For your information. In science a lot of people - including myself dont
use MS unless forced to by external party. In the Unix/Linux community
there are a lot of software that will do the job as well or even better
than MS stuff which often can only be used on MS platforms which
sometimes is a pain in the butt for certain publishers. When it comes to
writing software its quite expensive to get all the MS compilers
compared to that they are free in Linux. So when your on a tight
research budget thats what you go for. Also there are a lot of nice free
publishing software to be used.
For us working with pictures and text - PDMLs should check out SCRIBUS -
http://www.scribs.org.uk free DTP program which is quite good,
Cheers,
Ronald
John Francis wrote:
On Mon, Dec 12, 2005 at 07:53:24PM +1300, David Mann wrote:
On Dec 12, 2005, at 1:43 AM, Bob Shell wrote:
I'm not sure I understand that distinction. I live in a college
town and all of the professors I know get their software at the
academic price. Many of them then write books with Microsoft Word
and get paid for doing so. I'm sure Microsoft knows about this.
That certainly seems to be commercial use.
I know the profs are entitled to buy the academic version, but I
don't know if there are actual usage restrictions (there probably
are, but I doubt MS is stupid enough to start pulling RIAA tactics).
BTW I hope those profs keep good backups!
- Dave
It's arguable that a professor writing a book is to be expected;
I suspect that could well be within the academic use restrictions.
But if I enrolled in the local photographic class and used that to
pick up a copy of Photoshop I'd be on very shaky ground if I were
to use that to edit photographs for anything other than my own
personal use.
Furthermore, it's not really an issue about what MS or Adobe do or
do not choose to enforce. I make my living writing software, so
I try to be self-policing about violating intellectual property
agreements. If I don't like the agreement, then I don't use the
software (just like I won't put my photographs up on any website
where I don't like the conditions - meetup.com, to name but one).
