Focus On Ethics. Any Guarantees?

Hello, yesterday was a "football night" for me & last night I had a time to watching football, it's for a long time I'm waiting to do that before.. =)

Okay, I'm not touched about football, here is about our ethics on buying & selling (software privacy).
Here's an article for who's want to buy a software product (especially tangible product); Most software packages are covered by "shrink-wrap licenses". The licenses information is visible through the shrink-wrap packaging & the purchaser is supposed to read it before opening. The act of opening the packages signifies the user's acceptance of the terms of the license. Although many packages display the license agreement during installation & require the user to check a box to signify acceptance, by that time it's too late to change your mind.

Most vendors will not accept returns of opened software. These licenses contain language shielding the vendor from all claims other than those arising from physical defects in the CD. Recently, Congress & courts have moved to make these licenses more enforceable & to allow software manufacturers the right to change the terms of the license after purchase.

Read the shrink-wrap license that came with some software that you or your company purchased. What remedies does the license give you if the product doesn't work or if it damages your computer? Now read the warranty from an inexpensive electronic device, say a VCR, DVD player, or TV. What similarities & differences you see?

Software corporations argue that they need the protective terms of the shrink-wrap license to shield them from frivolous lawsuits. Consumer advocates assert that consumers need recourse if the product doesn't work as advertised. How would you balance these competing claims?

Acquiring Software (2)

Hello to everybody especially to this blog reader,

Today I will continue my post yesterday just a little bit more..

I'll start here; An organization, in contrast to individual users, must take a different approach in acquiring software. Most organizations such as businesses, governments & non-profit agencies have computers & their users need software. Although software publishers' policies vary, several options are usually available. If an organization is going to install the software on individual computers, it might be able to arrange a volume discount for the required number of packages. Alternatively, the organization could purchase a site license, which allows the software to be installed either on all its computers or on a specific number of computers, depending on the license terms. The customer agrees to keep track of who uses the software & takes responsibility for copying & distributing the software & manuals to its own personnel. Incidentally, if you work for a large corporation, check with your employer before you buy a copy of the expensive software you use at the office. Under some license agreements, employees are allowed to use the same software at home.

Organizations with local area networks (LANs) often install a network version of widely used software, such as word processing, on the network 's server computer. Thus the software is available to users connected to the network without the necessity of installing the software on each user's computer. In this case, the license fee may be based on the total number of users on the network or may provide for a maximum number of concurrent users.

Another software movement is gaining in popularity: electronic software distribution. Never mind the trip to the store. You can get freeware, shareware & even commercial software from the internet. One common scenario is to download copyrighted software free from the manufacturer for atrial period. When you use the software, you are encourage to go back online & register (pay with a credit card or etc.) . Unregistered software often disables itself automatically after a given time period, such as 21 days. In the not-so-distant future, users will not need to purchase software, but will be able to download it temporarily from a vendor via the internet for a per-use rental fee.

Application service providers provide an alternative method of delivering applications to businesses via the internet. An application service provider (ASP) is a company that sets up & maintains application software on its own systems & makes the software available to its customers over the internet. By using an ASP for its complex applications, a business can avoid the expenses of installing & maintaining those applications on its own system. According to some estimates, the cost of renting a major enterprise-wide application, such as a human resources package, can be as much as 30% less than the cost of buying, deploying & supporting it in-house.

Acquiring Software (2)

Hello to everybody especially to this blog reader,

Today I will continue my post yesterday just a little bit more..

Acquiring Software

Hi to all readers,

For this post I want to share the article & to tell the readers who didn't know about software privacy, for people who know this topic, I just want to refresh back ur mind..

Firstly, sometimes software is free. Software is called freeware if its author chooses to provide it for free to all (eg. www.oswd.org ,there is a lot of free web design template). However, freeware is copyrighted; that is the author retains legal ownership & may place restrictions on its use. Software that is not copyrighted is called public domain software & may be used, or even altered, without restriction. Software developed by universities & research institutions using governments is usually in the public domain.

Open-source software is a variation of freeware. A freeware program is normally distributed in a machine-readable format that is unreadable by humans. You can use it, but even if you know how to write programs, you can't make changes to it. The developers of open-source software, however, make the source code available, which means that programmers can examine the source code, bugs are found quickly & improvements made. More & more commercial-quality software is being made available under the open-source concept, especially software designed to run under the Linux operating system.

Shareware is a category of software that is often confused with freeware. Like freeware, it is freely distributed, but only for trial period. The understanding is that if you like it enough to continue using it, you will pay a nominal fee to register it with the author, Many authors add incentives such as free documentation, support and/or updates to encourage people to register.

The software that people use most often is packaged software, sometimes called commercial software, such as word-processing or spreadsheet software. This type of software is usually copyrighted & cost more than shareware. You must not copy commercial software without permission from the manufacturer. In fact, software manufacturers often complain of software piracy, the making of illegal copies of commercial software. Microsoft & other manufacturers pursue violators to the full extent of the law.

What is the best way to purchase commercial software? The small retail software store has all but disappeared because the price of software has declined too much to provide an acceptable profit margin. So software has moved to the warehouse stores & mail-order houses, each with thousands of software titles. College students have another option; their college bookstore. To encourage students to become familiar with their products, many software publishers make their most popular products available through college bookstores at deep discounts.

Continued next post..

p/s : we must know where is legal & illegal, think carefully