Date   : Sat, 03 Jan 2009 17:18:17 +0000
From   : samwise@... (samwise)
Subject: ADFS and DFS Explorer

2009/1/3 F. Haroon <haroonnet2002@...>:
> if you heard me speak them words instead of just reading cold text then
you'll see that I wasn't being a "jerk".

Actually, no, speaking only for myself, I doubt that would change my
impression much.

Fiaz, I don't think you quite understand why such mails are
provocative.  First, cc-ing the list, which implies that you speak for
more than just yourself, comes across as terribly arrogant.  Then,
there is the fact that the last sentence in your first mail, continues
in that vein by petulantly requesting a resolution to /your/ "issue"!

I might have some sympathy with your overall view, but you seem to
think that because /you/ disagree with that type of copyright
protection, then everyone who distributes software should fall into
line with you.

To be clear - as sole developer, Jon has every right to package his
own software absolutely any way he wants, and the only person it
appears has an "issue" with that, seems to be you.

This isn't the first time you've posted this type of message to the
list, so if helps in the future, the polite way to have approached
this would have been to have sent a private mail to Jon and requested
whether he might consider selling you a version of the software which
was not restricted per-machine, perhaps offering to pay double or
provide something in exchange that might be of use to him - either
some software you've written, or just an offer to beta-test any new
software he might be working on.  If he declines that request, though,
you are in absolutely /no/ position to demand anything further from
him.

Vote with your feet - for basic DFS manipulation with a GUI use FS
Manager for Windows from Steve O'Leary
[http://www.stairwaytohell.com/fsmanager/] or the classic BBC Explorer
by Laurie Whiffen [http://bbc.nvg.org/software.php3#convert].  For
more complex requirements, use Jason Watton's command-line Omnidisk
[http://www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/OmniDisk/OmniDisk.htm] utility, all of
which are freeware.  If you wish to tell Jon that he's lost a sale
because of his licensing choice, fine - if you don't like what he's
selling, don't buy it and let him know why.  Frankly, though, it's
entirely up to him how he chooses to publish his software.  You have
no right to expect that he changes that policy because he doesn't see
the world in the same way you do.

If you're not happy with the current free alternatives and feel
particularly strongly about this issue, why not write your own
front-end?  Even if you're not a strong coder, there are plenty of
toolkits and languages out there e.g. Lazarus (Pascal)
[http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/] or PureBasic
[http://www.purebasic.com/] that make creating GUIs fairly simple
these days and you could perhaps use the freeware OmniDisk underneath
to avoid going into the low-level disk manipulation, or if you truly
want to create a an open source, easily portable front-end, you could
perhaps build on Dominic Beesley's GPL'd DFS command line utility
[http://www.brahms.demon.co.uk/software/bbc/], using the DFS and ADFS
specs hosted by J.G.Harston, at:
http://mdfs.net/Docs/Comp/Disk/Format/.

Peter.