On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 20:27:49 -0500, you wrote:

>On Tue, 9 Dec 2003 20:33:04 -0700, you wrote:
>
>>David Bengtson wrote:
>>
>>> One of the disturbing trends that I have seen from Agilent is an
>>> increased reliance on instruments that are primarily software =
defined,
>>> with software maintance required. This add's a yearly maintance to =
the
>>> cost of an instrument. The RF Boxes I bought will require something
>>> like 3k to 4k per year in software maintance to keep them useful. In
>>> 20 years, they will probably be useless. Something to thing about.
>>
>>Well, in theory you won't be trying to run the software on new =
hardware,
>>will you? While I do find it objectionable to have to pay for software =
maintenance,
>>I can see the reason for it. Standards are constantantly evolving,
>
>I can certainly see the reason. My concern is that in 10 years, if you
>come across this box on ebay, it's going to be useless because of a
>lack of software, unless you can pry a hacked copy of the driver
>software out of Agilent.=20

If this happens, someone WILL hack the software. People will not junk =
$000s worth of gear.

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