Criteria for computer software - why software must be user-controlled

[Ethan]

Originally you were only allowed to install Adobe's software on a single machine but later that was extended to two machines although you couldn't use both simultaneously. And registration had to be made and the S/N typed in before you could install the software.........

..........

Ann, a timely correction.

Originally, you could install Adobe on all machines as there was no Internet registration for the simple reason that the Internet was not spread and most people would connect to the web via their phone line.
Add to that there was no Ethernet running in Advtg/Design studios, nevermind Internet.

This happened around 1994 when Adobe acquired Aldus PageMaker which morphed into InDesign. At the time QuarkExpress was the other competitor and used a Dongle to protect the software from illegal copying. Adobe had only Illustrator since 1987.

The change to online validation happened around 1994 with version 4.

Fast forward for today and it is still the same old same where you can download and run a cracked copy of Photoshop to your heart content.

Should Adobe have been stopped from monopolizing graphic software by gobbling up companies and should Microsoft stopped from being a behemoth?
These are salon discussions as there are facts on the ground which will be difficult to change.

So Adobe makes money and piracy continues. Same old Same and more of the Same

[Les Olson]

The software licences probably cost the lawful User so much because so many people stole the software and ran pirated editions.
 
(I read somewhere that it was reckoned that piracy had become so bad that perhaps 70% of the copies of Photoshop that were in use world-wide were pirated versions.)

I imagine that the Subscription Business Model has been quite effective in stopping the theft and I am delighted that Adobe have adopted it — and the numerous other Developers who are doing the same thing as well — because the revenue is then available for future development and is also keeping subscriptions at very reasonable level.

Illegal use (= piracy, in Adobe-speak) includes allowing someone else to use your computer and your legal version of PS while you are not using it (5.2(b) of the T&C) or using a trial version for commercial purposes (2.6(a)).  So the 70% figure may be true using the software industry's private definition of piracy, but not by any reasonable definition. 

There is, in fact, no evidence that the subscription model has had any meaningful effect on theft.  Adobe often says it has, but the only evidence they offer is that their subscriber numbers have gone up.  They had sold just under 13 million perpetual licence copies of Photoshop before CC was introduced, and they are still only at 10 million CC subscribers, so all of the increased subscriber numbers could be legal users switching. 

You can pirate the CC versions perfectly well - there are already hacks for Lightroom Classic on the internet.  What you can't pirate are cloud-based services. So if you are right about controlling piracy being a driver the demise of Lightroom Classic is guaranteed. 

The subscription price may look "reasonable", but it is much higher than the prices charged for a perpetual licence.  Some of the "reasonableness" is simply irrational: 12 euros a month feels less than 80 euros every second year, even though it isn't.  The simple fact is that Adobe's revenues are rising faster than their sales, which means that their prices are higher. 

The issue here is not what software suits this or that person's workflow, or at what price it is a good deal.  Business law relies heavily on the concept of "ordinary commercial terms".  We know what the phrase means when we buy a book or a camera.  The bone of contention is what "ordinary commercial terms" is to mean in the case of software, and who is to decide?  This matters because soon more or less everything we buy will depend on code to run, and if the SaaS subscription model is accepted as a standard we will find ourselves buying a camera, eg, and a separate licence to use the firmware, which could, like your CC licence, be time-limited and non-transferable - ie, your D850 will stop working in two years unless you re-purchase the firmware licence and second-hand sales would be illegal.  At present, the software industry is being allowed to re-define "ordinary commercial terms" to suit itself, and we need to stop them.   

[Frank Fremerey]

By the way, decentralized settlements, decentralized production units with local provisions and resiliency are in many cases perfectly feasible and in general vastly more robust than centralized solutions. This is even more the case today, when technology in fact makes many forms of decentralized solutions easier than before.

That is right & you see that. So: Why do you not see the point as I did express it very explicitly?

I am ON TOPIC, could not be more. I am only on a different layer of abstraction.

We are dependent on service provided by others and we are dependent on monthly (weekly, yearly) payments for their service anyway.

We need water and food and electricity and a roof over our heads before we are able to run our computers. Software is just a part of the computer and the only part that we can create ourselves cooperatively if we want. I did recommend Linux when I was working for the IT department of United Nations Development Progamme 20 years ago and they did listen to me. Manufacturing computer hardware is a global effort. We will never be able to create a computer from scratch locally.

We have to pay our rent and electricity and water bill and our bills at the butcher & baker & grocery store or we will not have all these services rendered by other people for our survival & comfort.

Tools (Software or Hardware in all disciplines) can be bought or rented, every one of us decides which way we prefer.

