F I D O N E W S -- Vol.13 No. 1 (01-Jan-1996) +----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | A newsletter of the | ISSN 1198-4589 Published by: | | FidoNet BBS community | "FidoNews" BBS | | _ | +1-519-570-4176 | | / \ | | | /|oo \ | | | (_| /_) | | | _`@/_ \ _ | | | | | \ \\ | Editors: | | | (*) | \ )) | Donald Tees 1:221/192 | | |__U__| / \// | Sylvia 1:221/194 | | _//|| _\ / | | | (_/(_|(____/ | | | (jm) | Newspapers should have no friends. | | | -- JOSEPH PULITZER | +----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+ | Submission address: editors 1:1/23 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | MORE addresses: | | | | submissions=> editor@exlibris.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca | | Don -- don@exlibris.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca | | Sylvia max@exlibris.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | For information, copyrights, article submissions, | | obtaining copies of fidonews or the internet gateway faq | | please refer to the end of this file. | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ ======================================================================== Table of Contents ======================================================================== 1. Editorial..................................................... 1 2. Articles...................................................... 2 WildCat! Sysops - WCEdit Registration Ain't Worth The Troubl 2 3. Fidonews Information.......................................... 4 ======================================================================== Editorial ======================================================================== Just one article this week ... a diatribe on the "shareware ethic" and shareware, submited as a policy complaint. I am not against rants. That, perhaps, is what the *snooze* is for. Policy complaints are to resolve technical problems. The entire *C structure was never designed to replace the contract law courts of the various countries that fidonet runs in. It was not designed to govern social structures, or ensure that people could speak to each other like adults. It was designed because we needed a telephone book, and so needed someone in each net to collect the phone numbers. Expecting, or allowing the *C structure to start to "rule" the members of fidonet on matters of law and social status is FidoNews 13-01 Page: 2 01 Jan 1996 ridiculous. ======================================================================== Articles ======================================================================== WildCat! Sysops - WCEdit Registration Ain't Worth The Trouble by Timothy Trace @ 1:100/440.0 The Shareware Ethic Is Being Abused By Joe Lemoine @ 1:390/3.0 What is The Shareware Ethic? For most purposes, it's rather simple. An author releases a shareware program with the understood intention that interested users will honorably pay for it. In return for their $$$, the registered users understand that they're paid in full to reap the benefits of shareware as compared to commercially developed software. Summed up briefly, those benefits are: timely, inexpensive registration; quick technical support and direct contact with the author; and frequent version updates. Joe Lemoine @ 1:390/3.0 is a shareware author who has lost sight of The Shareware Ethic. He's the owner of a couple of utilities for the WildCat! BBS, PostMaster and WCEdit. PM is a message-importation utility that Joe purchased from it's original author (Dave Cody). WCEdit is a convienence sysop's mail-reader that Joe authored himself. After using WCEdit for its trial period of a month, I decided to purchase it. Of course, I had a few questions about WCEdit and I attempted to contact Joe multiple times via the Fido WildCat! support echoes, the WildCat! SupportNet echoes, routed _and_ crashed netmail, and in sysop comments and public messages on Joe's NDE BBS in Folsum, LA. After receiving no responses for over six weeks, I entered the credit-card registration door on Joe's BBS and registered WCEdit at a cost of $35, hoping that Joe *might* give a higher priority to Q&A from registered users. Apparently I was wrong. Joe's lost sight of The Shareware Ethic. He has, for all intents, dissapeared from society. I've had an on-line registration for his WCEdit pending for over a six weeks with no results. This evening I canceled that registration request after leaving him a final demand for attention in a sysop comment on his BBS over a week ago. There are, at minimum, several other WC! sysops experiencing the same problem. Most of them have posted statements of dissatisfaction on Joe's BBS and in this and other WildCat!