Ethics issue: "sharing" of radio programming software with others

I have a friend who's had a technician license since 2007. Very nice guy who loves to help people wherever there's a need. He has a dual band base station and a hand held transceiver. Whenever someone needs help with programming their new radio, "helpful harry" (not his name) makes arrangements to help that person and uses his RT Systems software and programming cables to program the other person's radio to "save them" from needing to purchase their own software and cable. One very experienced Elmer in our area, who with another very experienced person are responsible for building and maintaining several of the repeaters in our area. He informed me a long while ago that I could not "borrow" someone else's programming software to do my first Yaesu FT 8800 because that would be "piracy". Today, when I consulted him about the situation, without using details or names, I asked about this and the technician's plan to "clone" his radios (that were programmed with RT Systems' software) to radios of others. My experienced friend told me that the cloning behavior is the same as "sharing" the software. Would appreciate your input on this. Whenever we buy any kind of software, we do not actually "own" it, we have purchased the right to use that software for non-commercial/personal use. When a person takes that software that's registered in our name and puts it into another person's computer for their use, that's the same as making a copy, i.e. pirating the product.

73,
W6LDP

 

I would disagree. The owner of the software is free to acomplish any task of the software that he chooses for whom ever. If I purchased a rosetta stone program say for russian and what to use it for translation for myself or for friends that is my choice. If I purchased MS office for my computer, I could let whomever I wanted use those features of MS office. Even print out or save to file the work that they completed with my purchased copy of MS office. Same for the RT systems programming software. If I wanted to program my HT or any of my friend's HT that is my choice.

As far as I understand, the only thing I can not do is copy the software and sell it or give a copy to a third party.

 

The "EULA" may specify details. Usually, it's not "legal" to make 3 copies and run them on 3 machines. Sometimes it's not legal to resell the software at all.

But, like KM9R said, how the "licensee" of the software uses it is pretty much up to him, within the bounds of the EULA.

Else, lots of businesses using commercial software would be in serious trouble.

 

Could you not use your copy of Photoshop to correct the coloration on a photo for someone else?

The "very experienced elmer" has a lack of understanding in this area, or, just doesn't want to program anything for anyone.

 

The way I see it Helpful Harry isn't sharing the software. He's sharing his ability to use it; which he is perfectly within his rights to do. Now if he were to come over to my house and offer to install it on my laptop so he could program my radio for me, that would be a copyright violation if he didn't first remove it from his own machine. He would also have to remove it when he was done before reinstalling it on his own (or someone else's) PC. So I guess it's easier for him to just have folks bring their radios to him.

 

Depends on the EULA as to whether you can make an "archival" copy, install the software more than once, or if you are only granted use, and not ownership of the copy you purchased. Same for "loaning" the disk and cable, or loaning a laptop with the software already installed.

Cloning a radio that was programmed with the software is not piracy. If the radio was programmed by hand, it would contain exactly the same information as if you did it with software -- the software does not add features you can't do manually.