The future of PT

[antims]

Greetings, all.

I've got some questions about PT in general. Given that BPS is now out of business, obtaining and using PowerTools is becoming increasingly difficult on several fronts.

It's difficult to find the files now that www12.asphost4free.com/bpsfiles/ is down. The DRM in PowerTools makes it impossible for new users and quite difficult for old users who have lost their registration numbers to ever have a chance to use it. On top of this, newer versions of AOL and Windows are incompatible with the latest PowerTools because nobody has updated the software since BPS went out of business.

This leaves AOL users with the limited functionality built into AOL itself. Many are left without functions they've learned to rely on. Others hear about PowerTools from their friends in AOL chats, but can't take advantage of the same features.

A 10 minute glance at this bulletin board confirms that a great many PowerTools users are quite distressed at the current state of PowerTools for these reasons.

A solution which would satisfy all users of PowerTools would be to make PowerTools in source form available under an Open Source license such as the GNU General Public License.

If the code was released, the code could be updated by those who need it most to work with current versions of both AOL and Windows. Additionally, the DRM could be removed, making the software usable by those without registration codes.

My questions would be:

• Have you (Carole, Rocky, and/or Jeromy) retained the copyright of the code?
  
• If not, who currently owns the copyright on the code?
  
• Is anybody currently making profit off of PowerTools?
  
• If so, who?
  
• Are there any registered trademarks on logos, the name "PowerTools", etc?
  
• If so, who owns them?

Thanks for hearing me out. I hope you'll consider this proposal carefully. (Unless it's out of your hands, of course. In that case, I hope you'll direct me to the proper audience(s) for this appeal.) This would greatly benefit AOL users.

[antims]

Ah. My apologies. I didn't notice the existing thread on the same topic.

I must say, I'm rather confused as to the statement made by Jeromy with regard to tech support. I don't really see how tech support affects the issue at all. If you can't offer tech support, perhaps have PowerTools announce that when it starts. Isn't a free, usable PT with very little tech support better than a nearly unusable PT with very little tech support?

Perhaps Open Source is too much for the copyright holder to stomach. Perhaps a compromise could be reached.

If somebody was willing to reverse-engineer PT to remove the Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), do you suppose the copyright holder (and original programmer, apparently) would be willing to grant permission to do so (so as to avoid DMCA issues) and re-license the code to allow users to legally trade the DRM-less binary?

[jeromy]

Greetings.

Sorry for the delay in getting a reply to your post.

The programmer/owner of BPS Software is the person who has access to PowerTools code and all, if any, registered information on the name and logos associated with BPS Software.

The programmer has tried to sell the code and related materials a number of times but could never reach an agreement with the potential buyers. The material will not be made avaiable as open source as this is not a route the owner wishes to take.

I think you're also going with the assumption that Carole and I (Rocky and Jeromy, same person) have any control over what happened with BPS Software. We both found out the same time our users did as to what the future of BPS Software was going to look like... and this is it.

You said,

I must say, I'm rather confused as to the statement made by Jeromy with regard to tech support. I don't really see how tech support affects the issue at all. If you can't offer tech support, perhaps have PowerTools announce that when it starts. Isn't a free, usable PT with very little tech support better than a nearly unusable PT with very little tech support?

Quite frankly, that statement confuses me.

With the tone in which you reply, it's apparent that you are well educated in a programming language or at least a "guru" of sorts with computers. Lets take your experience out of the equation and realize how many users have asked tech support or basis how-to advice regarding PowerTools. I think this forum serves as a huge reminder as to how many users have needed advice or help over the years. PowerTools isn't a small add-on, it's multiple windows with thousands of options.

How would the average user know if the "nearly usable PT" was only nearly usable on their machine or all users machines? Are you going to be responsible for making and updating the list of things that may not work on every machine? Then, are you going to cross reference that list with the multiple users coming here to ask advice on why (insert a random PowerTools function) no longer works on their machine?
People need tech support.

