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Complaints about Direct Access Text Expander Taking Ideas from Others - Split Topic

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bmms:
Hello "app103",

Maybe whatever he does won't really affect your sales in a negative way, but what you do, will.
--- End quote ---

No need for you to worry about our sales and I am sorry if you have mistaken this thread as self-promotion.

If you re-read our offer you probably understand that there can be no sales loss for us as we give away PhraseExpress free-of-charge for personal use. “Free of charge” here means 0 (zero) dollars or in other words “no money involved”.

And we do not mind at all if you choose a 3rd party alternative. I gladly help:

www.autotext-software.com (Freeware, basic but completely free)
www.activewords.com ($50, out-dated but an established oldie)
www.asutype.com ($40, Best in class spelling-checker)
www.autohotkey.com ($0, cryptic but has extensive automation functionality)
www.clipmate.com ($20, if you only need the clipboard cache feature)

We just don’t want you to spend money on a product with a questionable business background. And if you do anyway, that you are at least aware of the issue. That's it.

Michael

wraith808:
Truthfully, reading this, I'd be less likely to even try PhraseExpress.  Because the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  The points may be salient, and the frustration understandable.  But the way in which this whole thing is being carried out- especially since Andrea seems to have backed out only to continue to be attacked, and the attacks justified, leave me as a customer cold on PhraseExpress- and I have been for a while thinking about trying it because of the price difference compared to DirectAccess for a similar feature set.

bmms:
@wraith808:

How can stealing be justified?   :huh:

The only thing I could find is that he pretends to be clueless. And if you read my reply on his sort of "justification" you would find his counter-attacks a shoot in his own foot.

I could not blame you if you do not want to bother with actually verifying what is said but if you take his action even as an justification you find me wonder.


leave me as a customer cold on PhraseExpress
--- End quote ---

I just wanted to make you aware that if you wear a fake Rolex and believe it is original, that it is not so original. If you continue to wear it with pride and don't care, well... no problem. In this particular case, we do not share the same opinion about the value of originality and authenticity.

But again, we had no intention to use this thread as self-promotion for PhraseExpress. I gladly repeat above statement for you: I do not mind at all if you choose a 3rd party alternative. I gladly help:

www.autotext-software.com (Freeware, basic but completely free)
www.activewords.com ($50, out-dated but an established oldie)
www.asutype.com ($40, Best in class spelling-checker)
www.autohotkey.com ($0, cryptic but has extensive automation functionality)
www.clipmate.com ($20, if you only need the clipboard cache feature)


because of the price difference compared to DirectAccess for a similar feature set.
--- End quote ---

Only because there seem to be a lot of surprisingly coincident similarities of the feature list evolution over time it would be a wrong conclusion that the overall feature set is similar.

Josh:

* Does BartelsMedia hold a patent on the implementation of any of the features in which there is a claim of copying?
* Does BartelsMedia mean to suggest that nagar reverse engineered his product in order to discover proprietary secrets to enable him to duplicate the features?
* Does BartelsMedia mean to claim that nagar stole the source code to his product and used it in his?-app103
--- End quote ---

I re-iterate these comments from app103. If none of the above are true, then I think this entire conversation about "stealing" is moot in point. Yes, it does suck if in fact the features in question were copied, but if no patent is held, then the ideas are open for use by others and no wrong doing is being done.

Let us remember that if it were not due to copying of features, we would not have some great products like we do today. Opera was the first to implement tabs in a way that made it easy to use for the common user, but others have taken the idea and ran with it and now we have the great customizability of thousands of solutions which utilize tabs as a means of navigation and organization.

Case and point, unless a patent is held, then no wrong is really being done legally. While there may be a moral issue, again, it's a cut throat world and those who can, will, and those who can't, will be run over. [/list]

Paul Keith:
Guys, I think many of you are missing the point BartelsMedia is pointing out here.

Most of the focus on patents approaches this in an issue of legality rather than ethics. That's far from BartelsMedia's intent whether you agree with him or not. He just wants to inform people that based on the actions of this other person, they seem to be deliberately copying exactly the features that PhaseExpress releases in that order.

To use the analogy of Opera. It's no different if the core developers were to point out how Opera and not Firefox was the first to implement a feature. They're not saying they're going to sue Firefox and they have a patent on that feature. They're simply pointing out this issue so that people will be informed.

To quote BartelsMedia:

"I just wanted to make you aware that if you wear a fake Rolex and believe it is original, that it is not so original."

I'm not siding with him nor saying this is exactly his side because I can't read his mind but if we just judge the pattern of his conversation, certainly it has strong implications towards this intent and you all seem to be treating him unfairly by focusing on the patent issue when that isn't his point.

Edit: If you notice, I edited the words. In my opinion, it's not wrong to bring up the patent issue because that's a legitimate concern but continuously steering that issue to that sole topic is being unfair to the complainant when he has already responded to that issue and implied that, that wasn't his issue with the defendant.

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