On Fri, 29 Nov 2013 19:20:03 -0500 "Virgil Arrington" <[email protected]> wrote:
> I wouldn't consider it either cunning or holding people hostage to > provide them with a free trial of software that is otherwise only > available for a price. That, indeed, has been the essence of > shareware -- try before you buy. Anybody obtaining a trial version of > MS-Office is clearly told that it is a trial version; no cunning, no > deception. Actually, I have not found this to be the case. Most of the people I know that have used this "trialware" have bought a new computer, found it comes with Office, with no explanation about being trialware, and started using it, only to find that it starts warning them it will expire, and that they need to purchase a valid copy to continue using it. They have no idea that there are alternatives, nor did they expect to have to pay more once the computer was bought, and now just simply shrug, name call MS for being penny-pinching b******s, and go buy whatever version of Office the local computer store sells them. > I'm no fan of MS, and I'm sure I don't fully understand all of its > business practices, but I truly hope that disdain for Redmond is not > the primary motivation for LO and other forms of FOSS. And, yet, it's > a theme that recurs on nearly every FOSS related forum I read. I dislike MS's business practices. They've been caught out too many times doing things that are harmful to the end user. I don't trust them to give me quality software that will remain quality software without pitilessly trying to squeez me for evey cent they can. As such, I dislike using their products, and I most certainly don't pay for them, other than where it is forced on me simply for buying a computer. For me, that is one good reason to use FOSS software. Another is I believe in the FOSS philosophy. > IMHO, it's better to focus on what's good about LO than what's evil > about MS. And that is a third. When talking to most computer users I know, even ones who do know computers well, I often find they couldn't care less about MS's business policy, they either use MS products and tell me about how they're actually not that bad, or simply accept that everybody else does, so they must too, and don't know or care about MS's business practices. For them I punt the good about FOSS software first, and leave out the MS business practices debate. That's a personal reason for choosing FOSS, one that I will explain to people, but don't find to be a major selling point. Paul -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