I'd love to think that PowerTools, in it's entirety, would come back at some point.
However, I think the logic in which you suggest is mightly flawed.

If you would like to speak with the programmer about purchasing the thousands of lines of coding necessary to create PowerTools, then please send me a PVT message.

[kprovance]

Jan 6, 2009 20:13:04 GMT -5 jeromy said:

The programmer has tried to sell the code and related materials a number of times but could never reach an agreement with the potential buyers. The material will not be made avaiable as open source as this is not a route the owner wishes to take.

Interesting. I wish I had gotten that email. <eg>

Having some experience in this particular field and from the view of a computer programmer who has devoted unimaginable hours to writing something similar in nature, the answer to what to do with such an asset is more or less a conundrum.

When you think about the fact that Powertools is a culmination of years of work and effort, it's not something one can just slap a GNU license on and hope it all works out for the best. Were talking about tens of thousand of lines of code in a program designed to do something than the language itself was never intended to do. One simply does not sit down and write something like Powertools on a whim. Like any program, it started out small and grew. When you author something like this, caring for it, tweaking it, improving it, becomes something akin to raising a child. So to just give it away under a flawed concept (and without a long debate, GNU is flawed) would be unthinkable. Love it or hate it, the code for Powertools is a valuable asset. It has worth.

Here is the conundrum: How to do put a price on something like this? And how does a prospective buyer hope to recoup that investment? If one were to sit down and try to put an actual dollar value on the code based and the time it took to write over the years and debug, the amount would probably be fairly high. You also have to consider that the language used to author Powertools (Visual Basic 6.0) is no longer available or supported by Microsoft. The current incarnation of VB, called VB.NET is not actually an upgrade from its predecessor, but rather a redesign that for all intents and purposes is not backwards compatible. That means in so many words that all the code used to write Powertools would require a considerable rewrite to compile under the latest version of VB. And assuming that could even be done, there are other considerations in using VB.NET that makes this not a worthwhile effort. The runtime would be over 100 MB. VB.NET runs very, very slow and the execution of VB.NET code is not machine code, but a JIT (just-in-time) execution that compiles and runs on demand via the .NET framework. It's easily decompiled which means anyone with those kinds of skills could more or less steal the code and bypass the registration mechanisms. The choice then becomes use an outdated, unsupported programming language or invest potentially months and years rewriting it just to have it stolen, if it would even run at all.

Also consider overall demand. One of the reasons given for the closure of BPS was lack of sales, ergo interest in the program. When AOL was in it's heyday, there were millions of users and a considerable amount of interest in that type of program. It's a different ball field now. Without an AOL keyword, an AOL area and a sufficient pool of consumers in which to target, the chances of recouping the cost of purchasing that code base is slim to none. On one hand you have a valuable asset in the PT code base and on the other no way to justify purchasing it. I grant you, there is a group of users still interested in the program, but it's more or less a cult (I don't say that in a negative way). You might stand to make a few bucks in the short term, but in the long term you'd be taking a loss...unless you plan on charging for each minor upgrade. It wouldn't take long for people to get tired of doing that.

I won't even bother going into what it takes to support such a program (and looking up all the "lost registration numbers") but to say that it's a full time job in and of itself.

No, GNU for something of this magnitude just isn't feasible. What's to stop dishonest people from stealing it and profiting from it? Nothing. If that happened, what recourse would the original programmer have? Legal action? Lawyers are not cheap and the chances on recouping against every person who could profit from it...well, you get the point.

I'm going to go on record and suggest the only way for the programmer to keep control of his code and to reintroduce the program under someone elses programming would be a partnership with a carefully worded and iron clad contract that would give Brad a percentage of sales as the code's owner and protection against the code becoming public or stolen. Under that kind of arrangement, chances are everyone would come out happy (that's what I would do if the time ever came). Even so, PT needs a good deal of work to be Vista compatible (I could give you a list, but it would be a long one) because what worked under XP and previous versions of Windows won't work under Vista. You'll just have to trust me when I say I know and understand this first hand. Possible? Yes. Easy? No.

