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Subject:piracy and ethics and being employed From:"Brierley, Sean" <Sean -at- Quodata -dot- Com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Tue, 21 Aug 2001 14:14:53 -0400
I'll bite,
I responded that I never use pirated/unlicensed software to do my job, and I
do not. Previously, before we were bought out, my employer let me buy those
tools I reasonably needed to do my job. However, we have been on a spending
freeze for going on nine months and when the issue came up for some software
for a co-worker, my boss and his boss at the time suggested we "make do"
until the funds freed up, which was then anticipated to be May. I declined
and, indeed, the funds did not free up at that time. Workarounds for not
having the software in question were labor-intensive and the effort was
abandoned because the software was not available . . ..
However, my experience with a previous employer was this: I was put in the
position of not having a legitimate copy of a tool, of needing exactly that
tool to get my job done, and of needing to do my job to remain employed and
feed my family and the mortgage company.
In short, I would strongly suspect those who answer that they use pirated
and unlicensed software really are put in the position of having to do so to
keep their jobs . . . that is, if the writer sticks to the letter of the
law, and don't use the tool, then work does not get done and the tech writer
gets laid off or fired . . ..
Cheers,
Sean
sean -at- quodata -dot- com
-----Original Message-----
From: Eric J. Ray (remote) [SMTP:ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com]
As a starting point (and a means to gracefully segue back to
tech writing), I'd love to know why more than 10% of the
people who responded to this week's poll use pirated or
unlicensed software to do their tech writing jobs.
Eric
ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com
________________________________________________
Sean Brierley
Lead Technical Writer
Jenzabar, Inc.
One Union Place
Hartford, CT 06103
www.jenzabar.com
tel: 860-728-6777 x211
fax: 860-247-0249
sean -at- quodata -dot- com
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