dws@tolerant.UUCP (Dave W. Smith) (11/01/85)
In article <1256@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP> benn@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP, (Thomas Cox) writes: > 6) solution: ... >B. state a USENET policy that the net *Strongly Discourages* shareware > payments. > Thomas Cox >...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!benn The issue is not "is shareware a bad thing". The issue is, as I see it, the use of USENET as a profit making vehicle. The secondary issue is bandwidth. Consider a book. If the author where to use USENET to hawk his work, this would be a clear violation. After all, he stands to profit. Now, if I were to post a message recommending the book, would that be o.k.? After all, you (or someone) would still have to buy the book, and the author would profit. Right? There's still money involved, so should we issue a proclamation discouraging people from recommending or buying books? I think not. Now consider shareware. (Let's ignore for a moment the 10% that gets posted by the authors themselves -- this can be dealt with within existing policy.) The differences between someone posting a piece of shareware that they've found useful and someone posting a book recommen- dation are 1) bandwidth, and 2) you get to try the shareware out before deciding if you want to keep it (or pay for it). The difference, as it should concern USENET, is 1) bandwidth, and the fact that somebody (read everybody) has to pay for it. An effective way to deal with bandwidth is to add some filtering. A moderated group for mac postings should deal with this nicely. -- David W. Smith {nsc,ucbvax}!tolerant!dws Tolerant Systems, Inc. 408/946-5667 [Standard Disclaimer]
david@ukma.UUCP (David Herron, NPR Lover) (11/03/85)
I don't want to hear any more about shareware! Shareware happens to be useful. (er... as long as you have a net.sources.mac that is). The thing to say AGAINST net.sources.mac is the repeated postings of the exact same things. Now that is a HUGE WASTE! And the one quote I saw I thought was especially obnoxious. (Something like "This is the last time I'm going to post this thing, so send your money now!") Please. The only reasonable thing to do about net.sources.mac is to come up with a method for reducing duplicate postings. -- David Herron, cbosgd!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET. English is a second language to me -- Baby talk was my first language.
ron@brl-sem.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (11/06/85)
> The thing to say AGAINST net.sources.mac is the repeated postings of > the exact same things. Now that is a HUGE WASTE! And the one quote > I saw I thought was especially obnoxious. (Something like "This is > the last time I'm going to post this thing, so send your money now!") > Sounds like another argument for the mod.sources.* transition.