The Great $Pricelessware $Racket
in [Freeware]
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From: Craig on 1 Oct 2009 03:05 On 09/30/2009 11:22 PM, Me.Here wrote: > On 1/10/2009 3:47 PM, Craig wrote: >> On 09/30/2009 10:08 PM, Me.Here wrote: >>> On 1/10/2009 2:36 PM, Craig wrote: >>>> On 09/30/2009 07:07 PM, Me.Here wrote: >>>>> On 1/10/2009 9:57 AM, whistleblower wrote: >>>>>> --The Great $Pricelessware $Racket-- >>>>>> >>>>>> This is the story of Pricelessware which you won't find >>>>>> on the Pricelessware website: www.pricelesswarehome.org >>>>>> ___________________________________________________________ >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> // snipped for brevity // >>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> - regards from your friendly whistleblower - :-) >>>>>> - 1 September 2009 - >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> it's all true >>>> >>>> Either you didn't read it, didn't understand it or are lying. >>>> >>> >>> I read it, I understood it and I agree with it. Lying played no part in >>> my post... >> >> OK, let's assume I misunderstood. >> >>> [Ron May] is fond of sending abuse reports (LARTS) to newsserver >>> admins to get dissenters' posting accounts closed. >> > > Very True. This is your lie, plain & simple. It's also instructive you omitted the other citation. -- -Craig
From: Flann O'Connor on 1 Oct 2009 04:20 whistleblower brought next idea : > --The Great $Pricelessware $Racket-- > > This is my story of Pricelessware which you won't find > on the Pricelessware website: www.pricelesswarehome.org > ___________________________________________________________ > > Executive Summary: > > The owners and supporters of the Pricelesswarehome website are > accused ... > > > == FULL TEXT IN SIG BELOW == > > 4.Summary: > __________ > > a) it is quite likely that someone is going to get caught > in a trap for selling a PL CD and will be prosecuted under > law.... > > b) some of the PWH crowd may be subject to formal complaints > to their ISPs for abusing a Usenet newsgroup to conduct > private website business on.... > > - regards from your friendly whistleblower - :-) You had to make that long post because you've been unable to get ANYone to take ANY action in ANY way against ANY person on ACF for ANYthing at ANYtime. Wake up, stop dreaming. You bolstered your self-serving arguments by saying all posters in ACF are going to face individual prosecution in each of their home countries for legitimate acts which may be undertaken sometime in the unpecified future by unnamed other people. Get real, buddy. You've been reduced to begging and pleading (mixed with ineffectual threats) to make posters help with your unbalanced objectives. No chance. Methinks you doth protest too much. LOL Now go away. Flan O'Connor -- From: whistleblower <blowing.the.whistle(a)pricelessware.net> Date: Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:57:24 +0200 Newsgroups: alt.comp.freeware X-No-Archive: yes Message-ID: <af8563c7a319a237bbedc79d3cbf8157(a)msgid.frell.theremailer.net> --The Great $Pricelessware $Racket-- This is the story of Pricelessware which you won't find on the Pricelessware website: www.pricelesswarehome.org ___________________________________________________________ Executive Summary: The owners and supporters of the Pricelesswarehome website are accused of abusing the alt.comp.freeware newsgroup by using it as their debating forum for private website business affairs and of trying to dominate and control the unmoderated ACF newsgroup by attacking anybody who speaks out against Pricelessware on ACF. Smear campaigns, false allegations and intimidation are the tactic. Some PWH Cultists are suspected of unlawfully selling 700MB CDs of free software for personal profit and of otherwise making ISOs available for others to download/burn and sell. Here's the full scoop. A story of a coup de'tat, netkopping, hate campaigns, probable unlawful selling of freeware and cultist behaviour, akin to any other political/religious cult. 1.Abuse of alt.comp.freeware by Pricelessware Cult: ___________________________________________________ history..... The Pricelessware.org (PW) website was started in year 2000 by a few well-meaning people who posted on alt.comp.freeware (ACF) about freeware. Their original aim was honourable, namely, to produce a list of freeware programs to reduce the number of regular requests by people who posted on ACF asking: "I want a program to do X, Y or Z". These people could easily be pointed to the Big List, as it was then called. But most of the original people involved have long gone and control of the PWH website was taken over by a different group of people with bigger aims. Some have bloated egos, others are control freaks who like to play fascist netkop and moderators of an unmoderated newsgroup, others saw $$$ in freeware. PWH Cultists are nasty people filled with hate. Susan Bugher has an ego bigger than a hot air balloon and led the coup de'tat 5 years ago against the incumbent webmaster and she then became the new PWH webmaster. Soon after she took control, Bugher created the new Pricelesswarehome.org website (PWH) as the ousted webmaster refused to hand over the original Pricelessware.org domain. _____________________________________________________________ Susan Bugher's announcement of