-related forum. Evidently we're not experiencing isolated incidents or temporary problems. Many attempts (both pleasantly worded and not so) at contacting Joe via sysop comments on his BBS, Fidonet and WSNet echomail, and routed and crashmailed netmail have gone ignored for over three months. Yet, Joe's around - as the day-to-day existence of his BBS corroborates. IMHO, Joe has flattened his interpretation of The Shareware Ethic into such a one-sided, profit-driven plane that he deserves none of the financial reward due a shareware author. If you have funds tied FidoNews 13-01 Page: 3 01 Jan 1996 up in an unfulfilled registration of one of Joe's products, I recommend that you cancel it immediately, without reservation. If you have registered either program believing that some manner of support was included in your registration fee, and have received your key, I recommend that you contact Joe via netmail and request a complete refund based on his lack of timely support to registered users. Remember, we're talking about a three-month span of time here, not just a few days or weeks. :-( I've brought a three-sided Policy Complaint against Joe; all of the reasoning is simple. If registration and/or product support doesn't exist, then Joe is falsely representing his product by listing his Fidonet node number as a contact point in the WCEdit documentation. The Fidonet nodelist shouldn't be used to give an illusion of credibility solely for the purpose of an individual's financial gain. By trivializing his Fidonet affiliation in this manner, Joe is being excessively annoying. Also of issue in the Policy Complaint is Joe's lack of common courtesy. For no good reason at all, Joe has held credit card registrations in limbo for months, forcing many of his sincere, paying customers to carry over unfulfilled expenses in their month-to-month bookkeeping. Joe is being excessively annoying in his lack of courtesy to paying customers (many of which expect to be able to contact him via Fidonet). Lastly, the subject of financial security in online situations is tired, but it's one that Fidonet has managed to steer clear of for some time. Joe's being excessively annoying by putting that good reputation at risk by behaving in an irresponsible manner where credit cards are concerned. My Policy Complaint asks that Joe be issued a cease-and-desist order for listing his Fidonet address as a contact point in his programs' documentation. If he doesn't respond positively and hastefully to that request, I've asked that he be punitively cut from the nodelist. Thanks for your time - and if you're a Shareware Author, please remember Joe's Lemoine's abuse of The Shareware Ethic - and never forget that there are real people on the other end of those registration dollars. FidoNews 13-01 Page: 4 01 Jan 1996 ======================================================================== Fidonews Information ======================================================================== ------- FIDONEWS MASTHEAD AND CONTACT INFORMATION ---------------- Editors: Donald Tees, Sylvia Maxwell Editors Emeritii: Thom Henderson, Dale Lovell, Vince Perriello, Tim Pozar Tom Jennings "FidoNews" BBS FidoNet 1:1/23 BBS +1-519-570-4176, 300/1200/2400/14400/V.32bis/HST(DS) more addresses: Don -- 1:221/192, don@exlibris.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca Sylvia- 1:221/194, max@exlibris.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Postal Service mailing address) FidoNews 128 Church St. Kitchener, Ontario Canada N2H 2S4 voice: (519) 570-3137 sylvia: (519) 579-8029 Fidonews is published weekly by and for the members of the FIDONET INTERNATIONAL AMATEUR ELECTRONIC MAIL system. It is a compilation of individual articles contributed by their authors or their authorized agents. The contribution of articles to this compilation does not diminish the rights of the authors. Opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors and not necessarily those of FidoNews. Authors retain copyright on individual works; otherwise FidoNews is Copyright 1995 Donald Tees. All rights reserved. Duplication and/or distribution permitted for noncommercial purposes only. For use in other circumstances, please contact the original authors, or the eds. OBTAINING COPIES: The most recent issue of FidoNews in electronic form may be obtained from the FidoNews BBS via manual download or Wazoo FileRequest, or from various sites in the FidoNet and Internet. PRINTED COPIES may be obtained by sending SASE to the above paper-mail address. INTERNET USERS: FidoNews is available via FTP from ftp.fidonet.org, in directory ~ftp/pub/fidonet/fidonews. Anyone interested in getting a copy of the INTERNET GATEWAY FAQ may freq GISFAQ.ZIP from 1:133/411.0, or send an internet message to fidofaq@gisatl.fidonet.org. No message or text or subject is necessary. The address is a keyword that will trigger the automated FidoNews 13-01 Page: 5 01 Jan 1996 response. People wishing to send inquiries directly to David Deitch should now mail to fidonet@gisatl.fidonet.org rather than the previously listed address. SUBMISSIONS: You are encouraged to submit articles for publication in FidoNews. Article submission requirements are contained in the file ARTSPEC.DOC, available from the FidoNews BBS, or Wazoo filerequestable from 1:1/23 as file "ARTSPEC.DOC". Please read it. "Fido", "FidoNet" and the dog-with-diskette are U.S. registered trademarks of Tom Jennings, and are used with permission. ' ' disgreement is actually necessary, or we'd all have to get in fights or semethin to amuse ourselves,, and create the requisite chaos." -Tom Jennings -- END -------------------------------------------------------------------