dmg@cornea.mitre.org (David Gursky) (09/21/89)
[Caveat Emptor: My copy of Virus-L V2 #198 seems to have been eaten by the net, so I do not have my original message in front of me as a source.] I believe both Chris McDonald and Kelly Goen missed the point of my message about John's message, (which message? who? what? ;-) I agree wholeheartedly with Chris' characterization of Centel. If they are indeed purporting to be selling Viruscan for $25, they are in flagrant violation of the law. I deliberately tempered my remarks about Centel as the only source of information I have about their "offer" comes from a Washington Post article, and is consequently at least third-hand (whereas my comments about John's posting were based directly on his message). For example, we know Viruscan is on the disk, but how do any of us know that other utilities that Centel may have developed are on the disk?? I could carry on these arguments for awhile, but I suspect I've made my point here. Relating this back to my message about John McAfee's posting, I found his language confrontational in the extreme, with no explanation as to why such a tone needed to be adopted. Kelly is levelling a rather serious charge at Centel. If indeed Centel was suggesting to purchasers of the disk with Viruscan that they were buying the application, rather than covering distribution costs, he is absolutely right, but as I suggest above, we do not have enough information present to make this judgement. Again, John's message had no information backing this up. The question has also been raised about charging for the distribution of software. I'm no lawyer, but I have the strong suspicion this is perfectly legal (although as I stated about, a $25 distribution charge "smells", to quote Chris). Consider that several companies in the United States sell disks full of public-domain, freeware, and shareware applications. When shareware is involved, these companies (at least the better ones) explicitly state that a seperate payment is needed. Also remember that this is how many user groups generate revenue (through the charge of a nominal distribution fee for a disk of pd/fw/sw software. Another question was raised about what say the author has in the distribution of his or her work, when done under the auspices of the "Shareware" label. There is no question that when a piece of shareware code is included in a commercial application or disk, the author is fully within their right to demand payment, or place restrictions on dissemination, or a host of other things. I am not aware of a precedent that allows a shareware offer to say in the general case that a piece of shareware can be available from source A, but not source B. Furthermore, such an example (you can get the software from source A, but not B) appears contrary to the philosophy behind shareware.