CompuServe Messages

Thom: Just because Adobe steals font designs is no justification for your doing it. I am under the (perhaps mistaken) impression that Adobe _licenses_ their font designs from ITC, Zapf, etc. and does not "steal" them. Some of the newer Adobe releases (Stone, for instance) were designed in-house at Adobe and are thus their own property. Solzhenitsyn was not discussing commercial issues, he was speaking to the heart of the philosophy by which we citizens of the USA conduct all our "business," whether it be in an office or at home. Strict legalism will always degenerate into cutthroat "eat or be eaten" behavior because it is impossible to make enough laws to cover all possible situations. A person who wishes to avoid this degeneration must always consider some higher "obligation" or "honor" when making decisions about taking and using the property and/or products of hardworking font designers. As far as costs are concerned, is it right for Apple to sell for $4000.00 a computer that costs maybe $800.00 to produce? Would you like to live in Iraq or Ceylon or Indonesia, where you can't buy a legitimate copy of a piece of software or a font because once one copy goes into the country, everyone has it? Would you like to have the lack of support that this implies? Earl Allen, Altsys Technical Support