Guest Editorial

FIDOCOP

FIDOCOP
Douglas Myers
1:270/720
doug@mdtnbbs.com

Fidonet and Software Authors have a long history of cooperation and mutual support. Many authors have donated their work or portions of it to Fidonet sysops, but many - reasonably - would like to see renumeration for their efforts. Fidonet has responded with a software distribution system pretty much tailored to software authors' needs. Software piracy in its various forms is pretty much absent from Fidonet.

Nonetheless, software piracy flourishes in the real world, and is a source of revenue loss for authors. Inevitably, some of these pirated programs find their way to the computers of Fidonet nodes. Is it the responsibility of Fidonet to police this software theft?

This issue came to public attention recently in a message by Andreas Klein, who has stopped all development of his IMAIL product in protest of Ward Dossche' decision as Zone 2 Coordinator not to act as a policeman in matters of illegal software use by Fido members.

Andreas, on the surface, has a legitimate concern. Certainly his revenue will be adversely affected in direct proportion to how widespread distribution of illegal copies of his software becomes. Is it reasonable for him to expect Fidonet to control this piracy, though?

I believe that Ward acted correctly in refusing to act officially to police the individual members of Fidonet. Not only would it be a daunting task for an amateur network, but it would also lend a "big brother" image to a network which many feel is already plagued by authoritarian practices.

As individuals in Fidonet, we have a responsibility to obey the law - including the laws regulating the use of software. For this reason, we can never concionably condone software piracy. But this does not justify taking the law into our own hands. For Fidonet sysops to act against and individual who has possibly broken the law would essentially be an act of vigilantism, itself against the law.

I've never used IMAIL, and consequently don't know its value to Fidonet. Nonetheless, I regret Andreas' decision to halt development. But the price of his development is too high if we must turn Fido into a police state.