Re: Where from to download ViaVoice outloud

[Tim Cross <tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I was not talking about Viavoice, but rather responding to your
question on the software dectalk.

I don't agree with your definition of commercial software. Any
software which is paid for in my opinion is by definition commercial. 

There is certainly less restrictive commercial software out there, but
my experience is the majority of software you purchase does not allow
you to modify it, redistribute it or even copy it for anything other
than backup purposes. In fact, many commercial software licences don't
even allow you to reverse engineer the software which contains
proprietary knowledge etc. 

Just for the record, I don't consider things like RedHat, SuSE and
other Linux distributions as commercial software. These companies are
not selling the software, they are selling the process of assembling
the software into a distribution, support and other value added
services. I also don't consider them commercial because you can obtain
the software for free. Sometimes these distributions may contain some
commercial software - but you will find when you investigate the
licences for this software it does NOT allow modification,
redistribution et al. As an example, RedHat use to supply a commercial
X server with their professional version - the difference between the
professional version and the freely downloadable version was this X
server and you were not permitted to modify it, redistribute it or
even copy it except for backup purposes. 

Simply because you purchase something in a free competitive market
does not allow you to copy it or redistribute it, or even modify
it. Can you purchase a music CD and copy it? Are you allowed to
redistribute it - only if you distribute the version you have
purchased, not copies. If you purchase a book, can you modify it and
redistribute it? Can you copy it? No - this is what copyright is all
about. 

Just because you pay for something does not give you its copyrights,
which means your ownership comes with restrictions. Even GPL'd
software is copyright, except the author has given some liberal
permissions to modify, redistribute and copy as long as you abide by
their requirements etc. 

Tim



>>>>> "Robert" == Robert J Chassell <bob@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

 Robert> Regarding ViaVoice: For the $50US you get the runtime, no
 Robert> sources and you are restricted to the normal restrictions
 Robert> applying to commercial software.

 Robert> Much of the the commercial software I know about is sold in a
 Robert> competitive, free market.  This means you have the right to
 Robert> copy it, study it, modify it, and redistribute it.  It sounds
 Robert> like you are talking about restricted software.  If so, you
 Robert> are misusing the word `commercial'.

 Robert> IBM does both.  It restricts some of its software, but it is
 Robert> shifting to commercial free software.  IBM says it spent more
 Robert> than a billion US dollars on commercial free software in
 Robert> 2002.

 Robert> IBM makes more than 20 billion US dollars per year selling
 Robert> services, such as those related to commercial free software,
 Robert> and even more selling hardware, such as S390 mainframes (or
 Robert> are they called S3090s?  I don't know.  If you give me
 Robert> several million US dollars, I will find out.)

 Robert> Sometimes there are difficulties.  I was told a year or two
 Robert> ago by someone selling IBM mainframes, the S390s, that while
 Robert> he was encouraged by IBM management to sell those machines,
 Robert> at the same time, the lawyers for his group did not want him
 Robert> to distribute any documentation for the hardware that you
 Robert> spend several million US dollars to purchase ...  the lawyers
 Robert> had not got the message that IBM is a corporation that is
 Robert> supposed to make profits by selling ....

 Robert> Are you talking about restricted IBM software or
 Robert> non-restricted IBM software?

 Robert> -- Robert J. Chassell Rattlesnake Enterprises
 Robert> http://www.rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8
 Robert> http://www.teak.cc bob@xxxxxxxxxxx

-- 
Tim Cross
Senior Analyst/Programmer
Applications Group - Information Technology
University of New England
 Phone: +61 2 6773 3210
   Fax: +61 2 6773 3424
E-Mail: tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx
   Web: http://www.une.edu.au/itd/systems/systems.html
---
Who's General Failure and why's he reading my disk?"

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