her coup victory July 1, 2004: "My position as webmaster and point person for alt.comp.freeware was ratified recently by alt.comp.freeware newsgroup participants when they supported my request to move the Pricelessware List web site." http://groups.google.com/group/alt.comp.freeware/msg/521900774efb7511 _________________________________________________________________ Note how Susan Bugher described herself as "point person for alt.comp.freeware". Under Susan Bugher, one aim of the new regime was to remove the seperate identities of PWH and ACF by giving a clear impression to the outside world that ACF and PWH website were merged into two sides of the same coin: ACF being the place where regular PWH business was conducted for later inclusion on the PWH website. Anyone reading the PWH website during Bugher's era could not avoid the inescapable conclusion that ACF was a subsidiary of the PWH website, and that Susan Bugher ruled as the 'High Priestess of Freeware'. Further, the website gave the strong impression that most all posters on ACF were actively involved in debating and voting on PWH issues. This has always been a blatant deception, as it is only a minority of people over (say) a 12 month period. To keep PWH uppermost in peoples' minds, regular threads and votes were started by Bugher to agree this or that and anybody who dissented was simply ignored. That has been the pattern of PWH Cult behaviour on ACF for years. Thus, PWH has no debating forum attached to its website but it is stuffed full of ACF information, including ACF posting guidance, (the wrongly named) ACF Glossary, all carefully dressed up to support the 'two-sides-of-the-same-coin' aim. In the process of expansion, the PWH website adopted the appearance of a dog's breakfast. Susan Bugher was mostly responsible for all that but had ACF support from Ron May and other minions who rarely or never post onto ACF about freeware, and therefore add no value to the newsgroup. She developed a PWH Cult 'following' and in the eyes of her mindless minions, she could do no wrong. Anybody who dared to say "boo" to Susan Bugher was immediately attacked by her minions, who would appear out of nowhere to protect her and abuse dissenters. Obviously, her expanionist strategy resulted in ACF being regularly smothered with PWH business activities which have nothing to do with ACF. Further, each year PWH goes through a laborious process of nominating and voting for its latest "Pricelessware List" (PL), which is presented as the "Best of The Best" in freeware. Although some good programs are included, in actuality it is little more than a "Favourites List", mostly nominated and voted for by non-ACF regulars. Constructive suggestions by non-PWH groupies about how the PL could be enhanced have been completely ignored, probably because the PWH groupies fear it might devalue the PL.CD that gets produced for 'FREE' distribution (see below). A mere 46 people took part in the PL 2008 process and only a handful of those involved ever post on ACF about freeware. IOW they are not ACF freeware people, but PWH groupies and obviously keen to get their favourite programs onto the PL. One example is iNcReDuLoUs but there are others including REM, the appointed 'PWH Manager'. (NB: REM was recently exposed for posting abuse to a dissenter by using sockpuppets to hide his identity! Several other PWH groupies are known or suspected of playing similar tricks, eg Franklin is a mass sockpuppeteer.) Ron May was personally responsible for rigging a vote last year to get the PWH Glossary named as the ACF Glossary. Attempts by non-PWH people to get this sorted out were ignored by Ron May, Susan Bugher, Craig and others, who regularly refer to the fake ACF Glossary as though it is the de facto Freeware standard and should be used on ACF. It is not and most ACF people will decide for themselves whether a particular freeware program is 'nagware', 'donationware' or whateverware without Pricelessware groupies dictating to them. The PWH crowd have long justified their use and abuse of ACF by claiming that "PWH is owned and controlled by the people who post on ACF". This is clearly untrue because requests and comments about PWH from non-members of the PWH Cult are ignored. In fact Ron May has all dissenters, and anybody who disagrees with him about anything, killfiled, and claims not to see their posts. He conducts character assassination and innuendo hate campaigns against them from the cowardly hiding place behind his killfile. He is fond of sending abuse reports (LARTS) to newsserver admins to get dissenters' posting accounts closed. This is blatantly done to silence those who expose the PWH Racket. Countless requests to the PWH crowd by numerous people on ACF to move their private website business affairs to another forum have all been ignored, using the false aforementioned tactic "PWH is owned by ACF...". A few years ago a dissenter created a new newsgroup <alt.comp.pricelessware> exclusively for PWH use, but the PWH crowd ignore it because (presumably) it does not have the public visibility of ACF. present day..... Susan Bugher gave notice of stepping down as webmaster effective end June 2009 and endless recent threads about electing a new webmaster to replace her have dominated the newsgroup for some time. The new webmaster (Craig) was not 'elected' by ACF people but mysteriously 'appointed' after being singularly nominated by Ron May. One PWH minion actually raised an objection to the underhand ploy by Ron May but was ignored by him and the rest of the PWH Cult. Other threads about the PWH website design/page layout have also dominated the newsgroup. None of this is about freeware and ACF is the wrong place for PWH website debates. Ron May is running this year's misuse of ACF for the new PWH "PL 2009". No debate about this ever took place on ACF yet he claims "PWH is owned and controlled by ACF". hhmmm. How so? Is it any wonder that people believe there's a Pricelessware Cult trying to dominate and control ACF for its own reasons? Is it any wonder that people believe there's more to PWH and the PL than altruistically producing a list and CD.ISO of freeware programs for so-called "FREE" distribution? hhmmm. All this clearly demonstrates that ACF newsgroup is being used as a debating forum by the PWH Cult for their private website business. This is wrong wrong wrong. 2.Unlawful Pricelessware freeware ISOs: _______________________________________ When it became known that the person posting as �Q� provides Server space to host the PWH/PL CD ISOs for downloading/burning and distribution, he was asked to provide material evidence that each program on the ISOs is authorised by the author. Such information ought to be immediately available. �Q� claimed such information probably existed but passed the buck onto a person called "vince" who he claims handles all the necessary approvals for CD.ISO inclusion. Who is "vince"? He is yet another PWH groupie who is virtually unknown on ACF and never posts about freeware! IE: he's just another PWH groupie who has nothing to do with ACF proper. When it was pointed out to �Q� that HE hosted the ISOs and therefore HE should be in possession of material evidence regarding authorisation, he eventually stated that "PWH is only 'sort of' owned by ACF" and described the request to see the evidence as coming from a k00k, thereby deviously sidestepping a perfectly reasonable request to see it. Let there be no doubt that the reason �Q� cannot provide the evidence is that it does not exist, meaning that in some cases freeware programs are being unlawfully distributed. Therefore, the PWH ISOs are unlawful and people associated with PWH are aiding and abetting unlawful copywrite infringement and numerous other laws in the United States and elsewhere. �Q� has not posted much on ACF since being exposed, but at the time of writing his Server still hosts unlawful PWH/PL CD.ISOs. Further, given the amount of 'stick' that PWH people have received about their abuse of ACF, it's inconceivable they continue with it for altruistic reasons. The obvious explanation is that some PWH cultists are themselves SELLING freeware CDs and are determined to carry on regardless. Sale might be dressed up as a donation or preparation, postage and packing costs. In any case, since the ISOs are freely available for worldwide download by anyone from �Q�'s server, other people are almost certainly downloading/burning and selling them for profit. This means that �Q� is knowingly aiding and abetting unlawful activities and he cannot disclaim liability. 3.List of URLS to download PWH/PL ISOs from �Q�'s server: _________________________________________________________ Pricelessware Website CD.ISOs available for download: PL2008: http://downloads.remarqs.net/pl/PL2008CD1.iso http://downloads.remarqs.net/pl/PL2008CD2.iso MD5 checksums: http://downloads.remarqs.net/pl/PL2008CDs.md5 PL2007: http://downloads.remarqs.net/pl/PL2007CD.iso PL2006: http://downloads.remarqs.net/pl/PL2006CD.iso PL2005: http://downloads.remarqs.net/pl/PL2005CD.iso PL2004: http://downloads.remarqs.net/pl/PL2004CD.iso MD5 checksums: http://downloads.remarqs.net/pl/PL2004567CDs.md5 4.Summary: __________ a) it is quite likely that someone is going to get caught in a trap for selling a PL CD and will be prosecuted under law. To avoid this, the PL ISOs need to be removed from �Q�'s download server and no more added UNLESS each program included is covered by explicit approval from the program author. These approvals need to be transparently available. b) some of the PWH crowd may be subject to formal complaints to their ISPs for abusing a Usenet newsgroup to conduct private website business on. To avoid this, they need to move Pricelessware debates to a new site. The easiest place is the (currently unused but existing) newsgroup <ALT.COMP.PRICELESSWARE>, but a PWH website forum would be an ideal alternative. That is what most other website owners do. ACF is the wrong place because it exists to debate freeware, not privately owned website business. - regards from your friendly whistleblower - :-) - 1 September 2009 -
