Talk:Crippleware

message: The sentence:
:The authors of C. argue that regular shareware versions...
needs clarification.  Is it referring to the C programming language, a language called C. (notice the dot) or a book called C.?  If it is the programming language, that is a standard dictated by the ANSI committee and can't be "cracked."  Specific C compilers could be cracked, however, but if that is what the sentence is referring to, it should say so. Can anyone offer a clarification? —Frecklefoot 16:16, 4 Aug 2003 (UTC)
thread_title: March 2005

message: The Volkswagen golf isnt limited in power by merely its programming of the ECU.  those tuners are increasing power by cranking up the boost pressure of the turbocharger.  reasons for VW keeping it where it is, is becuase of reliability, fuel efficiency, and the clutches for the DSG transmission cant handle much more than 200hp.  also "Porsche consistently refuses..." sorry im rewording that that, thats pure original research.  and just because Porsche doesnt use the same engine options on the 911 and the Cayman, doesnt mean its Crippleware, this isnt a fairness contest.  thats like saying "the Chevy Cobalt is total Crippleware, because its only available with a 4-cyl engine, and Chevy totally refuses to offer the 7.0L V8 from the Corvette Z06"...  its not an argument that you can make objectively.  car makers will always offer different models with varying engine sizes, to fit different price points.  that doesnt mean the top model is the bees-knees, and a slightly lower model is Crippleware.
:Deleted<P>The section also violates WP:NPOV. It's written from the biased point of view of a boy racer who thinks horsepower and speed are always unmitigated goods. There is copious evidence that speed kills, and that more powerful cars are less safe than moderately powered ones. Besides safety, a car tuned or governed to a maximum power our speed will, all else being equal, get better gas mileage, and might qualify for cheaper insurance. For motorcycles, power limits can qualify it for a lower drivers license rating in some countries. There is no reason to assume, without cited proof, that the power and speed of a car is limited solely to differentiate other products from the same company. Many consumers will choose the less powerful car because they think it is a better product. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:49, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: the car Examples are terrible

message: Support.Let's merge this into crippleware.--Mac Lover Talk 18:47, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I object. See Talk:Demoware -Lwc4life 21:05, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I also object. Demoware runs out where as Crippleware never runs out but you can never use the full program. Two different things if you ask me.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.125.237.228 (talk) 13:59, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I object as well. They are different things mainly because demoware doesn't cripple your computer but crippleware does. --82.153.194.161 (talk) 17:01, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge with demoware?

message: I have removed two statements from the article, because they are very dubious. The first dubious statement is:
:This is the dominant manufacturing philosophy in the electronics and media industries today.
I cannot validate the source because it requires a paid subscription. However, I have trouble believing the validity of the statement. Most computer monitors, computers, radios, speakers, televisions, toasters, microwave ovens, etc., have no crippleware features. It might be more appropriate to say "This is an increasingly common manufacturing philosophy..." The word dominant implies that there is more crippleware than non-crippleware. Just because your CD player doesn't play DVDs doesn't make it crippleware. You should have bought a DVD player for that purpose. Crippleware usually requires the manufacturer to take active steps to reduce the capabilities that the hardware or software could otherwise handle.
The second dubious statement is:
:The term crippleware comes from the plaintiff in the Federal class-action lawsuit, "Melanie Tucker v. Apple Computer Inc" filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, San Jose Division.
The reason this statement is dubious is because the timing is wrong. The class-action lawsuit occurred in 2005-2006, but the term crippleware is much older. This crippleware article, itself, was originally created on August 22, 2002. Are we really to believe that someone started this article three years before the word crippleware even existed?
--JHP 23:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Questionable statements

message: Different Vista versions differ one from another only by the key; the DVD is always the same except few non-significant files. So Vista Starter is a cut version of Vista Ultimate.
87.236.29.137 (talk) 14:12, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it is crippled. And a popular example. I notice lot of talk about crippleware, but few examples. I know of another program, Mathematica which is 64-bit, but a 'Home Use' edition is available too at about $300 rather than $2500. That home version is 32-bit. Drkirkby (talk) 19:52, 12 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Include Windows Vista into the list?

message: I propose that the automotive section be removed. An opinion, with equivalent citations (i.e. none of real value), could be made that the additional cost for additional power goes to pay for the additional R&D and additional warranty cost to the manufacturer. It makes sense that to make a mechanically identical engine produce 25% more power will require more time to develop and still be reliable and drivable. Further, the MTBF will be lower due to the engineered materials being pushed closer to their limit, which will drive up the number of warrantied failures. Finally, not every consumer wants a more powerful car, more power raises insurance costs and changes the driving character of the vehicle. If a car manufacturer makes two power ratings available with mechanically identical engines to appeal to a wider range of consumers and charges the same price for both, the person seeking the lower power car will be effectively getting ripped off, less product for an equal price. My perception of crippleware is that it is a product where certain features are present in the product but are made inactive ("crippled") in order to make money on the activation of those features. Anyways, this is just my opinion, so I have not made this change to the article. Any thoughts? Fastsince85 (talk) 16:52, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: See above. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:51, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Automotive crippleware 

message: "the Intel 486SX which was a 486DX with the FPU removed or in early versions present but disabled"
Is it verifiable that Intel converted working 486DX chips to 486SX chips, as opposed to increasing production yield by selling 486DX chips with a flaw in the PPU as 486SX chips? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 22:08, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: That's how I remember it.  —Długosz (talk) 15:12, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  i486SX: Assume good faith? 