I would not give my data away though, only store copies or metatada in the cloud in certain circumstances like distribution & delivery. My images are my capital as a professional photographer, so I do care about my backups, do not want to create dependencies that are mission critical. If a rented tool does not work to my satisfaction anymore nor I do not want to pay the bill, I can choose another tool, as long as I keep my files clean of proprietary file formats.

To sum up: We can organize our lives independently, resiliently, locally, in autarky. But high technology is only achievable in a conglomerate highly dependent complex, non-local societal context.

Think of software "from the tap" as "beer from the tap" ...you will pay per glass!

[Per Inge Oestmoen]

That is right & you see that. So: Why do you not see the point as I did express it very explicitly?

I am ON TOPIC, could not be more. I am only on a different layer of abstraction.

We are dependent on service provided by others and we are dependent on monthly (weekly, yearly) payments for their service anyway.

We need water and food and electricity and a roof over our heads before we are able to run our computers. Software is just a part of the computer and the only part that we can create ourselves cooperatively if we want. I did recommend Linux when I was working for the IT department of United Nations Development Progamme 20 years ago and they did listen to me. Manufacturing computer hardware is a global effort. We will never be able to create a computer from scratch locally.

We have to pay our rent and electricity and water bill and our bills at the butcher & baker & grocery store or we will not have all these services rendered by other people for our survival & comfort.

Tools (Software or Hardware in all disciplines) can be bought or rented, every one of us decides which way we prefer.

I would not give my data away though, only store copies or metatada in the cloud in certain circumstances like distribution & delivery. My images are my capital as a professional photographer, so I do care about my backups, do not want to create dependencies that are mission critical. If a rented tool does not work to my satisfaction anymore nor I do not want to pay the bill, I can choose another tool, as long as I keep my files clean of proprietary file formats.

To sum up: We can organize our lives independently, resiliently, locally, in autarky. But high technology is only achievable in a conglomerate highly dependent complex, non-local societal context.

Think of software "from the tap" as "beer from the tap" ...you will pay per glass!

To start with the last statement about paying beer per glass: The reasoning that since we pay for beer by the tap we should also pay for software the same way, is unfortunately flawed. To make it clear; I mean nothing personally negative by stating that.

A working tool, be it a hammer, a personal computer, a camera or software that we need to operate a computer, is not something we use like when we drink beer. When the beer is consumed, it is gone and we naturally need to buy more in order to get more. When we use our hammer, our camera or start our computer and its operating system and applications these tools do not become consumed or exhausted in any way. Thus, any limitations imposed on when or how many times or how often or how long we use these tools will be entirely artificial.

When we have consumed a glass of beer, the beer needs to be replaced with more - that is if we want more. When we start our computer and do our work, neither the hardware nor the software is in need to be replaced because of our use unless it is made with built-in restrictions. If the computer allows it and the software is copyable and thus can be backed up by the users and stored, it can be used and re-installed at any time for as long as there is a computer to install and use it on - provided it is free from any need for activation or subscription.

"We are dependent on service provided by others and we are dependent on monthly (weekly, yearly) payments for their service anyway."

This is no reason, still less a justification, of artificial dependencies and time limits forced upon us on our use of any tools.

"Manufacturing computer hardware is a global effort. We will never be able to create a computer from scratch locally."

Yes, that is true. It is even a banal truth. However, it is also beside the point when we discuss whether or not the computer hardware and software should be controlled by the manufacturer or the user. 

We do not make our own hammers.

We do not make our own wristwatches.

We do not make our own cars.

Most of us do not make our own knives, photo tripods or binoculars or print our own books either.

All these products are the result of the human collective body of knowledge. Thanks to the existence of accumulated knowledge through the ages, the combined efforts of chemists, metallurgists, electronic engineers, physicists, advanced production facilities, manual workers, robots when applicable, storage facilities, transportation, administrators, sales agents, distributors and communication on many levels we can enjoy all the products we are talking about and countless more.

We all appreciate that this sharing of knowledge and procedures are the reason why we as humans have advanced technology - and viewed in that perspective everything from a hammer to a spacecraft is an impressive technological creation of the human mind. That is a matter of course, as is the fact that all the technology and its distribution is a result of collective and if you like to put it that way global efforts. This is in principle nothing new. It has been that way as long as humans have been able to meet and exchange visions, dreams, form abstractions, and share experiences and knowledge. Since humans are a social species, it will continue to be so. So far, so good.

Linux was mentioned.

That is good, Linux is an excellent example from which to start.

I have used Linux since the year 2000, and the direct reason why I decided to use Linux was Microsoft's forcible introduction of "Product Activation." I saw immediately that Product Activation was a vicious scheme designed to lock the computer users into dependency, and I also foresaw that the next logical step would be software with built-in limitations which would force the customers into recurrent activations and payments if they accepted the premise forced upon them by Microsoft. Since all too many computer users were and still are content as long as the machine works here-and-now, they give little thought to what happens when the software business goes out of business, ceases to support that version of the software, or when the software service becomes unavailable due to countless possible reasons ranging from failure to pay the subscription to natural disasters, political unrest, economic crises, wars or any other causes.

The point here is that if the software is not managed, administered and run locally, the user is at the mercy of the software service and resilience is destroyed.

Linux is different, fundamentally different.

The creation and ongoing development of Linux is a global effort, and here we see how the complexities of our interactions, exchanges and efforts demand from us that we avoid erroneous conclusions if we are to understand how it is best to relate to what happens on each level.

If we state, rightly, that our technological achievements are collective efforts, it is a classic non sequitur fallacy to conclude that because the creation and further development of something is a collective and even global effort our present and future use of that something must also be dependent on connections, rentals and subscriptions. Linux is a collective effort, yet my Linux is copyable and I back it up and re-install it regularly on my computer when I change hard drive. I can install on my computer tomorrow and next month or whenever I want with no need for software rental or subscriptions to work my computer and work with my pictures, sound files, texts or other data. The user is of course not the sole beneficiary. Many people make business from Linux and Linux derivatives, as we know.

We do not own the software we use unless we write it ourselves, that is the case with Linux and all software written by others. However, our need to control our own tools is precisely the same with software as with hammers and knives. I recommend Linux, because Linux gives us back our right to control our own computers.

The knife we use in our kitchen or when outdoors is not made by ourselves. Nor is the hammer, nor a camera, nor a computer or the software needed to make that computer usablel. Most of our daily tools are made by others, and thereafter bought by us because we need and want these tools. That does not mean there are any technical reasons why we should accept to use these tools by a subscription basis. The knife does not need to require a subscription in order to be used today, and re-used tomorrow or in X number of days, weeks and years. The same is true for the other tools mentioned.

Yes, we must pay more when we need more beer after we have consumed one glass. Yes, we must pay the rent every month/year if we live in a rentable house or apartment. Yes, we need to pay regularly for electricity if we want it delivered. It does not follow that because we need to pay for electricity, beer and for being allowed to live in our apartment we also must need to pay in the same way for hammers, wristwatches, cameras, computers and software.

If our use of cars, cameras, hammers, knives, computers or software are made dependent upon subscription services - and "Product Activation" is a major significant step in that direction - it is an entirely artificial and unnecessary limitation. Most importantly, such a fundamental restriction destroys our control over our working tools and thereby jeopardizes our access to and use of these tools and the subjects and materials for which we acquired them.

Hammers and knives are a bit difficult for businesses to control, but all sorts of electronic equipment can be crippled with built-in restrictions and limitations forcing the customers to rent them and use them only on a subscription basis. If we fail to see the difference between something that by its very nature is non-material and temporary like the rent of an apartment and the subscription we need to bring electricity to our home, and on the other hand a camera, a computer or a computer program, then we are lost and helplessly at the mercy of companies that find it profitable for them to force us into subscriptions.

In other words, put simply: The rent we pay for an apartment and the electricity we pay for as long as we want it needs to be subscription/rent-based, our tools like cameras, cars, computers, software, knives and hammers need not be and should not be. Music and books also need not be services. If people are prevented from possessing these works of mind and forced into using streaming services and subscriptions in order to access cultural and intellectual material, the whole global and collective human value of these things are jeopardized because some businesses want to create a stream of revenue for themselves.

"Why do you not see the point as I did express it very explicitly? I am ON TOPIC, could not be more. I am only on a different layer of abstraction."

The above needs a concluding comment. I believe I see the points here, there are quite a few of them.

Moreover, I also know that knowledgeable and serious copyright lawyers like Pamela Samuelson and Eben Moglen, other workers in academia and a promisingly increasing number of common people who precisely want to defend our common - and if you like global - knowledge and the possibility of indefinite possession in our homes and on our systems of digital material. The obvious reality is that the sole reason why hammers and knives are not activation crippled and their use is made dependent on subscriptions, is that our use of hammers and knives cannot easily be controlled. If it were possible to control our use of hammers and knives and force us to rent them rather than own them, there would have been a motivation for the manufacturers to do so - and with the same lines of argument as we see when it is argued that we should accept to use computer software on a subscription basis.

The stark reality is that we are seriously at risk of losing many benefits of ownership in the digital age. Digital material and tools that needs software in order to function are capable of being regulated by licenses and by copyright law in ways that cannot be done with conventional physical objects like hammers and knives - which are just like computer software produced by other people. That is why some companies want our use of our computers, and increasingly other "smart" products, to be dependent on our payments by subscription/rental.

There are sound reasons why we should uncompromisingly reject any and all software that is activation-crippled or based on subscription.

