Alan, Of course I understand. Every time the list has one of its sporadic shudders of revulsion against FS, the recurrent question is why not switch. If the disincentives for voting with consumer feet weren't so formidable as they actually are, so many of us would by now have become Window eyes users that list traffic here would be vastly reduced. For better or worse. But mostly, we don't do that foot-vote, and life goes on until the next time there's occasion for major complaints about the product and/or the tech support. So I was just catching the fever of that resentment and tossing in my own two cents' worth of distaste for the Empire, the hegemon of this market. and now the shudder subsides, and we go on, resigned as always. Which may sound sad or even pathetic, but I think it's okay. The actual sad part is the resentment between the lines that I think is engendered by feelings of helplessness and dependency in the face, first, of needing adaptive assistance at all, which I think is perfectly natural, and has to be born with or put out of mind for the sake of sanity, and more to the point, resentment of the dependency on state rehab agencies for their needed largesse and for their taking the prerogative to favor the product they've determined to be the safest bet. anyway, it's all done, now, and we go on, as usual. Which is okay. And FS will have its way with signing people up and making it hard for them to defect, at least in re Jaws. So it goes. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alan Clendinen" <alanclendinen@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: <jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2007 7:03 AM Subject: Re: SMA policy was: JAWS update now available Daniel, No, I haven't looked into the legality of the FS SMA policy, but I seem to recall from a business law course I took back in my college years, that businesses are given a lot of leeway in the area of product upgrades and software maintenance agreements. I'm reluctant to switch to another screen-reader application, as I'm used to JFW, having used it since 1995 in a professional capacity as a programmer. Besides, no screen-reader is perfect. They all have their flaws. Switching to a different screen-readerwould only give me a different set of problems. Regards, Alan Daniel wrote: Alan, I've always suspected that might be the way the SMA arrangement works, but never had occasion to test it by trying to drop out for a release or two. What you describe sounds legally actionable, although I'm sure it isn't because FS certainly has either its own in-house counsel or a captive law firm at their bidding, and knows what they can get away with. But to say only that this scenario is unfair seems inadequate. In other words, despite all, it nonetheless just plain sounds illegal. Have you ever checked into this? Shaking my head in disbelief, Daniel -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.472 / Virus Database: 269.9.6/862 - Release Date: 6/22/2007 3:04 PM -- JFW related links: JFW homepage: http://www.freedomscientific.com/ Scripting mailing list: http://lists.the-jdh.com/listinfo.cgi/scriptography-the-jdh.com JFW List instructions: To post a message to the list, send it to jfw@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe from this mailing list, send a message to jfw-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line. Archives located at: //www.freelists.org/archives/jfw If you have any concerns about the list, post received from the list, or the way the list is being run, do not post them to the list. Rather contact the list owner at jfw-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx