[bobwaycott]

Hate to say it, but this is a really awful analogy. When you "rent a hotel room", you are doing just that--RENTING a hotel room. When you walk into Best Buy or use an online store somewhere to "buy software X", you are justifiably upset when later told that you were actually RENTING software X. You never call your local Marriott and ask how much it would cost to BUY a room for a night in town. You know you are renting. But software, like books, music, movies, houses, and cars is SOLD.

Come to think of it, houses and cars are much better for analogy. Nobody ever confuses renting a home with purchasing a home. Completely different expectations and end results. Same goes for cars. Now, you are within your rights to be both dumbfounded and irate if you are told years later by the builder of the house (or car manufacturer) that you cannot sell your home or your car to another party because they have not given express permission for you to transfer ownership.

[rick888]

"you are justifiably upset when later told that you were actually RENTING software X"

You aren't renting it. You are paying for a license. Renting implies that you are paying the company a monthly fee to use it, which rarely happens with packaged software (unless you are buying support or paying for some sort of service). You get one license to use it. You just can't share it with all of your friends for free or start selling multiple copies of it (which is understandable).

"Now, you are within your rights to be both dumbfounded and irate if you are told years later by the builder of the house (or car manufacturer) that you cannot sell your home or your car to another party because they have not given express permission for you to transfer ownership."

Since so many people like you are bitching about how buying software isn't actually "buying", it leads me to believe that most people already know this. If this wasn't the case, I think we would see more lawsuits in the US.

[mbyrne]

Actually it is a perfectly adequate analogy. 1. You probably didn't read the linked article. It was essentially a complaint that people don't own licensed software and that since licensed software interacts with hardware, when people violate the terms of the license they lose the use of the software and consequently the full use of the hardware that interacts with the software. 2. The analogy with hotel rooms is the core of the article's point of view. By using the hotel analogy it revealed the weakness in the article's complaint. The fact that you don't like it either means you agree that having a license doesn't mean that your own the thing, or, that you are making a separate point, that people don't understand what they are buying, but that is not the point of the linked article.