Conclusion:

We are well advised to act upon the wise words of copyright lawyer Pamela Samuelson, when she points out the need to "reclaim ownership as a fundamental norm of our society and extend it to our music, our software, our devices."

[Per Inge Oestmoen]

The issue here is not what software suits this or that person's workflow, or at what price it is a good deal.  Business law relies heavily on the concept of "ordinary commercial terms".  We know what the phrase means when we buy a book or a camera.  The bone of contention is what "ordinary commercial terms" is to mean in the case of software, and who is to decide?  This matters because soon more or less everything we buy will depend on code to run, and if the SaaS subscription model is accepted as a standard we will find ourselves buying a camera, eg, and a separate licence to use the firmware, which could, like your CC licence, be time-limited and non-transferable - ie, your D850 will stop working in two years unless you re-purchase the firmware licence and second-hand sales would be illegal.  At present, the software industry is being allowed to re-define "ordinary commercial terms" to suit itself, and we need to stop them.

My point exactly.

The best way to hammer home this message to computer user all over the world is in my opinion to point out the necessity of local control and resilience, and explain why it is preferable to demand and use locally administered solutions that are user-controlled and free from activations or need for subscriptions. If a piece of software needs to be "activated" or must be subscribed to, the software company has us by the nose - because in such a situation we cannot run our computers and access and work with our data independent from these software companies. The practical result is that we are forced into permanent dependency on the availability of their services. When the day comes when the services are no longer present or available for whatever reason, we have no working computer any more. There are good reasons why we should stop accepting the premises of those who want to decide how we should be able to use our personal computers, cameras and other daily tools.

What then about software piracy? It is difficult to see how the existence of software piracy can change the reality that user-control is preferable to a dumb box where all the software is dependent on activations and subscriptions. I am not interested in piracy, I have paid my licenses for the commercial software I use. I have also gladly paid for the boxed Linux version used on my main desktop computer. This is not about any unwillingness to pay, it is about who is entitled to control the tools we need.

Some also say that since we pay for many other services like water, electricity and even beer we should also accept having to pay for software by subscription. That reasoning is however flawed. The fact that we in a complex society are dependent on the services provided by others, is no reason and no excuse to force unnecessary dependencies created by like planned obsolescence and subscription schemes that adds no value to the product in question. If a computer and its software is bought because we need it, there are no reasons why the functions of the computer or its software must be tied to the manufacturer after the customer's acquisition of the tools. On the contrary, there is every reason why the tools we use should be controlled not by their manufacturers, but by us.

If our computers and also all the software on these computers is user-controlled, we are able to copy and back up all that software, and thus we are able install and re-install it as long as the software in question is compatible with our computers and/or the cameras and other equipment we have. In other words, the computer is fully controlled by the user. The practical result of user-control over our personal computers is that regardless of whether or not the internet is available or when or how long the software company exists or supports the software, we can use our computers as long as we want without time limits or any kind of artificial restrictions imposed upon us by software companies who want to control us by activation crippling or subscription schemes.

The purpose of activations and subscription schemes is to control us, and the main motivator is not the prevention of software piracy, but the desire to ensure the software company a constant source of revenue by forcing the customers to subscribe to software as a service instead of giving them unlimited licenses.

The very courageous copyright lawyer Pamela Samuelson has put it quite succinctly, when she stated that restrictions imposed upon us and our use of digital material is not primarily about the prevention of theft/copyright violations. It is about changing customer expectations about what we should be able to do with our digital material (and by implication computer software).

So the question is this: Should we, as users of our computers - and cameras - expect to be able to control the tools we need and use?

There is also the political question why we as members of society would permit businesses to control and define the premises on which we use the tools we need. It is a fact that the consumers are at a disadvantage when the software company is permitted to license crippled software. It is also a fact that the failure of the legislation to protect consumers from being forced into subscription-based dependency is a result of lobbying by certain companies as well as ties between private companies and legislators. In other words, laws can be bought and they are being bought.

Whether the increasingly restrictive schemes and dishonorable practices of such companies should be entitled to a greater degree of respect than the practical needs and wishes of the customers who are the daily users of the products, is a crucial question we all ought to ask.

[Les Olson]

We need water and food and electricity and a roof over our heads before we are able to run our computers. Software is just a part of the computer [...]

We have to pay our rent and electricity and water bill and our bills at the butcher & baker & grocery store or we will not have all these services rendered by other people for our survival & comfort.

Tools (Software or Hardware in all disciplines) can be bought or rented, every one of us decides which way we prefer.

Think of software "from the tap" as "beer from the tap" ...you will pay per glass!

Water and electricity distribution are examples of "natural monopolies", because the cost of having multiple distribution networks is hugely wasteful.  Software is the opposite of a natural monopoly, because distribution over the internet is practically free. 