message: Crippleware as discussed here appears to correspond precisely to the notion described in economics as "damaged goods", ref e.g. Andrew Odlyzko's "Privacy, Economics, and Price Discrimination on the Internet", which gives a compelling example of damaged goods from passenger trains in the 19th century. As such I propose this article be moved to Damaged good and generalised accordingly. Dcoetzee 00:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: -- The Anome (talk) 12:09, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed move to Damaged good 

message: To what extent do modern video game consoles, all of which have a cryptographic lockout against user-written programs, count as damaged goods? Are they a notable example? --71.97.220.250 (talk) 17:09, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Video game consoles 

message: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS should be in it  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.23.115.169 (talk) 16:09, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sony PS3 

message: A vendor offering two similar products with one having fewer features isn't sufficient to consider the less featureful one as a damaged good.  The description of the Suunto dive computers explains how two models are different, but gives no explanation of how the less featureful one is damaged.  If it was known that both had exactly the same hardware, and merely a firmware difference, one would be a damaged good.  --Brouhaha (talk) 18:29, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suunto dive computers not explained as damaged goods 

message: Do those count a damaged goods? Some may have serious reasons like too little memory available, but what about those that don't? --AVRS (talk) 15:30, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The definition is that it has been deliberately limited. You need a source who has some way to know what the motives of the camera manufacturer were. If you don't have insider information on their motives, or some other clear evidence, then there's no way to know.<P>To take a wild guess, I'd say that 90% of ordinary users, outside of high end cameras, don't have any idea what lossless means and would prefer not to have to choose which format to use. They just want to take a picture and upload it to Instagram or whatever, with as few hassles as possible. The more features software has, the more menus and options and configuration the user is forced to deal with. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:01, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: While I subscribe to your idea, that deliberate is necessary to be sure, I am almost certain, that insider information is not necessary to get an idea whether or not some feature is meant to be absent for price and customer discrimination purposes. Also I'd say the "90% of ordinary customers" guess is just too wild - if "ordinary customers" are all customers (how else to interpret the word?) then 90% not wanting lossless compression as a menu option somewhere deep in the settings is just not believeable; that would not pose any hassles at all. I would classify the argument as straw man fallacy. The absence of such an option in consumer cameras seems to be very deliberate to me; the fact that it would not make construction, maintenance, guarantee and usability of the product more expensive/worse combined with its absence is at least a very strong indication. Harald Nowak (talk) 14:23, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: It isn't really of any consequence whether you or I think it's one way or the other. Do we have a source to cite saying they intentionally made it that way in order to make it inferior? Wikipedia is not a collection of anonymous editors' opinions. If an expert source who is in a position to know says it's a damaged good, then it is. If not, then it's not Wikipedia's job to raise the issue with no external basis. There are a thousand other venues on the Internet where you and I can express our opinions about what's wrong with cameras, but this is not one of them. Please read Verifiability and No original research for in depth explanations of this policy. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 16:01, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Digital cameras without lossless data format support 

message: Much of the content here, particularly about software, comes only from biased, sensationalistic sources like The Register, Eric S. Raymond's New Hacker's Dictionary and Gizmodo. Much of it is pure speculation used to attack big computer companies.<P>I just deleted a lot of original research in which a Wikipedia editor said product A lacked Feature X and therefore they think it is a damaged good. Without clear insider knowledge of why the producer chose to configure their product the way they did, there is no basis for calling it a damaged good. For example, the feature might have undisclosed bugs, delaying official release. Or the producer might be factoring in the additional support cost of enabling more features. Or they might have chosen to limit features for a simpler overall user experience. The list goes on.<P>There's no reason to call anything a damaged good in this article without a high quality independent source who actually says "this product is a 'damaged good' because..." and then gives solid reasons to support that they know what they're talking about. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 15:52, 3 April 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: There are ways to provide "a simpler overall user experience" without rendering a device "deliberately limited in performance, quality or utility". For example, Android 4.2 and later hide the "Developer options" menu by default to keep the Settings menu clean, but Google provides instructions to restore it at no extra charge. But as the article's lead stands, even if there are good reasons for damage, such as projected support costs, a marketing-driven "deliberate[] limit[] in performance, quality or utility" is still a "deliberate[] limit[] in performance, quality or utility". There needs to be a reliable source that the device's functionality is limited and a reliable source that the limit was intentional. I'd like to see a reliable source define "damaged good" as strictly as you prefer to define it. --Damian Yerrick (talk) 00:51, 30 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original research and neutrality 

