[time-nuts] Test gear with embedded PCs Re: Basic

[J. Forster]

This kind of behaviour just sucks (pardon my French).

I bought some antivirus SW and later discovered it stopped working after a
year and they demanded a renewal fee. I refused and filed a Consumer
Complaint against the company, because they failed to disclose the renewal
cost nonsense on the box.

A similar thing happened with an early schematic CAD program (Futurenet).
They wanted something like $1000 per year for SW "maintenance". I never
wanted "upgrades" or new bells and whistles. I just wanted what I bought
to work and keep working.

Both of these are deceptive trade practices, IMO. Now, apparently, that
concept has moved into hardware. IMO, it's just a ripoff.

FWIW,

-John

=================



[snip]
> What would be a bigger problem is availability of device drivers and
> such, especially if the OS has some sort of inherent life limit built
> into it (e.g. a digital rights management feature like Windows Genuine
> Advantage.. can't connect to the server, and your scope stops working)
[snip]