Most of the things you list - electricity, water, butcher, baker, beer - are consumables.  You pay, you consume, and the beer is gone and if you want another one you buy it.  And payment unrelated to consumption encourages waste or excess - as in All-You-Can-Eat restaurants. 

Software is not a consumable.  One-time payment does not encourage waste or over-use. 

The only thing on your list that is not a consumable is shelter. Many people do rent shelter, but many people prefer to buy their shelter outright, for good reasons: they get the capital gains instead of the landlord (the analogous benefit in the case of software is that they get to determine the depreciation period), they get to decide how the property is maintained, they are free of concern about rent rises, and free of concern that they will lose their home because it suits the landlord. 

[Frank Fremerey]

To compare a house / property to a piece of software is quite a stretch.

"Software" is an ongoing service in an ever changing hardware environment. I would not want to "forever" use my i286 with DOS 5.x. I have "Windows as a service" and "Adobe as a service" and I can rent garden equipment or lenses I do not need often. Read my editorial on this issue in c't-magazine 17 years ago: https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Verkehrte-Welt-287620.html


If my favourite butcher or baker die, my sausage or my breadrolls will never taste like they tasted be fore. SO WHAT? THAT IS LIFE!!!



A "property" is nothing but a legal or military concept in this sense: "cursed is he who first claimed a piece of land was his and his alone and cursed are those who first accepted this claim."



Per Inge Oestmoen, I feel you are riding a dead horse...

[Les Olson]

A "property" is nothing but a legal or military concept in this sense: "cursed is he who first claimed a piece of land was his and his alone and cursed are those who first accepted this claim."

Private property is theft, as one might say?  And that would apply to intellectual "property"?  So using software without paying anything for it is the only morally acceptable course? 

I don't think that is a viable position, or one you actually hold.  The issue of whether software is property was settled a long time ago.  The issue now is how it is to be monetised.  The software industry (excluding groups like Mozilla) wants to monetise it as a service, and that appeals to you, apparently because you can see some resemblance to how beer is monetised.  But the resemblance is spurious: when you buy a beer, you buy the beer, not just a licence to drink it.   

Why does the industry want to monetise software as a service?  The claim that it prevents piracy and provides money for further development is wrong: SaaS does not prevent piracy - google "Lightroom Classic hack" - and most of the development costs for software are incurred before any copies are sold, so it is commercially irrational to defer revenue by selling subscriptions.  The reasons that make sense are to make it harder for new competitors to emerge by erecting barriers to changing software, to prevent re-sale of surplus software, to expand the range of "services" for which we can be made to pay, and, when cloud storage is added, to expand the sources of data about users that can be sold to advertisers.  Those are all things we have very good reasons to object to.

From the point of view of camera owners, the most threatening consequences of SaaS contracts becoming the default are that they are time-limited and therefore make second-hand sales illegal. Software companies have repeatedly tried to prevent re-sale of software, and although they have lost in Europe (http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?docid=124564&doclang=en recently re-affirmed: both software sold as a disc and software downloaded from the internet can be re-sold, provided that the software license was perpetual).  The situation in the US is probably similar. But if software is a service, your camera's firmware is a service, and that implies (a) that your licence to use the firmware is time-limited and that means periodical payment to renew the licence, just like CC, and (b) that the firmware, and therefore the camera, cannot be sold. 

Sure, that has not happened - but it will be way too late to complain when it does.  You already agree, when you download a Nikon firmware update, that your licence to use the firmware is non-transferable, and other companies use much more restrictive language, so using the firmware licence as a way to limit consumers' rights over the product is already in the air. 

This is not a difficult problem to solve.  The distinction between copyright and the consumer's right to use, modify, re-sell etc their individual copy has always been part of copyright law. All we need to do is make sure it is the law that when you buy software, just as when you buy a book or a music recording or a beer, you buy an individual copy and you can do whatever you like with that copy.   

[Per Inge Oestmoen]

To compare a house / property to a piece of software is quite a stretch.

"Software" is an ongoing service in an ever changing hardware environment. I would not want to "forever" use my i286 with DOS 5.x. I have "Windows as a service" and "Adobe as a service" and I can rent garden equipment or lenses I do not need often. Read my editorial on this issue in c't-magazine 17 years ago: https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Verkehrte-Welt-287620.html


If my favourite butcher or baker die, my sausage or my breadrolls will never taste like they tasted be fore. SO WHAT? THAT IS LIFE!!!


A "property" is nothing but a legal or military concept in this sense: "cursed is he who first claimed a piece of land was his and his alone and cursed are those who first accepted this claim."


Per Inge Oestmoen, I feel you are riding a dead horse...