Truth be told...I would have been open to those kinds of discussions. <g>

I hope I've made some kind of sense here. It's a lot more complicated than it appears to the casual user.

- K

[jeromy]

:looks for the applause emoticon:

;D

[kprovance]

Jan 12, 2009 23:24:23 GMT -5 jeromy said:

:looks for the applause emoticon:

;D

And that was the layman's version. If I had gotten technical, I would have run out of inputable characters. ;-)

[antims]

bpsrocky said:

Greetings.

Sorry for the delay in getting a reply to your post.

It's quite alright. I appreciate you taking the time to reply at all.

The programmer/owner of BPS Software is the person who has access to PowerTools code and all, if any, registered information on the name and logos associated with BPS Software.

The programmer has tried to sell the code and related materials a number of times but could never reach an agreement with the potential buyers. The material will not be made avaiable as open source as this is not a route the owner wishes to take.

Well, if he ever did sell the code, he'd no longer have any control over whether it was made Open Source by the new owner or not. (Though, I suppose it could in theory be sold under a contract restricting the buyer's options on licensing.)

I think you're also going with the assumption that Carole and I (Rocky and Jeromy, same person) have any control over what happened with BPS Software. We both found out the same time our users did as to what the future of BPS Software was going to look like... and this is it.

Yeah. Sorry about that. I found that out a while after I made the post. Thanks for setting me straight.

You said,

I must say, I'm rather confused as to the statement made by Jeromy with regard to tech support. I don't really see how tech support affects the issue at all. If you can't offer tech support, perhaps have PowerTools announce that when it starts. Isn't a free, usable PT with very little tech support better than a nearly unusable PT with very little tech support?

Quite frankly, that statement confuses me.

With the tone in which you reply, it's apparent that you are well educated in a programming language or at least a "guru" of sorts with computers.

That's not inaccurate.

Lets take your experience out of the equation and realize how many users have asked tech support or basis how-to advice regarding PowerTools. I think this forum serves as a huge reminder as to how many users have needed advice or help over the years. PowerTools isn't a small add-on, it's multiple windows with thousands of options.

How would the average user know if the "nearly usable PT"...

My quote above said "nearly unusable," not "nearly usable."

I was saying that whether or not the users have tech support, it's better that they have a working copy of the software rather than the "nearly unusable" (meaning crippled by DRM, difficult to find, incompatible with current versions of other software, etc.) state it's in currently.

...was only nearly usable on their machine or all users machines? Are you going to be responsible for making and updating the list of things that may not work on every machine? Then, are you going to cross reference that list with the multiple users coming here to ask advice on why (insert a random PowerTools function) no longer works on their machine?

First off, I'll say that tech support can be done in a community-oriented fashion. Those with greater knowledge help out people with lesser knowledge on a regular basis without expectation of payment or recompense. (That's something I shouldn't have to tell you. You seem to be doing just that.)

Power Tools users can and do help Power Tools users.

Second, even if there wasn't any likelihood of such a tech support model working, users would still benefit from being able to get working copies of the software, which they currently can't.

People need tech support.

Again, tech support comes in more forms than just employees of the company helping users. Users without any other source of tech support will find it where they can get it. Knowledgeable users in AOL chats, schoolmates, sons, nephews, best friends, coworkers, and volunteers on bulletin boards have all been known to provide such tech support.

And, their need for tech support is secondary to their need for the software. Many people without Power Tools are nothing short of desperate for a usable copy of it. Those users don't care if they get tech support. (And, in fact, they can. Right here.) They'd use the software even if it gave a big fat red warning on startup that said "Don't expect to get any tech support from us. We're out of business." And, they'd use it if they couldn't get tech support at all.

I'd love to think that PowerTools, in it's entirety, would come back at some point.
However, I think the logic in which you suggest is mightly flawed.

