🚀 go-pugleaf

rabBit wrote:
>
> >DON'T EVEN PRETEND TO UPHOLD THE CONSTITUTION!!!!
> >The "licenses" that make piracy a crime are the most unconstitutional thing since
> >affirmative action. Let's take a look at id softwares license, and what's
> >unconstitutional:
>
> >       1. They ban you from making copies for any use; It's your property, so you can
> >do whatever you want with it as long as you don't use the copies for commercial use,
> >which would violate copyright laws(a whole different issue). Unless you sign a contract
> >when you buy the software, you shoudn't have any restrictions on how you use it.
>
> >       2. They disallow dissasembling the data of the game; Again, how DARE they tell
> >you what to do with your own property! Does this mean that taking apart your toaster is
> >also a crime?
> >
> >       3. They ban selling add-ons; I guess the guy who invented the car radio is now
> >a big crook.
>
> >       4. They tell you how many computers you may install it on; Refer to #1 and #2
> >
> >       5. They say that you only bought the "right" to use the software; Sorry id,
> >games aren't classified documents, you don't need exclusive rights to use them.
>
> >And my personal favorite...
>
> >       6. They say that you've already "agreed" to everything in the license; WHAT A
> >LOAD OF CRAP!!! Do you read this b.s. and sign a contract when you buy a game? Of
> >course not! You just hand the guy cash and walk out with your software. Simple trade:
> >cash for software, no strings attached. Why is this so dang hard for those snobby
> >executives to understand? If you want there to be strings attached, you MUST specify so
> >at the time of the transaction, and sticking it somewhere on the CD doesn't cut it. I'm
> >sure that some lawyer is working on making it so that when someone crashes into your
> >car, you've already agreed to pay for the damages.
>
> *ROTFLMAO*
>
> What an idiot.
>
> Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail sent to this address will result
> in either a mailbomb campaign or a virial attack, depending upon
> the nature of the offending E-mail and my mood. By sending E-mail
> to this address, you agree to these terms.
>
> rabBit

   Okay.  I swore I wasn't going to get into this, but I was wrong.

   The guy is right.  It is one of the things that I hate and detest
about software companies.  Where the hell do they get off telling me
what I can or cannot do with my property?  Number 5?  I'm not buying the
'right' to use their software.  I am buying a copy of their software for
my personal use.  And, as long as it's for my personal use, I'll do
whatever I damned well please with it.  

   And #6 in the above list is the worst of them all.  I agreed to
nothing!  What they are saying there could easily be compared with
buying a new car, after listening to all the great things that come with
it, and finding out that it doesn't have an engine.  I'm sorry, Mr.
Corporate Idiot.  That doesn't cut the mustard.  If you want to make a
legal aggreement with me, then you let me know what it is *before* I
shell out my hard-earned on it!!!  If you can't put the agreement on the
box so I can read it beforehand, then that agreement is *not* binding,
as it is our right to know any legally binding restrictions *before* any
sale is made unless the product or item is marked for sale 'as is', in
which case all liabilities are the purchasers.

   I have bought alot of software.  And I mean *alot*.  On the shelves
in my closet and in my attic, I have 4 large boxes filled with smaller
software boxes.  Totally, I'd say I've purchased about 60 games and 40
major software packages.  Of them all, I'd say less than 20% of them
worked bug free.  There's an example of your hard-working software
teams.  Hard-working, my ***!  

   I bought Frontier: Elite II, because it had a good review.  I played
it for a long time, gradually building up my capital until I could
afford to buy a large starship and start ferrying passangers, which paid
the most.  

  Well, here's a little secret for those who never tried that.  You have
a time limit to get a passenger to their destination.  If you can't meet
that time limit, for whatever reason, and have to land in a starport
before you reach the destination, the passenger will get off at that
starport and report you to the authorities.  Fine.  Now, here's the good
part.  From that moment on in the game, you can no longer sell your ship
or the passenger compartment.  When you try to, you get a message
claiming that there is still a passenger on board that has to be dropped
off before you can sell.