"Per Inge Oestmoen, I feel that you are riding at dead horse..."

- No comment.

Then we can return to the theme.

"If my favourite butcher or baker die, my sausage or my breadrolls will never taste like they tasted be fore. SO WHAT? THAT IS LIFE!!!"

That is not an argument against our controlling and possessing the tools we need. If anything, it is an argument in favor of the universal dissemination of knowledge. By the way, during my childhood home my grandmother used to bake our bread. I am happy that the receipt or procedure is not patented. But that is another cup of tea.

""Software" is an ongoing service in an ever changing hardware environment. I would not want to "forever" use my i286 with DOS 5.x. I have "Windows as a service" and "Adobe as a service" and I can rent garden equipment or lenses I do not need often. Read my editorial on this issue in c't-magazine 17 years ago: https://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/Verkehrte-Welt-287620.html"

The point is that the decision as to how long a computer with its software is useful and desirable to keep, must be that of its user. The user is the only one who can know and decide if a tool - be it a car, a knife, a camera or a computer - is useful. Therefore, all humanly imposed limitations and restrictions that reduce the useful life of a computer or other tools are entirely artificial. No artificial limitations should be imposed upon the person(s) who have purchased a computer or any other tool. As long as our tools are functional and performs the functions we need, we should therefore have the full possibility and right to keep and use them as long as we want.

Moreover and significantly, the impetus to restrict our use of our personal computers and make them into "dumb" service boxes instead of user-controlled and therefore empowering devices does not spring from any technical reasons. The various restrictive schemes ranging from Product Activation to the infamous Software-As-A-Service are solely the results of business decisions on part of companies when they envisage great opportunities for a constant flow of revenue if they can "educate" their customers into believing that ownership and unlimited right to possession is somewhat obsolete and should be replaced with the principle of subscription and rental. Lenses, cameras, cars, hammers, knives and whatever tools we use must be available as property, because we who use the tools are those who can know and decide when we need them.

It is also wise to bear in mind that a tool may have its highest value when not actively used at the moment - because when it is not in use at the moment it is available immediately when the need arises.

Subscription and rental removes the user's own personal control over the device(s) and places the customer at the mercy of the company that offers the service in question. As soon as the service goes out of business, is interrupted, blocked, removed, or refuses to sell its services to you, you are left with nothing, nothing that is of use. If the computer is dependent on a software service in order to work, you have no computer when the day comes when that service is gone for whatever reason ranging from political and social unrest, wars, police intervention somewhere along the line, economic crises or the business decision to stop providing the service for your computer. If, on the other hand, you possess copyable software that can be installed and run without restrictions, you have a working computer in all circumstances as long as you possess your hardware. This is the fundamental difference.

There is no rational technical reason why the software we need in order to run our computers should be a service. The same is true for all other tools we use. It is precisely because we live in an ever-changing world that we need user-controlled solutions on all levels. With user control and unlimited rights to own and possess and use our tools without any artificially imposed limits, we can meet that changeable world with an optimum degree of resilience. After all, that is what the principle of choice ultimately is about - to be able to relate to the challenges, vicissitudes and changes of the world from our own values, priorities and best judgments.

[Frank Fremerey]

Private property is theft, as one might say?  And that would apply to intellectual "property"?  So using software without paying anything for it is the only morally acceptable course? 

No. The planet is essentially owned by all inhabitants, human or non-human.

Only if we add some quality that was not there without our work, we might claim temporary stewardship of a piece of natural ressource.

!My opinion!

Intellectual rights like paintings, photos, software or writings are always additions achieved by work of creators.

The only wealth that we as humans own is our life time. I sacrifice my lifetime to educate you, you sacrifice your lifetime to educate me. We both learn if we are able to, even if we agree to disagree.

If I modify the environment to add value and others are ready to pay for is so be it. It is the work you pay for, the modification, not the natural ressource itself, which can and should not be owned IMO.

If you think long and hard you will see that my ideas do not question capitalism or democracy, but encourage work and creativity and adding value to the lives of others.

[Frank Fremerey]

Private property is theft, as one might say?  And that would apply to intellectual "property"?  So using software without paying anything for it is the only morally acceptable course? 

I don't think that is a viable position, or one you actually hold.  The issue of whether software is property was settled a long time ago.  The issue now is how it is to be monetised.  The software industry (excluding groups like Mozilla) wants to monetise it as a service, and that appeals to you, apparently because you can see some resemblance to how beer is monetised.  But the resemblance is spurious: when you buy a beer, you buy the beer, not just a licence to drink it.   

