Author: Fernando Villegas
Date: 08:54:38 07/20/98
Dear Mr Moreland: It is clear you don't understand or, better said, you don't want to understand my position in this issue. The example you have given about a guy stealing in a grocery is a sample of that missunderstanding. I don't want to do of this a personal war against you, althoug it is clear you begun this when in the last sentence of your first post you said that I wanted support for my actions or something like that. Let me summarize all this: a) I was not and I am not stating a personal preference. I just tried to show how complex this issue is. My point is that You cannot simply distinguish between honest and dishonest behaviour on the ground if a man got or not some program receiving a copy. b) A better example of this issue(respect to sargon V specifically) than that of the grocery would be that of a guy going inside a dump site and taking and old piece of equipment from a dumped car. Maybe he is a collector, maybe he likes old cars, but clearlly, no matter what, he is not stealing. If you tell me where I can purchase Sargon V instead or receiving a pirated copy, let me know. c)In fact, all the concept of piracy is fully charged in the benefit of only one side of the equation. As Enrique said, nobody seems to matter about the many tricky things that producers do at each moment to ensure a continous flow of money to his home box office. Fake upgrades, flashy boxes with just a diskette floating inside but at 100 dollars the piece, etc. There is a lot of abuse in this industry, although always under a heavy coverage. You take a product, expend a week doing some superficial changes and then you say you have invested heavily "in research" and ask hundreds of dollars because of that. Or they sell his product not only at a high price, but giving a limited number of tokens so in half a year chances are you have lost your money. I suffered this with several products and I lost my patience. Chess programming sometimes fall in the same trick once and again and then I feel the guy who was the firts to buy it has at leats the right to balance up things giving a copy or two to his friends. In fact, those who purchase rarely acts alone, they are like a Kibutz: I buy this, he purchases that and then we share.The producer has got money and we have got something more that the lousy diskette at 150 bucks. D) That's the reality of things, Bruce. I am not hoping nobody else here will recognize that what I say is truth, is easier to adopt an attitute of righteouness. Nobody will recognize that a part of his stock of programs was never purchased because they feel they will be considered as thieves, no matter how much money they expended purchasing the other half of his stock. But I will be frank: I purchase a lot but I don't reject a program if a friend give to me an illegal copy. And if a friend with less money than me ask me one and I can supply it, I do it with pleasure. I have no face to say a friend "No" on the ground of legal terms. I am not giving my things at random to anybody, but neither I hide behing an screen of legalities to say no. All this is just human, even if you call it piracy or burglary. ¿Shouldn't be so? Maybe, but is is so. Like in everything else, sin and santity mixs a lot. I don't feel any pride because I have received programs, I don't feel priode either because I have given programs, but surely I don't feel to be a thief because I have done both things. Now I hope you will understand my position in full. If after that you belive I am dishonest, let me know. Then we can try a more detailed discussion about moral and honesty with all the many shades the issue has. And if my words in my firts post seemed too harsh and insulting, forgive me. Fernando
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