Are you saying that you have a better idea?

That's not to say that releasing it under an Open Source license is only a better plan than doing nothing.

If you would like to speak with the programmer about purchasing the thousands of lines of coding necessary to create PowerTools, then please send me a PVT message.

I would like to at least find out in general what he's looking for in return. I'll send you a message. Thanks.

kprovance said:

The programmer has tried to sell the code and related materials a number of times but could never reach an agreement with the potential buyers. The material will not be made avaiable as open source as this is not a route the owner wishes to take.

Interesting. I wish I had gotten that email. <eg>

Having some experience in this particular field and from the view of a computer programmer who has devoted unimaginable hours to writing something similar in nature, the answer to what to do with such an asset is more or less a conundrum.

Being half owner and CTO of a small but thriving software development and hosting company which uses and writes virtually nothing but Open Source software, allow me to make the very much informed statement that "what to do with such an asset" is not at all a conundrum. Unless I've completely misunderstood everything so far, nobody's making any money selling Power Tools, and nobody has any expectation of ever making money off of it ever again. That and the users are screaming at the only one who can actually do anything about it. It's obvious what to do about it. Give it back to the community. There's no reason to hang onto it like this.

What do you do when you wear out that $50.00 pair of shoes you never should have splurged on? You can't really wear them any more. There's no good you can get out of them any more.

You sell them for $.50. Or you donate them to a charitable organization that can give them to somebody who needs them.

In this case, the owner's not getting anything out of clinging to it, and hanging on to it like this is making a lot of people angry and sad.

That's not to say that he should cling to it if he could get something out of it. It's simply wrong.

When you think about the fact that Powertools is a culmination of years of work and effort, it's not something one can just slap a GNU license on and hope it all works out for the best.

"Slapping a GNU license on" all software you write/own (or at least some copy-lefted license which respects the user's fundamental freedoms) is always for the best. It respects freedoms of users that copyright owners have no right to exercise any control over.

Were talking about tens of thousand of lines of code in a program designed to do something than the language itself was never intended to do. One simply does not sit down and write something like Powertools on a whim. Like any program, it started out small and grew. When you author something like this, caring for it, tweaking it, improving it, becomes something akin to raising a child.

I know what it's like. I've done it many times.

So to just give it away under a flawed concept (and without a long debate...

Bring it.

...GNU is flawed...

How so?

(By the way, if you're talking about the license, you might want to call it "the GPL", or "the GNU GPL". If you just say "GNU," it sounds like you're talking about the operating system, not the license.)

...) would be unthinkable.

If you love something, set it free.

Love it or hate it, the code for Powertools is a valuable asset. It has worth.

And how is that reason not to release under an Open Source license such as the GNU GPL?

Here is the conundrum: How to do put a price on something like this? And how does a prospective buyer hope to recoup that investment?

That's not my concern. My concern is for the users and the horrible way in which they've been treated, not the prospective buyer.

If one were to sit down and try to put an actual dollar value on the code based and the time it took to write over the years and debug, the amount would probably be fairly high. You also have to consider that the language used to author Powertools (Visual Basic 6.0) is no longer available or supported by Microsoft.

That's the best point you've made so far. However, as long as it can be compiled, even if only on outdated compilers, it can still be fixed and updated, and all DRM can be removed. Second, with access to the source code, people (volunteers, even) could reimplement it in a language which is made for this kind of application, and which won't be systematically and artificially obsoleted by large corporations to get users to buy newer versions.

The current incarnation of VB, called VB.NET is not actually an upgrade from its predecessor, but rather a redesign that for all intents and purposes is not backwards compatible. That means in so many words that all the code used to write Powertools would require a considerable rewrite to compile under the latest version of VB. And assuming that could even be done, there are other considerations in using VB.NET that makes this not a worthwhile effort. The runtime would be over 100 MB. VB.NET runs very, very slow and the execution of VB.NET code is not machine code, but a JIT (just-in-time) execution that compiles and runs on demand via the .NET framework.