Why does the industry want to monetise software as a service?  The claim that it prevents piracy and provides money for further development is wrong: SaaS does not prevent piracy - google "Lightroom Classic hack" - and most of the development costs for software are incurred before any copies are sold, so it is commercially irrational to defer revenue by selling subscriptions.  The reasons that make sense are to make it harder for new competitors to emerge by erecting barriers to changing software, to prevent re-sale of surplus software, to expand the range of "services" for which we can be made to pay, and, when cloud storage is added, to expand the sources of data about users that can be sold to advertisers.  Those are all things we have very good reasons to object to.

From the point of view of camera owners, the most threatening consequences of SaaS contracts becoming the default are that they are time-limited and therefore make second-hand sales illegal. Software companies have repeatedly tried to prevent re-sale of software, and although they have lost in Europe (http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?docid=124564&doclang=en recently re-affirmed: both software sold as a disc and software downloaded from the internet can be re-sold, provided that the software license was perpetual).  The situation in the US is probably similar. But if software is a service, your camera's firmware is a service, and that implies (a) that your licence to use the firmware is time-limited and that means periodical payment to renew the licence, just like CC, and (b) that the firmware, and therefore the camera, cannot be sold. 

Sure, that has not happened - but it will be way too late to complain when it does.  You already agree, when you download a Nikon firmware update, that your licence to use the firmware is non-transferable, and other companies use much more restrictive language, so using the firmware licence as a way to limit consumers' rights over the product is already in the air. 

This is not a difficult problem to solve.  The distinction between copyright and the consumer's right to use, modify, re-sell etc their individual copy has always been part of copyright law. All we need to do is make sure it is the law that when you buy software, just as when you buy a book or a music recording or a beer, you buy an individual copy and you can do whatever you like with that copy.   

I do rent my living & office space and part of it is blocked by piles of packages of outdated software. I do not need the atoms so much, I need the bits: https://www.amazon.com/Being-Digital-Nicholas-Negroponte/dp/0679762906/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508930842&sr=8-1&keywords=being+digital I need the service to keep the software safe and up  to date.

I would have no problem in having "car as a service" ... NO! I would even promote "car as a service" and to abolish private car ownership for environmental reasons, with only a few exceptions.

When I was little there were 14 Million cars in Germany. Now there are 45 Million. The average car is moved one hour per day, OR: the average car in the city blocks public space in the street 23 hours per day.

If only "car as a service" is legal we would roughly need 1/8th to 1/10th of the cars to provide the same mileage and transprt capacity as today, depending on the form of our settlements and the quality of the logistics.

Outside the cities, where cars are the only available means of transport I guess private ownership of cars might be the more efficient solution.

Software as a service is a win-win for makers and users!

[Les Olson]

I do rent my living & office space and part of it is blocked by piles of packages of outdated software. I do not need the atoms so much, I need the bits: https://www.amazon.com/Being-Digital-Nicholas-Negroponte/dp/0679762906/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1508930842&sr=8-1&keywords=being+digital I need the service to keep the software safe and up  to date.

I would have no problem in having "car as a service" ... NO! I would even promote "car as a service" and to abolish private car ownership for environmental reasons, with only a few exceptions.

Software as a service is a win-win for makers and users!

Throw the old software out.  Ownership of a purchased copy does not preclude getting the copy as a download, as the European courts have found.

You are perfectly right about the adverse effects of people owning cars, but car ownership is not analogous to software ownership.  One difference is the fact that there are adverse effects of large numbers of people owning cars, and there are no adverse effects of people owning software.  Another difference is the fact that "car as a service" already exists: it is called public transport (taxis being part of the public transport system).  But the key is that it is public.  If the idea is a publicly-run, not for profit, cloud-based software library, where users pay a fee for each use that goes to the developer after costs are deducted, in much the same way as a copyright collecting society operates now, count me in.  But that is not what is meant by SaaS.

[Frank Fremerey]

If the idea is a publicly-run, not for profit, cloud-based software library, where users pay a fee for each use that goes to the developer after costs are deducted, in much the same way as a copyright collecting society operates now, count me in. 

Can you read German? Did you read my 17 year old editorial linked above? Some of these ideas are in there.

Public, yes, but it does not necesarily be not for profit (taxis are for profit), because:

1) Profits can be a motivation to innovate
2) Profits enable companies to do experimental things that do not have to lead to profits ... like Google's "Moonshots"
3) Profits can be an insurance / assurance for the survival of the company
4) Profits can be a motivation for investors to allocate their ressources to an innoivative company


"Publicly run" is in most cases the equivalent to "inefficient" and often "corruptive".
"Publicly run" means: "cannot fail", means unnecessary risks are taken on behalf of tax payers money because no one can really be made liable, except for losing their jobs. A huge Airport in Berlin's South rots and will possibly never be opened, because of bad management in mission critical parts of the building. Billions of Euros of public money rot there and this is only one example.
"Publicly run" means the people who run the enterprise are the ones who favour personal security over innovation, so risks that foster innovation are not taken because the people do not want to lose their jobs.


