Digital BW, The Print

> From: Steve Kale
>
> I must say I find the licence perfectly sensible.  Else we could
> simply rent
> one out to anyone who wants it.  Then there wouldn't be anything to rent
> because nobody would invest the capital to develop it.  Then
> you'd really be
> sucking wind.  These guys sell a complex instrument and very complex
> software serving a very good purpose.  They deserve to earn a
> fair return as
> a result.

I'm sure that people would rent out such equipment. Just as they rent out
cameras or lenses. Or oscilliscopes. Or cars. Or anything else that costs a
lot, and takes a lot of capital to develop.

But there are two issues here. One is the restriction on letting someone
else use your tools. That's bad enough. But the other is the restriction on
using your own tools to build something for someone else, in this case a
profile. I see no justification for that, because I can't see any
fundamental difference between the spectro plus software sold by Gretag
Macbeth and the table saw sold by Black & Decker, or the spectrum analyzer
sold by Tektronix, or for that matter the printer sold by Epson.

What principle would allow GM to restrict the use of their spectros to
making profiles only for oneself, but that wouldn't allow, say, Epson to
restrict the use of their printers to print only one's own pictures, in the
hope that they could sell more printers that way?

--

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
Paul                mailto:pderocco@...