From: Me.Here on 1 Oct 2009 05:24 On 1/10/2009 5:05 PM, Craig wrote: > On 09/30/2009 11:22 PM, Me.Here wrote: >> On 1/10/2009 3:47 PM, Craig wrote: >>> On 09/30/2009 10:08 PM, Me.Here wrote: >>>> On 1/10/2009 2:36 PM, Craig wrote: >>>>> On 09/30/2009 07:07 PM, Me.Here wrote: >>>>>> On 1/10/2009 9:57 AM, whistleblower wrote: >>>>>>> --The Great $Pricelessware $Racket-- >>>>>>> >>>>>>> This is the story of Pricelessware which you won't find >>>>>>> on the Pricelessware website: www.pricelesswarehome.org >>>>>>> ___________________________________________________________ >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> // snipped for brevity // >>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> - regards from your friendly whistleblower - :-) >>>>>>> - 1 September 2009 - >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> it's all true >>>>> >>>>> Either you didn't read it, didn't understand it or are lying. >>>>> >>>> >>>> I read it, I understood it and I agree with it. Lying played no part in >>>> my post... >>> >>> OK, let's assume I misunderstood. >>> >>>> [Ron May] is fond of sending abuse reports (LARTS) to newsserver >>>> admins to get dissenters' posting accounts closed. >>> >> >> Very True. > > This is your lie, plain & simple. It's also instructive you omitted the > other citation. > It's not a lie - it's a fact. I suggest you search the ACF archives before running your mouth off and accusing anyone of lying. I omitted the other citation because it was out of context and wasn't posed as a question. In future, I suggest you premise your queries in such a way as they make sense. If your intent was to ask me if I think Ron May conducted "probable unlawful selling of freeware", then I couldn't tell you. As I said, I have him filtered for a reason. If that wasn't what you meant, then as I said, in future, I suggest you premise your queries in such a way as they make sense. So far, you have failed to back up your claim of me being a liar. -- MH
From: Steve Crook on 1 Oct 2009 06:18 On Thu, 01 Oct 2009 01:57:24 +0200, whistleblower wrote in Message-Id: <af8563c7a319a237bbedc79d3cbf8157(a)msgid.frell.theremailer.net>: > 1.Abuse of alt.comp.freeware by Pricelessware Cult: > ___________________________________________________ [Huge snip] > All this clearly demonstrates that ACF newsgroup is being > used as a debating forum by the PWH Cult for their private > website business. > > This is wrong wrong wrong. So what do you propose? Would you prefer them to have a dedicated Newsgroup, or perhaps prefix the Subject on discussions related to pricelessware so you can filter it out? As a.c.f is unmoderated, all you can really do is ask people nicely to adhere to some solution that the majority of regulars agree on. > 2.Unlawful Pricelessware freeware ISOs: > _______________________________________ On what basis do you describe it as unlawful? In all these discussions I've yet to see a single example of where pricelessware are in breach of a software license. Why not post such an example and then there will be decent basis for constructive debate about it. Starting at the top of the list on their website, 1by1 is licensed to Martin Pesch. He describes it as "Free to use software" and doesn't specify any license. You could email him and ask what it's released under, his email address is given. Next I checked out 7-zip as I like and use it. The license is published for all to see at: http://www.7-zip.org/license.txt It's published under the GNU LGPL license with an added restriction relating to unRAR. Both the license and the restriction state that redistribution is acceptable. Good luck with the rest of the list, with luck they'll all prove to be properly licensed freeware. Free for anyone to modify, distribute, sell or launch into space if they so choose.
From: VanguardLH on 1 Oct 2009 08:35
NOTE: The following unrelated newsgroups were OMITTED in my reply (to prevent in helping Flann from spreading his flame post to UNRELATED newsgroups): alt.free.newsservers 24hoursupport.helpdesk The original post to which Flann replied: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.comp.freeware/msg/f3bc6408ca7ed034 Flann wrote: > Newsgroups: alt.comp.freeware,alt.free.newsservers,24hoursupport.helpdesk whistleblower's original header: Newsgroups: alt.comp.freeware So bonehead you just had to propagate your flame by spewing your retort into UNRELATED newsgroups. You became a troll when you chose to flame the other groups not originally included. > References: <af8563c7a319a237bbedc79d3cbf8157(a)msgid.frell.theremailer.net> whistleblower's original headers: Path: ...!news.dizum.com!sewer-output!mail2news X-No-Archive: yes Why do you think posters hide behind remailers? whistleblower's original headers: X-No-Archive: yes He (or the remailer that he chose to use) wants his post discarded (where this header is honored) but doesn't get to specify when. Google complies by discarding his post after 6 days. I also comply but my expiration is immediate. He considered his post too worthless to stick around for even a week. Maybe you should, too, and filter out such self-deprecating posts. > X-Newsreader: MesNews/1.08.03.00-gb Guess MesNews doesn't let you define filters on any header and permit regular expressions to test on them to let you colorize (to warn) or ignore/delete threads started by posters using remailers or those that consider their posts worthless by using the X-No-Archive header. > You've been reduced to begging and pleading (mixed with ineffectual > threats) to make posters help with your unbalanced objectives. You've been reduced to a flamer by deliberately spreading the discussion into more and unrelated newsgroups than were originally specified. > Methinks you doth protest too much. Same logic to you (and me) so it means nothing in a rebuttal. > Now go away. Oh, you expected the poster to do requests, huh? Do you? |