On Tue, 5 Dec 2000 09:28:46 -0500 (EST), Sam Ewalt wrote:
> Listen, you guys can tie yourself in knots if you want to--but
> Lineo just doesn't care about single copy usage. The minimum they
> want to sell is fifty at a pop. Doesn't that tell you something?
I was trying to keep my mouth shut =D
It's obvious: They don't care if it's used by a bunch of cranks (like
me, tho I don't use it) on their desktop machines, even if a buck or two
is made while using the machine. Yeah, I KNOW that's not what it says.
They've given up on it, but they're allowing for the possibility that
someone (through their own initiative, no doubt) will find something
useful and lucrative to do with it. In that case, Lineo will be knocking
on their door. I guess they'll probably be nice about it and "make a
deal" 'cos after all, it was "hopeless" until this person did something
with it. All the same, that person will still find that what was theirs
is now _not_all_ theirs.
If you like your DR-DOS and nothing you do leaves your abode, then just
keep it. If it's going to be shared though, no matter how trivial it may
seem now, PURCHASE another DOS and learn to like it.
AFAIK, there're only three DOSes for sale at a reasonable price: PC-DOS
2000 from IBM, PTS-DOS from PhysTechSoft, and PTS-DOS from Paragon. Once
you've purchased them, anything that leaves your computer is YOUR IP,
except you can't include parts of the OS, of course.
There are more expensive, "industrial" DOSes I don't mention because of
their extreme price. There's also FreeDOS. I don't mention MS- 7.x,
because the distributions which have it are only available under some
sort of "educational" license these days.
I was considering releasing an upcoming development under a license and
procedures much like Lineo has for DR-DOS now, but I just couldn't go
back and tell some poor soul later that his hard work actually belonged
partly to me. I'll think of something else.
Bob
Starts April 1, 2001
-- Arachne V1.67, NON-COMMERCIAL copy, http://arachne.cz/
