Hallo Ian!

 IW> But is anyone sure thats hes still alive? It seems likely that if he 
 IW> has dumped both his excellent programs he will have also left fidonet for 
 IW> one reason or other. 

I remember him posting something like: "Someone told me my programs
will not work after 1/1/2000. This means you have xx months to find a
replacement. Good luck". This was one of the last mails he wrote in
this echomail area before he disappeared. 

So I don't think there was some "higher force" that made him
disappear suddenly. I think he just gave up fidonet because he was
disillusioned or perhaps even injured by the situation here. I have heard
rumours that he had some serious quarrels in fidonet, so maybe his leaving
without giving the sourcecode to anyone is sort of a "revenge".

 IW> Maybe he [...]

I don't think it is fair to start such rumours about any person, no matter
who. (Of course it was not fair of Gerard not to give the source code to
someone either, but that doesn't justify for unfairness in the other
direction).

But the example you brought shows one thing: Just because Gerard is not
visible any more does not mean that it gives us the right to
"crack" his programs. Maybe one day he reappears and wants to
reclaim copyright, and on this day I do not want to be the guy who has
removed the shareware key checker from his programs.

I tried to ask him for allowance to do this, but did not get an answer,
even though I proposed several modes on how to do it (like he could have
nothing to do with it at all, just sign that I am allowed to do it, or like
he could restart accepting registrations and earning money from his
software, etc....).

Viele Gr��e,
Tobias

--- Msged/2 TE 06 (pre)