win95/98/ME and printers. An ethics issue comparable to DRM servers or not?

[Billy Crook]

On Mon, Aug 4, 2008 at 17:59, Leo Mauler <webgiant at yahoo.com> wrote:
> So when you pay money to an organization for a service, they aren't obligated to provide that service to you?

Exactly what SERVICE are you paying HP for.  Last I checked, a printer
was a good, not a service

> Sounds vaguely communistic.

That's it, invoke communism.  That's sure to back your argument,
whatever it was.

>> What makes you think they were ever obligated to provide
>> them in the first place?
> Because I paid them money for their product?  Again, this attitude of yours that people should be allowed to steal money from other people and provide them with nothing in return sounds vaguely communist.

The pronoun 'them' refers to the drivers you think you're entitled to
download.  You are wrong.  You paid for the printer and the drivers
_on_a_cd_.  If you lost them, or allowed the cd to become destroyed,
that is entirely your fault, and not HP's.  For nearly ten years, HP
has provided additional copies of said drivers electronically to
careless owners like yourself, under no obligation to do so, and
without you paying for it.

> The first two are valid points

As is nearly everything else I told you off list because it's not
relevant to the KCLUG

> but you need to look up all the big words in the phrase "an 'as-is, don't expect support' fashion" which confuse you into thinking that I'm saying HP should provide technical support for the existing drivers.

Doesn't matter.  If HP provides them on any basis; If they provide
them at all, some percentage of the populace will call in and eat up
support time. At least the amount of time it takes someone from HP to
tell them to go away.

> How Zen!

How clueless.

> A $300 PDA next to a stove all the time?  I'm not made of money, <blah> you must have a dozen throwaway PDAs lying around.

So you know, most people keep a PDA in their pocket.  I actually have
one I haven't used in a while.  I will give it to you at the next LUG
meeting if you publicly concede you are wrong, and stop polluting the
mailing list with garbage that neither pertains to Kansas City nor
GNU/Linux.  I paid $500 for it at the time, and it was worth it.  It's
probably faster than your laptop.  Here's a link so you can see what
it looks like, and decide:
http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=peg-nx70v%2Fu&category0=