   I called up both the people that made the software (no, I won't use
their name, because I don't ever want to drop their name into anyone's
mind as a possible source of software) they told me that they were aware
of the problem but had no intention of issuing a fix for it because they
were concentrating on the next version of the game.  I asked, "What
about all of us who spent money, in good faith, to buy this game that
doesn't work as claimed?"  His response was to tell me to get the next
version... for $50 more of my money.  Hey, bud!  No way!  

  If it wasn't for someone who disregarded #2 above and figured out what
was wrong with the program, that bug would still remain unfixed.  But by
the time he found the cure, I'd already taken it off of my drive.  It's
still in the box, collecting mold (I hope).

   The same type of quality could be found in Doom, Doom II, Descent,
Simlife, Falcon 3.0, Outpost and several other games and programs that I
have bought.  The latest is Daggerfall: The Elder Scrolls II.  Here's a
prime example!  $50 for the game, $27 for a book containing the
information that should have been in the manual in the first place.  I
get it home, install it, run it and my computer locks.  Everything I
tried would not fix it.  I contact the Bethesda Softworks (whose name I
include because Arena still kicks butt) and get the bugfix.  Now it runs
but still crashes.  Another bugfix, same thing.

   The point is, if these guys are supposed to be making people believe
that they are selling a product that is worth those mostly amazing
prices, then they ought to make sure that the product is bug free
*before* it hits the shelves.  I don't care about the pressure of the
masses.  I don't care how bad they need to start showing profit.  I
don't care if their entire lives are falling down around their ears. 
When I buy something, it ought to work.  Right then.  Immediately.  No
excuses about, "Oh, we had no way of foreseeing..."  BS!!!  If you had
looked for it, you would have seen it!  If you had played it like a game
player instead of a software programmer, you would have seen it.  And
none of your snivelling, placating and generally pedicular reasons or
excuses are going to make me think otherwise.

   I had another game where the original disks went bad.  I didn't make
a copy.  Nooooo!  That would have been ILLEGAL!!!

   I call the company up.  "Hey.  Your disk went bad.  I need a new
one." 

   "No problem.  Just send us $5.95 for shipping and handling and we'll
send you a new one."

   Eh, bite me.  I already bought your game.  You have my money, but I
can't even put the thing on my machine because you wanted to shave a few
extra bucks on cheap disks.  So much for not making copies of any of my
other software.  At least, I use good disks.  And before anyone says
anything, no.  No one has *EVER* received a copy of any software I own
from me.

   And what if somebody writes an add-on for your game, Mr. Scrooge? 
Someone thinks of something you forgot, didn't want to put in, didn't
know to put in, etc., etc. and hurts your precious ego.  Po' baby!  Pay
attention, Interplay.

   Hey, bud.  If you're not smart enough to make things like that
impossible, then tough luck.  You lost.  And you will always lose in
this particular issue.  Again, we bought the software.  It is *OURS*! 
That one copy that we bought is no longer yours.  As long as that one
copy doesn't reach another computer but ours, you have no say in what we
do with it.  Including writing our own levels, making the ships more
powerful, building trainers, changing the color of everything to
purple... or even adding the title Greedy Jerk after every name in the
ubiquitous credit screen that NO ONE WANTS TO READ!  Grow up!  You've
made your money.  Now let us have fun.  Or are you trying to license
that, too?

   I don't agree with theft.  But theft, to me, implies that the article
in question has some value.  Well, if the sale of the article is based
on lies and pretense, if it doesn't work like it's supposed to, if I
can't use it to have fun how I want to, when I want to, and if I can't
make sure that I can continue to have fun with it by making sure I have
a good copy of the install disks, then none of it is of any value to me.

   And, Great Genius Gods of Garbage, if you want to keep placing your
petty, puerile restrictions on your pretty little pieces of junk, people
*will* stop buying it.  And if you think you have problems from a few
people pirating your software now, how do you think your pocketbooks are
going to look then?

   To tell you the truth, I have many programs that I got ten years ago
that work perfectly and are twice as much fun as most of the games with
fancy graphics and powerful engines that are coming out today.  I don't
need them.

Terry Brantner
da...@bellsouth.net