Yup. I know all of this.

It's easily decompiled which means anyone with those kinds of skills could more or less steal the code and bypass the registration mechanisms.

Umm... Good.

Again, nobody has any reasonable expectation of making a profit off of it under the business model used previously. If anybody is to make a profit off of it, it'll need to be under a different business model. And, if that's not even a very likely possibility that a profit can be made off of it, it can still be usable again if it's given away freely. In either case, "registration mechanisms" (A special case of Digital Restrictions Management) should be removed entirely so that any user with a copy of the software can use it. In fact, they never should have been added in the first place.

The choice then becomes use an outdated, unsupported programming language or invest potentially months and years rewriting it just to have it stolen, if it would even run at all.

First, "stolen" is an entirely inappropriate term. Even if a reasonable argument could be made that making and distributing copies of software without the copyright owner's consent was wrong (other than in the sense that it's wrong to do things that are illegal), it still could not reasonably be called "stealing" in the more common sense of the term.

As well, you're assuming it would be ported to another crippled, proprietary language controlled by Microsoft. If you haven't guessed by this point, I very much think that would be a huge mistake.

Also consider overall demand. One of the reasons given for the closure of BPS was lack of sales, ergo interest in the program. When AOL was in it's heyday, there were millions of users and a considerable amount of interest in that type of program. It's a different ball field now. Without an AOL keyword, an AOL area and a sufficient pool of consumers in which to target, the chances of recouping the cost of purchasing that code base is slim to none.

Then why isn't the owner of the code giving it away? Nobody's ever going to buy it in hopes of making money off of it.

On one hand you have a valuable asset in the PT code base and on the other no way to justify purchasing it.

If nobody's buying copies of the software, and nobody's buying the code, then it isn't any more valuable as it is now than it would be if he were to give the source code away under an Open Source license.

I grant you, there is a group of users still interested in the program, but it's more or less a cult (I don't say that in a negative way). You might stand to make a few bucks in the short term, but in the long term you'd be taking a loss...unless you plan on charging for each minor upgrade. It wouldn't take long for people to get tired of doing that.

Agreed. But, again, I'm not arguing for any approach that would be likely to make a profit. I share your doubt that such a thing is possible. I'm not debating that.

I won't even bother going into what it takes to support such a program (and looking up all the "lost registration numbers") but to say that it's a full time job in and of itself.

It.
Doesn't.
Need.
Official.
Support.

And it especially doesn't need support as much as it needs to be made available and usable. Support is very much a secondary concern.

No, GNU for something of this magnitude just isn't feasible.

There's nothing "GNU" (you should probably be using the term "Open Source" here) about the approaches you've been describing so far, so nothing you've said so far supports this statement in any way.

And, "GNU" (or rather "the GNU GPL") is absolutely is feasible for something of this magnitude. You've talking to somebody who is typing this in Gvim, about to paste the text into Firefox running on Gentoo GNU/Linux. The kernel alone is comprised of over 10 million lines of code. I've not used Windows or for that matter any proprietary operating system in years save to help my mother configure her Windows system, and I've never wanted for any proprietary software nor any software that's available only for proprietary operating systems. In fact, I do things on my system that I couldn't have dreamed of doing on a Windows box on a daily basis. Most of the software I use is under some form of the GNU GPL. Of the rest of it, virtually all is under some Open Source license. "GNU" made all of this possible.

My company is currently working under contract on a project which includes a great deal of Open Source code from a great number of projects (thought the majority of it is original code written by myself and a couple of other developers), and I'm one of the three main developers for this project. The project is currently well over 45,000 lines long. (Excluding blank lines, but including comments.)

You might as well be telling me that using electrical signals to transmit data over long distances just isn't feasible.

What's to stop dishonest people from stealing it and profiting from it? Nothing.

