, maybe a better word
would be 'guide'...or 'remind' ....or 'suggest' or ...whatever.

It's simple....there ARE other groups better suited to non-freeware
discussions. It doesn't make sense to cram everything into this one.
The title is not "good software", nor is it "cracks and serials to
make payware free"..... It is "freeware" and being able to concoct a
clever rationalization for stretching that word to encompass anything
you wish to mention is just ignoring the meaning. Sorta like Bill
Clinton trying to distort the meaning of "had sex with that
girl"...*grin*....

Categories and titles and labels have to mean something clear, or they
mean nothing at all.

 

[Franklin]

Indeed. Help me out here, Franklin. What I'm getting from you
is that, after careful consideration, you are convinced John has
some deep-seated, psycho-social, jungian-archetypal need for
control.

Er. {{looking startled}}

Yeah. That's it. Careful consideration by me. {{burp}}

Psycho-what-you-said. Um. That's what I meant.

Spot on. Archetypal. Yeah. Social jungle. That's it.

---------

Tee hee. You sum it up nicely, Craig. Well I think so anyway!
You have helped me out.

And I never said a word about emotional vulnerability which comes
being fixated in late stage Freudian anal-retentiveness that has led
to interplays of control being used a method of interaction with
otehrs especially later in life and very often undertaken as an
anxious response to perceptions of an unusually dangerous external
world.

Was there anything else?

Er, archetypal. psychosex. wotsit. deepseatedanal. largactil. no.

 

[Franklin]

I suspect that the paid version has a more humane, flexible
interface (not that the interface of the free version is
unusually bad). It also has no rule limit -- this can be
significant.

The interface on the free and paid versions are almost identical.

There are some extra features enabled by check boxes on the config
tab with all the different network options and I think there is an
extra tab for something like an automated alert (??).

Please explain. I missed this one! I'm still using ME on one
machine, setting up XP on three boxes.

When you ask Sygate to add another program to its list of
programs, by default Sygate gives it server rights. There's very
little on a home PC which needs server rights and it is better to
revoke those rights unless the program actually needs them.

From memory, you do this by going to the rather small window which
lists the programs and go down the list one by one getting up the
full edit screen and unchecking the server rights box. It's a
chore and there is no shortcut way to do this by editing some
setup.