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

[Monty J. Harder]

On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 12:10 AM, Jeffrey Watts <jeffrey.w.watts at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 12:52 PM, Monty J. Harder <mjharder at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>
>> That is an incredibly short-sighted view, but far too common these days.
>> Once upon a time, HP had a reputation for making better-quality, durable
>> hardware, that worked as advertised for years.  That reputation translated
>> into a premium they could charge for their products, like Zippo, Craftsman,
>> or Toyota .   (The latter even mentions the superior resale value of their
>> products in advertising new vehicles.)
>>
>

> Short-sighted?  That's an odd counter.  How is what I've said
> "short-sighted"?  I think you meant to say that my view was incorrect, as
> you sighted some examples where you claim that's not done.  I was a bit
> general in my statement, would it help to say "_most_ big businesses have a
> vested interest in forcibly obsoleting old equipment"?
>

Don't put words in my mouth.  I meant precisely what I said.  The attitude
you describe is indeed common, but it also short-sighted.  Big businesses
tend to be publicly-traded corporations, which are notorious for decisions
that improve the current quarter's numbers at the expense of long-term
health, to impress The Street (US) or The City (UK).   Smaller, closely-held
firms are more likely to see the cost of providing downloadable drivers for
10-year-old operating systems as an investment in that reputation for
products that retain their value for many years, which allows them to charge
more and thereby make a larger profit.



> With some rare exceptions all manufacturers obsolete old equipment.
> Toyota, to use your example, no longer manufactures parts for its older
> cars.  While you can buy new parts for some of the more classic older cars
> that they made through third parties (and perhaps through their parts
> department as specialty items), for the mundane series they simply no longer
> get made.  You have to either make them yourself or commission someone else
> to machine them for you.  To draw a parallel to this debate, you can either
> hack your own printer driver or pay someone to hack one for you.
>

Not quite.  It's not just that HP is withdrawing the drivers from their web
site, it's that they maintain that it is illegal for others to possess and
use those drivers.  In the Toyota analogy, it's as if they found a legal
argument against reconditioning used parts for their cars.  I think a good
argument could be made that selling someone hardware with certain
representations of capabilities includes an inherent license to use the
drivers required to exploit those capabilities, which license is
transferrable along with the hardware itself.  But even if they have the
LEGAL right to prevent third parties from archiving the drivers as a
convenience to the secondary market, it's not smart business.

Please provide evidence that it's morally or legally wrong to cease to
provide downloaded drivers to a printer that shipped with a CD that
contained those drivers

I don't need evidence for something I am not claiming.  To the best of my
knowledge HP's moral and legal obligations to their customer are discharged
by including that CD with the printer (and granting a transferrable license
to use the software on it, and to make archival copies of that software).
But their actions are eroding the long-term value of their own products.

Some consumers are too short-sighted to recognize that; they wouldn't be
buying HP products anyway.  People like me, who have been willing to pay a
bit more for HP, knowing that we're paying far less per year of service in
the long run, will have to re-evaluate that computation.  And we will end up
buying cheap crap instead, since there will be no reason to pay more for HP.
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