You don't have to be dishonest to profit from Open Source code. Open Source licenses allow that explicitly. (For information on the GNU GPL specifically regarding selling GPL'd software, see the "Selling Free Software" page on gnu.org. For an authoritative source stating that selling all Open Source software is legal and explicitly allowed, see the first point in the Open Source Definition at the Open Source Initiative's website.)

And that's only about selling Open Source code. There are many ways to profit from Open Source code which do not include selling Open Source software. The business I co-own also does hosting, and we host everything using only Open Source software.

If that happened, what recourse would the original programmer have? Legal action? Lawyers are not cheap and the chances on recouping against every person who could profit from it...well, you get the point.

I believe my response to the previous section completely answers this statement.

I'm going to go on record and suggest the only way for the programmer to keep control of his code...

Why would the programmer have any need or want to "keep control of his code?" It's worth nothing to him. You've made that abundantly clear.

...and to reintroduce the program under someone elses programming...

Releasing the source code under an Open Source license would remove any need for securing another programmer before reintroduction.

...would be a partnership with a carefully worded and iron clad contract that would give Brad a percentage of sales as the code's owner and protection against the code becoming public or stolen. Under that kind of arrangement, chances are everyone would come out happy (that's what I would do if the time ever came).

Even so, PT needs a good deal of work to be Vista compatible (I could give you a list, but it would be a long one) because what worked under XP and previous versions of Windows won't work under Vista. You'll just have to trust me when I say I know and understand this first hand. Possible? Yes. Easy? No.

Gotta love that Microsoft...

Even if it couldn't be ported in a short amount of time, a subset of the features could be ported, and other features added to the Vista-compatible version over time.

Truth be told...I would have been open to those kinds of discussions. <g>

I hope I've made some kind of sense here. It's a lot more complicated than it appears to the casual user.

- K

Thank you for taking the time to make the post.

:looks for the applause emoticon:

;D

And that was the layman's version. If I had gotten technical, I would have run out of inputable characters. ;-)

Please. Feel free to lay anything technical on me you'd like. I can handle it.

[kprovance]

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree then, because I don't agree with anything you've said.

I do want to set one thing straight; Powertools is not protected by a DRM, at least not to the extent for which it's badly known for (Vista, MP3s, etc). It boils down to a simple If/Then/Else statement.

I guess I should state for the record that I am the author of a similar program. The programmer of Powertools used to consider me "competition" (although that was never my intent, it unfortunately ended up that way). He doesn't like me and truth be told after everything he's put me through, I don't have much of anything to say to him. However, I will defend his decision to protect his work because in that light, he and I have something very much in common. I also know that during the years Powertools was popular that there were many imitators, many folks who wanted to do what he did and many folks who if given the chance would take the source code to his work and create something derivative and attempt to profit off of it. If you want to support GNU, then again, that's your choice and in some cases it does have benefit...but not here.

Clearly, he was in it for the profit...and that's his right...free market and all that. He put (and Jeromy, correct me if I'm wrong here) over thirteen years into Powertools. Thirteen years. If you're going to sit there and tell me that you would put that much time and effort into a project and making a killing off of it that you'd just give it away for nothing, then with all due respect...you're nuts!

But, let's be honest for a moment. Was it fair that he just pulled out and took his code with him, thus leaving a considerable amount of his users with nothing? No, it wasn't. But after thirteen years of coding (and eating nuts from a lot of people about his upgrade policies) I think that's his right. Like it or not, agree with it or not. Plus, there was a whole subset of politics involved with AOL and the the company that handled registrations that you have no clue about. So after all is said and done if Brad wants to lock up his code and hold a high price over it...then good for him. Again. that's his right.

