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Re: Newsreaders

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On 2014-03-16, Warren Oates <warren.oates@gmail.com> wrote:
> In article <160320140733290477%michelle@michelle.org>,
>  Michelle Steiner <michelle@michelle.org> wrote:
>
>> In article <bolmd6FrvqdU1@mid.individual.net>, Lloyd  E Parsons
>> <lloydp21@live.com> wrote:
>> 
>> > > Thoth by contrast appears to have an active developer, and I am tempted 
>> > > to try it just because I believe that he or she will act on bug reports.
>> > 
>> > Thoth DID have an active developer.  But he's dropped it again.  No 
>> > updates, and you can't buy it and get the unlocking key any more.
>> 
>> And directly from the Thoth web page:
>> 
>> "Registering and Downloading
>> "Unfortunately, after a decade of consistently poor sales, Thoth is no
>> longer available for downloading or registration. The possible influx
>> of registrations from MT-NewsWatcher users updating to Mavericks and
>> needing a new newsreader could have kept Thoth going for another couple
>> of years, but the registrations never materialized."
>
> "... poor sales"?
>
> He's not allowed to sell it. He never has been. That's always been the 
> sticking point with this asshole. He wants money for something he has no 
> right to collect money from. It's like he's in church and wants to take 
> money out of the collection plate.

Yup. NewsWatcher source code was released by John Norstad (the original
creator of NewsWatcher) as free ware with this notice:

"Please note that both the NewsWatcher program and NewsWatcher's source
code are copyright by Northwestern University. You may not use either of
them for profit."

If you'll recall, Brian (the author of Thoth) was also the author of
YA-NewsWatcher, which was based directly on NewsWatcher source code.
Initially YA-NewsWatcher was free; but later Brian decided to charge for
YA-NewsWatcher. Naturally, this was in violation of the original
author's intent, and after significant push back from both developers
and users, he refunded those sales. However, later, he released Thoth -
another NewsWatcher derivative, and *drum roll* charged for it.

Initially, Brian said that Thoth was based on Newswatcher and still
contained code from it. It was only after people pointed out the license
restrictions were such that he couldn't sell it that he reversed that
and began to claim that he had eliminated all Northwestern University
code from it.

I'm pretty sure at one point in time I even recall seeing disassembled
code of Thoth compared with disassembled code of NewsWatcher (either on
a web site or right here on Usenet), and they were extremely similar or
exactly the same in a some cases, indicating that the author of Thoth
did indeed use code from NewsWatcher, and was charging for it yet again. 

At any rate, since Thoth was released, Brian has decided *several* times
to publicly bitch and moan to his existing customers that unless sales
pick up, he would stop supporting Thoth and stop accepting sales of
Thoth, leaving his customers out in the cold. And he has actually done
that several times now. He also did this with YA-NewsWatcher in the
past. 

I would never support a software developer who behaves in this manner.

-- 
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my ravenous SPAM filter.
I often ignore posts from Google. Use a real news client instead.

JR

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Re: Newsreaders Matti Haveri <nospam@here.invalid> - 2014-02-16 15:20 +0000
  Re: Newsreaders Oregonian Haruspex <bob_davis_retired@yahoo.com> - 2014-03-09 23:47 -0700
    Re: Newsreaders Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2014-03-10 15:19 +0000
    Re: Newsreaders Michelle Steiner <michelle@michelle.org> - 2014-03-10 12:17 -0700
    Re: Newsreaders <address_is@invalid.invalid> - 2014-03-16 04:24 +0000
      Re: Newsreaders Michael Vilain <vilain@NOspamcop.net> - 2014-03-16 00:55 -0700
    Re: Newsreaders Lloyd  E Parsons <lloydp21@live.com> - 2014-03-16 08:14 -0500
      Re: Newsreaders Michelle Steiner <michelle@michelle.org> - 2014-03-16 07:33 -0700
        Re: Newsreaders Warren Oates <warren.oates@gmail.com> - 2014-03-16 10:47 -0400
          Re: Newsreaders Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2014-03-16 17:01 +0000
            Re: Newsreaders Warren Oates <warren.oates@gmail.com> - 2014-03-16 13:34 -0400
              Re: Newsreaders Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2014-03-16 19:17 +0000
            Re: Newsreaders Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2014-03-16 20:18 +0000
            Re: Newsreaders Alan Browne <alan.browne@FreelunchVideotron.ca> - 2014-03-16 16:47 -0400
              Re: Newsreaders Jolly Roger <jollyroger@pobox.com> - 2014-03-16 20:59 +0000
                Re: Newsreaders Warren Oates <warren.oates@gmail.com> - 2014-03-16 17:49 -0400
                Re: Newsreaders Matti Haveri <nospam@here.invalid> - 2014-03-18 20:23 +0000
          Re: Newsreaders dorayme <do_ray_me@bigpond.com> - 2014-03-17 07:53 +1100
            Re: Newsreaders Warren Oates <warren.oates@gmail.com> - 2014-03-16 17:58 -0400
              Re: Newsreaders Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2014-03-16 22:26 +0000
              Re: Newsreaders Michelle Steiner <michelle@michelle.org> - 2014-03-16 16:09 -0700
        Re: Newsreaders Michael Vilain <vilain@NOspamcop.net> - 2014-03-16 11:48 -0700
        Re: Newsreaders Howard S Shubs <howard@shubs.net> - 2014-03-28 15:14 -0600
    Re: Newsreaders Juan I. Cahis <jiclbchSINBASURA@attglobal.net> - 2014-03-16 12:21 -0500
      Re: Newsreaders Michael Vilain <vilain@NOspamcop.net> - 2014-03-16 11:42 -0700

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