<div dir="ltr">On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 12:10 AM, Jeffrey Watts <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com">jeffrey.w.watts@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div dir="ltr"><div class="Ih2E3d">On Tue, Aug 5, 2008 at 12:52 PM, Monty J. Harder <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mjharder@gmail.com" target="_blank">mjharder@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote">
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<div dir="ltr"><div><br></div>That is an incredibly short-sighted view, but far too common these days. Once upon a time, HP had a reputation for making better-quality, durable hardware, that worked as advertised for years. That reputation translated into a premium they could charge for their products, like Zippo, Craftsman, or Toyota . (The latter even mentions the superior resale value of their products in advertising new vehicles.)<br>
</div></blockquote></div></div></div></blockquote><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div dir="ltr">Short-sighted? That's an odd counter. How is what I've said "short-sighted"? I think you meant to say that my view was incorrect, as you sighted some examples where you claim that's not done. I was a bit general in my statement, would it help to say "_most_ big businesses have a vested interest in forcibly obsoleting old equipment"?<br>
</div></blockquote><div><br>Don't put words in my mouth. I meant precisely what I said. The attitude you describe is indeed common, but it also short-sighted. Big businesses tend to be publicly-traded corporations, which are notorious for decisions that improve the current quarter's numbers at the expense of long-term health, to impress The Street (US) or The City (UK). Smaller, closely-held firms are more likely to see the cost of providing downloadable drivers for 10-year-old operating systems as an investment in that reputation for products that retain their value for many years, which allows them to charge more and thereby make a larger profit.<br>
<br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div dir="ltr">With some rare exceptions all manufacturers obsolete old equipment. Toyota, to use your example, no longer manufactures parts for its older cars. While you can buy new parts for some of the more classic older cars that they made through third parties (and perhaps through their parts department as specialty items), for the mundane series they simply no longer get made. You have to either make them yourself or commission someone else to machine them for you. To draw a parallel to this debate, you can either hack your own printer driver or pay someone to hack one for you.<br>
</div></blockquote><div><br>Not quite. It's not just that HP is withdrawing the drivers from their web site, it's that they maintain that it is illegal for others to possess and use those drivers. In the Toyota analogy, it's as if they found a legal argument against reconditioning used parts for their cars. I think a good argument could be made that selling someone hardware with certain representations of capabilities includes an inherent license to use the drivers required to exploit those capabilities, which license is transferrable along with the hardware itself. But even if they have the LEGAL right to prevent third parties from archiving the drivers as a convenience to the secondary market, it's not smart business.<br>
<br></div><div><blockquote style="margin-left: 40px;">Please provide evidence that it's morally or legally wrong to cease to
provide downloaded drivers to a printer that shipped with a CD that
contained those drivers<br></blockquote>I don't need evidence for something I am not claiming. To the best of my knowledge HP's moral and legal obligations to their customer are discharged by including that CD with the printer (and granting a transferrable license to use the software on it, and to make archival copies of that software). But their actions are eroding the long-term value of their own products. <br>
<br>Some consumers are too short-sighted to recognize that; they wouldn't be buying HP products anyway. People like me, who have been willing to pay a bit more for HP, knowing that we're paying far less per year of service in the long run, will have to re-evaluate that computation. And we will end up buying cheap crap instead, since there will be no reason to pay more for HP.<br>
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