I'm sure there will come day when I will do the same thing, that is get tired of dealing with rude and intellectually devoid people thinking I owe them something because they use my software and just throw in the towel. And when that time comes I won't just be tossing my code assets out there for anyone to pick up and abuse. As of this writing, that would be fourteen years of work that could benefit someone else if not properly policed. And chances are it would be folks who wouldn't even know what to do with the code short of compiling it and profiting from it. If you GNU folks trust each other to that degree, then that's great. Personally, I don't trust anyone unless our names are bound to a legal document...because if I've learned one thing about dealing with people on the Internet for half my life is that no one can ever really be trusted fully and folks will stab you in the back first chance they get to benefit themselves. Cynical? Paranoid? You betcha...and it's saved me a lot of trouble over the years. I still do what I do because I enjoy it. If it was about the money, I would have quit years ago. That being said, I didn't put a decade and a half into something just to give it away. But I wouldn't screw my loyal end users either. I'm sure I'll figure out an arrangement with folks directly, or with an apprentice. You simply cannot make everyone happy all of the time. The key to not driving yourself nuts over that is to accept it. :-)

If you can talk Brad into selling you the PT source code, then more power to you. But I think I can safely say he'll never go for the GNU thing. He want to profit, plain and simple. If he has a price for selling off his code to a GNU organization I can bet it will be high (and with provisions that I or anyone associated with me never be allowed to see or be involved with it in any way...I'll put money on that). If price or recouping it doesn't bother you, then maybe you'll do well. You'll almost certainly run into me again if you are successful. ;-)

Good luck.

[antims]

Jan 17, 2009 21:54:44 GMT -5 kprovance said:

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree then, because I don't agree with anything you've said.

Heh. I caught that a couple of posts ago.

I do want to set one thing straight; Powertools is not protected by a DRM, at least not to the extent for which it's badly known for (Vista, MP3s, etc). It boils down to a simple If/Then/Else statement.

Wikipedia defines "DRM" as follows: "Digital rights management (DRM) is a generic term that refers to access control technologies used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, and copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices."

A registration number scheme is definitely an access control technology used by a copyright holder to limit usage of digital media.

It's a simple DRM scheme, but it's definitely DRM.

I guess I should state for the record that I am the author of a similar program. The programmer of Powertools used to consider me "competition" (although that was never my intent, it unfortunately ended up that way). He doesn't like me and truth be told after everything he's put me through, I don't have much of anything to say to him. However, I will defend his decision to protect his work because in that light, he and I have something very much in common. I also know that during the years Powertools was popular that there were many imitators, many folks who wanted to do what he did and many folks who if given the chance would take the source code to his work and create something derivative and attempt to profit off of it. If you want to support GNU, then again, that's your choice and in some cases it does have benefit...but not here.

"GNU" (again, your terminology is a bit off here) does have benefit here. For the users.

Clearly, he was in it for the profit...and that's his right...free market and all that.

Profit isn't in all cases a right. Many things are wrong whether they make a profit or not.

Restricting users from using the software as they want (in this case with DRM), sharing copies with others (with DRM and with the license under which he distributed it), modifying it for their own purposes (by witholding the source code), and sharing modified versions are four such things.

(Do take note that I'm not speaking in a legal sense. The law upholds all four of these items as rights. I'm speaking in an ethical sense.)

He put (and Jeromy, correct me if I'm wrong here) over thirteen years into Powertools. Thirteen years. If you're going to sit there and tell me that you would put that much time and effort into a project and making a killing off of it that you'd just give it away for nothing, then with all due respect...you're nuts!

Open Source software, as I've said, can be sold. Software authors have no obligation to give copies away for free.

As well, there are many ways to profit from software without selling individual copies of the software.

But, let's be honest for a moment. Was it fair that he just pulled out and took his code with him, thus leaving a considerable amount of his users with nothing? No, it wasn't.

Truer words were never spoken. Or typed.

But after thirteen years of coding (and eating nuts from a lot of people about his upgrade policies) I think that's his right.

It was his right to discontinue distribution. However, it was never his right to impose any kind of copy restrictions on his users. Nor was it his right to prevent users from fixing/upgrading the software themselves or distributing the fixed/updated versions.

Had he not imposed such limitations, the users wouldn't have the problem they do now.