It is very good that companies like Microsoft or Adobe set standards and that some of these standards became public / publicized standards.

[David H. Hartman]

Software must be user-controlled but it won't be. There are probably many reasons but here are two: Piracy and corporate greed.

The defenders and sappers have been at it for millenniums, probably almost since humans started living in permanent settlements.

When the still economy conspires an armor
And her sullen and aborted
Currents breed tiny monsters
True capitalism is dead
Awkward instant
And the first software subscription is jettisoned
Legs furiously pumping (software has legs??)
Their stiff green gallop
And heads bob up
Poise
Delicate
Pause
Consent
In mute nostril agony
Carefully refined
And sealed over

--Apologies to Jim Morrison

I'm not an economist or a lawyer but I feel the Sherman Antitrust Act is close to dead and not enforced as it should be...

Sherman Antitrust Act

Dave Hartman

[Les Olson]

Can you read German? Did you read my 17 year old editorial linked above? Some of these ideas are in there.

Public, yes, but it does not necesarily be not for profit (taxis are for profit), because:

1) Profits can be a motivation to innovate
2) Profits enable companies to do experimental things that do not have to lead to profits ... like Google's "Moonshots"
3) Profits can be an insurance / assurance for the survival of the company
4) Profits can be a motivation for investors to allocate their ressources to an innoivative company


"Publicly run" is in most cases the equivalent to "inefficient" and often "corruptive".
"Publicly run" means: "cannot fail", means unnecessary risks are taken on behalf of tax payers money because no one can really be made liable, except for losing their jobs. A huge Airport in Berlin's South rots and will possibly never be opened, because of bad management in mission critical parts of the building. Billions of Euros of public money rot there and this is only one example.
"Publicly run" means the people who run the enterprise are the ones who favour personal security over innovation, so risks that foster innovation are not taken because the people do not want to lose their jobs.

No, I do not read German.  I read English, French and Italian.

We may be running off topic here, but I will risk this much. 

Taxis are for profit but in developed economies they are highly regulated.  Fares are regulated and they are "public accommodations", so they cannot discriminate against some kinds of passengers and they cannot refuse to take you where you want to go. The critical difference is that they are, as Muhammad Yunus put it, profit-making but not profit-maximising. 

All of that "public choice theory" stuff you present as fact is and always was counter-factual.  Do you not even notice that you contradict yourself by claiming that in public enterprises "unnecessary risks are taken on behalf of tax payers money" and that "risks that foster innovation are not taken"?  There is ample empirical evidence that, generalising, not-for-profit enterprises have lower management costs - ie, are more efficient - and are more innovative, and socially beneficial, than for-profit enterprises.  In turn, profit-making enterprises are more innovative and socially beneficial than profit-maximising enterprises, because profit-maximisation means short-termism - which is what is crippling US industry's performance.  In any case, as the original public choice theory economists recognised but their followers have chosen to ignore, everything you allege about publicly-run enterprises applies to large joint-stock corporations, such as Adobe, because the managers are independent of the owners and have different values and priorities.

All of the purported benefits to consumers of SaaS are spurious.  There is no evidence that SaaS reduces piracy, but if it did, why would that benefit consumers?  Software piracy is no different to the fact that when you buy a book you can lend it to as many of your friends as you like so they never buy a copy.  The only way reducing software piracy could benefit consumers is that if people who previously used the software without paying bought a copy, the price per copy could fall.  But the price per copy has not fallen: it is much higher on the subscription model. You say subscribing enables them to keep the software safe - but you obviously have not read the terms and conditions, because when you ticked "Agree" you acknowledged that they have no obligation to do anything of the sort.  And they mean it: in 2012 a critical security flaw was discovered in CS5, and Adobe announced that they were not going to patch it and everyone could just buy CS6 instead - the reaction was not favourable, to put it mildly, and they backed down, but still.  You say it enables them to keep the software up to date - but you also agreed that they have no obligation to do that either, and even if they do, what "up to date" means is entirely up to them: they can delete features you value and you have no recourse.

Everything you have put forward as a benefit of SaaS is actually an argument for short-term software rental. We all know about short-term need-based use: there have been libraries as long as there have been books.  Adobe could have a system for short-term rental as easily as Amazon does for text books on Kindle. We all know about long-term rental - although that is only rational when the tax code makes it advantageous.  Short-term needs based use and long term rental are not what SaaS is. 

Saas is the slogan the software industry has chosen to conceal its aim to make proprietary licences the sole basis on which we can use software.  It is proprietary licences that threaten us, and mixing up the advantages of short or long-term rental of software with the dangers of proprietary licences is not getting us anywhere.