The Death of D. (Was Tango vs Phobos)

[Jarrett Billingsley]

"Mike Parker" <aldacron at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:g86q1l$2qrv$2 at digitalmars.com...
> Jarrett Billingsley wrote:
>> "downs" <default_357-line at yahoo.de> wrote in message 
>> news:g84gml$1rb1$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>
>>> Software is purely information. "Software is a product" is a relatively 
>>> novel idea that, I believe, was invented by our friends at MS (though I 
>>> cannot point at a source for that claim).
>>
>> Oh don't give me that bullshit.  If anything, another company came up 
>> with the idea and MS bought them out ;)
>
> Oh, come on! "software is a product" makes sense -- as in "you buy it and 
> you can do what you want with it (your copy of it, that is)". I believe 
> what MS gave us was "software is licensed, and you can only do with it 
> what we say you can no matter how much you paid for it". Which is more 
> absurd then saying software developers have no right to sell their 
> software!

Oh I agree that MS didn't "come up" with the idea that software is a 
product.  I don't think it ever was a novel concept.  I was just making a 
snarky remark about MS's typical business practices.

Now whether MS came up with the idea of restrictive software licenses -- now 
that really _does_ smell of bullshit and anti-MS-fanboyism.  MS is not the 
only eeeevil monopolistic company out there :P