Like it or not, agree with it or not. Plus, there was a whole subset of politics involved with AOL and the the company that handled registrations that you have no clue about.

I guess I can't really comment on it, then.

So after all is said and done if Brad wants to lock up his code and hold a high price over it...then good for him. Again. that's his right.

He "locked up his code" long before he stopped distributing PowerTools. And, no, it wasn't his right to do so.

I'm sure there will come day when I will do the same thing, that is get tired of dealing with rude and intellectually devoid people thinking I owe them something because they use my software and just throw in the towel. And when that time comes I won't just be tossing my code assets out there for anyone to pick up and abuse.

What could be done with your code that could be considered "abuse?" (Other than malicious uses, of course.)

As of this writing, that would be fourteen years of work that could benefit someone else if not properly policed.

Surely I'm not the only one here that would consider that statement cold.

And chances are it would be folks who wouldn't even know what to do with the code short of compiling it and profiting from it.

And, what would be wrong with that?

If you GNU folks trust each other to that degree, then that's great.

It has nothing to do with trust. It has to do with rights. The rights of others to use whatever code I give/sell/distribute to them as they wish, modify it, and give copies (both unmodified and modified) to others.

Personally, I don't trust anyone unless our names are bound to a legal document...because if I've learned one thing about dealing with people on the Internet for half my life is that no one can ever really be trusted fully and folks will stab you in the back first chance they get to benefit themselves.

How would giving or selling copies of your software harm you?

Cynical? Paranoid? You betcha...and it's saved me a lot of trouble over the years. I still do what I do because I enjoy it. If it was about the money, I would have quit years ago. That being said, I didn't put a decade and a half into something just to give it away. But I wouldn't screw my loyal end users either. I'm sure I'll figure out an arrangement with folks directly, or with an apprentice.

Well, then you're at least nicer to your users than Brad.

You simply cannot make everyone happy all of the time. The key to not driving yourself nuts over that is to accept it. :-)

But you can respect the rights of everyone all the time, and doing anything else is unethical.

If you can talk Brad into selling you the PT source code, then more power to you. But I think I can safely say he'll never go for the GNU thing.

It's certainly sounding like it. I may have to come to some kind of compromise.

He want to profit, plain and simple.

At the expense of his users' rights, apparently.

If he has a price for selling off his code to a GNU organization I can bet it will be high

I guess I'll find out.

(and with provisions that I or anyone associated with me never be allowed to see or be involved with it in any way...I'll put money on that).

Wow. You weren't kidding when you said he doesn't like you.

If price or recouping it doesn't bother you, then maybe you'll do well. You'll almost certainly run into me again if you are successful. ;-)

Well, hopefully I'll run into you again, then.

Good luck.

Thanks.

[Cap]

Let's face it, Brad left many thousands of his product's users in limbo.

Lets also face that AOL is a dying a very quick death. AOL has closed down HOMETOWN and several other long term features. Even KEYWORD MEMBER no longer functions. How much longer will AOL actually exist? I figure by the end of 2009 even the chat rooms will be gone just like MSN did a few years back.

As I am sure Brad will attest to, you can't give something away and expect it to have any value. Since AOL went free, it has diluted it's once decent membership.

The least that Brad could do is let who ever wants to use PT12, just use it. This will free up the many Registration issues that Jeromy kindly takes care of on his own time. Before long AOL will sunset 9.0 SE and just like earlier versions, will not longer work. At that point PT is a moot point.

I can appreciate all the work that Brad put into PT over the years even will all the purchasing and upgrade issues. And he did make a nice living selling it.

But PT is over, gone and kaput and now has no value since even the software environment it was written in no longer even exists.

So for the rest of us who will use PT until AOL shuts down or 9.0se is gone and unusable, do all of your long term customers a favor and just remove the registration codes and let who wants to use it , just use it. Any Vista or Win7 PC's will never be able to use it.

Just my 2 cents. TY