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Strictly speaking, none of us "own" the majority of the software we pay for. We license it, and we are entirely at the mercy at the vendor's terms, with the onl
by lukifer 14y ago
Strictly speaking, none of us "own" the majority of the software we pay for. We license it, and we are entirely at the mercy at the vendor's terms, with the only recourse being not buying it in the first place.
It's yet another area where the nature of software and the networked world breaks our object-oriented intuitions in ways we're still trying to resolve in the social contract.
- bmelton 14y agoI get the implication, and while that wasn't the point I was making, the purchase of a self-contained app from the app store is essentially the same thing as owning the app. You've exchanged money for a good, and as the app owner there aren't any readily available means of getting the good back from the owner should you disapprove of how they're using it, just like it would be with a tangible good. Obviously copyright still stays in effect so their ability to copy, resell, yadda yadda are still restricted, but otherwise it's theirs. That said, in this day and age, fewer and fewer apps are completely self-contained, and/or work without being plugged in to something, so it's effectively a moot point.