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

[Bradley Hook]

Semi-off-topic, but I think that old software/drivers disappearing is 
rather sad from a historical record point of view. There are a lot of 
progressive stages of technological history that will be all but lost 
within a few years.

On the flip side, I completely understand why a business wouldn't want 
to keep publishing copies of the outdated software. Not only does it 
cost money, but it also implies that the company continues to support 
the product even if they no longer do. Even a lot of open source 
projects don't continue to provide source trees or binaries dating back 
to the first stages of the project.

~Bradley

Christofer C. Bell wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at 3:35 PM, Luke -Jr <luke at dashjr.org 
> <mailto:luke at dashjr.org>> wrote:
> 
> 
>     What happens if someone wants to give their old HP printer to a
>     charity still
>     running Windows 98? Even if that someone had a copy of the 98
>     drivers, HP has
>     said including those would be illegal...
> 
> 
> Well, then I guess that's a niche market better served by Linux. 
>  Personally, regardless of any Freedom concerns, I don't have any issue 
> with vendors discontinuing support for ancient products. And out of 
> curiosity, where is HP saying that including those drivers would be 
> illegal?  I don't often deal in stuff this old so I'm not familiar with 
> the licensing. ;-)
> 
> -- 
> Chris
> 
> 
> 
> 
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