Re: OMG!

["Kelli Halliburton" <kelli217@crosswinds.not>]

"Roy and/or Janet Miller" <millers@inetnebr.com> wrote in message
3AF1E0B7.5BA932D1@inetnebr.com">news:3AF1E0B7.5BA932D1@inetnebr.com...

> My, my, I wasn't even addressing you. There's an old saying, "Throw a
stone into
> a pack of dogs, and you'll know which one was hit." From the yelping, I'd
say it
> was Kelli.

I know you weren't addressing me, but as I noted in the first line of my
post, I had been similarly labeled as Paul, and wished to respond.

Roy, you skate very near a personal attack in this post. I'll try to ignore
the inflammatory parts of it, and just respond in a more general fashion to
it.

The Apple II technology is older than the PC technology, and both are quite
old. The A2 (1978) predates the PC (1981) by approximately 3 or 4 years. The
hardware has suffered in recent years by a complete absence of system
development, and only a small amount of peripheral development. The software
has suffered the departure of every major software manufacturer and
publisher.

That is not to say that there has been no innovation in the A2 arena. Cards
to adapt VGA chipsets, Ethernet, and IDE interfaces have been developed. A
Unix-like operating system has been developed. A TCP/IP stack to use on the
Ethernet cards and via modem has been developed. A suite of internet
software has been developed, including telnet, mail, ftp, and news. A
graphical web browser is currently being developed.

It's certainly understandable that the persons involved in these endeavours
would appreciate some form of material compensation for the hard work,
loyalty, and dedication they have put into keeping some sort of new life in
these systems. I don't *fault* them for it.

Anyone, who takes the work that these individuals and organizations are
doing and co-opts it by making it freely available without the permission of
the creator, is biting the hand that feeds it. Such behavior serves to erode
the very loyalty and dedication that keeps the aforementioned people active
and productive. I have no sympathy for anyone who engages in such behavior -
- none at all. By all means, shut them down.

And I believe that it is sympathy for the plight of their fellow creators
that has caused this absolutism in copyright protection. But it must be put
into perspective. As a homeowner, I would be upset if my home were
burglarized. Extremely upset. And the law protects me against such
violations. The absentee owner of a lot on which for 10 years has sat a
vacant, abandoned home is technically entitled to the same protections, but
would not be nearly so upset if someone burglarized the vacant, abandoned
home. Would anyone care to argue that the two cases are identical? Would
anyone care to argue that the police should give equal priority to the two
cases?

Now, the problem starts when you live in a neighborhood where more and more
people are abandoning their homes, but you continue to live in yours. Since
there is less emphasis on prosecuting the burglaries of the abandoned homes,
the burglaries become more common. Your home becomes more at risk.
Understandably, you become concerned over this state of affairs. You know
that there are still a few new homes being built here and there in the
neighborhood, and so you come to believe that your neighborhood is still
vital. People who live in other neighborhoods laugh at you. You start
looking for more police protection. You investigate security systems. Maybe
you've become attached to your old house. Maybe it's the house you were
raised in. Maybe you can't afford to move.

So the next thing you do is try to decrease the burglaries by starting a
neighborhood watch. You start by reporting burglaries in occupied homes.
Then, as you notice that there still seem to be a lot of burglaries in your
neighborhood, but of the old abandoned homes, you begin to report those,
too. Then you're reporting anyone who looks suspicious. Pretty soon the
police are fed up with you, the burglars ignore you, and even the squatter's
rights activists move in. Believe it or not, you still haven't moved. You
continue to live in the neighborhood.

At this point, it would be unrealistic for you to expect the same sort of
society that you had in the beginning. The police no longer care, the
burglars have opened up all the abandoned houses for others to partake of
shelter, the squatter's rights people are advocating that the property
rights of the absentee owners should be devolved upon the squatters living
in the homes. You are surrounded by chaos and anarchy on all sides. Your own
home has been broken into several times -- so much that it has become almost
a fact of life. And yet you still have the nerve to write letters to the
editor complaining about the burglaries of abandoned homes.

Does anyone listen to you, or do they think you're an old crank who should
just move?