Hello, Mica!
On Wednesday, 13 October 2004, Mica Mijatovic wrote:
MM> ...Ah, I forgot to add: between ethics and health, MM> I always choose health.
Although I did not understand some parts of your post, Mica (forgive me), I never would try to tell another person which "flavor" of The Bat! she or he is ethically or legally "entitled" to use. Each of us is free to choose, of course, and I am just trying to make a decision based upon my own set of criteria.
Such a decision is a personal one. As I say, the people who run major shareware companies in Ukraine and Russia, and use the personal edition of The Bat! are good friends of mine, and I make no judgements. The fact that they use the personal edition is of no concern to me. Which edition *I* decide to register and use (despite personal difficult economic times right now) is, of course, my concern.
As we say in English, I was "thinking out loud" in my post to TBUDL about my personal ethics and which edition of The Bat! I should register. Given the lack of a manual for The Bat! and the situation with user support, users of The Bat!, regardless of which edition they use, need very important resources such as TBUDL. I personally feel that a strong sense of us being a "community" is an added benefit that makes the TBUDL even more valuable, because I know from my own personal experience that we can enrich each other's lives in such on-line discussions, as well as help each other solve problems and learn how to use The Bat! most effectively. (Okay, I admit that I am an idealist.) ;-)
We certainly are in agreement about "mangy gratis parakeets," Mica, which I assume is your metaphor for Outlook Express. I am evaluating The Bat! as a replacement for Outlook XP/2002, for which I paid as part of Office XP Professional. Security obviously is a concern that all of us share. (One of my peeves about most of the mail that I get from Oulook users is the assumption that I want all of the bloat of MS-HTML messages; I kind of miss the early days when my choice for an e-mail message editor was 'pico' or 'vi' -- text only, either way.)
I apologize if my musings about ethics offended or upset you in any way, Mica. I really should have kept my musings to myself. After all, TBUDL is not a discussion list about philosophy. ;-)
Finally, I probably should not have brought up Percy Bysshe Shelley in a message about moral issues. I love Shelley's poetry, but his personal life should probably not be a role model for anyone concerned about ethics. ;-)
I'm getting *way* off topic, Mica, so I will apologize again, and wish you the best!
Cordially,
David -- "Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue..."
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