message: I read somewhere that because Japanese CDs and DVDs cost way more to buy natively than imported from other countries, they deliberately scale down the content when exporting abroad. A common version of this is to not include the Japanese audio track/theme song for DVDs. They also sometimes force a long wait period. Also, it's common practice to include a bonus track on CDs from foreign artists. Should all this be mentioned in the article? 99.141.182.99 (talk) 15:15, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Only if you can tell us where you read it, and you have a reliable source that says it meets the definition of a damaged good. I can't imagine how one could claim that with artistic works, more=better. If an artist writes 10 good songs plus 3 mediocre ones, it really depends on your audience whether they want all 13 or not. Completists want every scrap, no matter how bad it is. But perhaps Japanese consumers only want the best overall listening experience, rather than having to sit through the artist's failures. Or marketers think that's what Japanese consumers want. Without knowing their intent, how can you call it "damaged"?<P>Movie DVD extras and director's cuts are similar: a longer movie isn't necessary better, and ever clip they throw in there isn't necessarily worth watching. The same can be said of the debate over software, like Apple iOS vs Android. Carefully curated walled garden, or everything plus the kitchen sink? "Better" is in the eye of the beholder, and one person's "undamaged good" is another persons bloatware. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 17:33, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Japanese CDs and DVDs 

message: Since there seems to be no consensus that "damaged good" and "crippleware" (which is intentional) are the same thing, the sane course of action is to split the page. Someone not using his real name (talk) 01:45, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split 

message: From  by Benjamin Mako Hill:
So does anyone still disagree that antifeature is used with the same meaning as "damaged good" as used by McAfee and the econ books cited above? Someone not using his real name (talk) 02:45, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem I have is any editor applying that definition -- or any definition -- to generate lists. It violates the core policy No original research. List content should come only from sources, not from logial deductions made by edtiors. And for an article like this, we don't need more then two or three examples. Lists of examples should not expand indefinitely. Nothing should be added unless it serves an explicit purpose.<P>The rationale here is that it is encyclopedic to provide a 'list of crippleware' or 'list of damaged goods'. Or 'list of anti-features'. The pejorative you choose doesn't make much difference. It's one thing to define what these terms mean. It's fine to offer a few well-sourced examples, in which a neutral expert in a position to know declares the good as damaged or crippled or feature-limited or whatever. It's something else entirely to create a product attack page where the goal is to punish every manufacturer who was ever accused of nefarious product design. Or punish those accused by some pundit of irrational or greedy pricing.  The fact is, nobody knows what all the reasons are for product pricing, or why some features are shipped and some are held back. It is certainly the case -- which many experts have stated, in links I provided in discussions above -- that companies like Apple limit features because they think it's good design. It's the opposite of bloat, or feature creep. And it costs money to support features. Every feature you enable is more potential bugs. More testing. Often features are disabled because they haven't been fully tested and so the product can't be shipped on time with that feature. Nobody knows all the reasons.<P>Having a list of crippleware or list of damaged goods is like having a 'list of phoned in performances', where some critic claims an actor didn't do his best. Or a 'list of movies that sucked because they cut a scene'. Absurd. Greatness is not only what you leave in, it's also what you leave out, and it's highly subjective.<P>With regard to this addition. None of the four sources cited call the MacBook Pro a damaged good or crippleware. They're just bitching because Apple is charging $4.99 for something that they think should cost $0.99. Or be free. The reasons may be legalistic or they may be something else. Who knows? It's subjective. Is it necessary to include this product for the purpose of explaining what a damaged good is? Or crippleware? No, the article already communicates the concept with the examples it has. Expanding the list this way tendentious.  --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:11, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text:  There are sources calling the Intel Upgrade Service (baseline) processors crippled and artificially downgraded, but there aren't indeed any that call it "damaged good", because the econ boffins and the IT hacks use different jargon for practically the same thing. So unless there is going to be wp:consensus here that you are overly anal, we write a separate article for each synonym, so we can string-match (rather than concept-match) examples to terms. Do you agree at least that "crippled" processor matches (hardware) crippleware? You are engaging in a ton of WP:TENDENTIOUS WP:OR yourself above, by the way, with your arguments as to why Apple might have done something, when the headlines were "Will Apple charge you to enable hardware you’ve already paid for?"... By the way, the 486 and so forth examples are given in the econ papers, but I see they are tagged in the article as being "dubious". Why is that? Also, NT server vs. client is given as concrete example in one of the microecon books. Do you have objections to adding that as example too? Someone not using his real name (talk) 03:28, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

text:  The article currently has the following unsourced sentence in the software section "From an Open Source software providers perspective, there is the model of open core which includes a feature-limited version of the product and an open core version. The feature-limited version can be used widely like MySQL, Eucalyptus." Why aren't you complaining about any of that not being textually described by any source as "damaged good"? Someone not using his real name (talk) 03:35, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

text:  You seem to really worry  about the treatment of "big computer companies" in this article. Alas most sources would have examples about such "big computer companies" because nobody finds examples from obscure little companies informative, except yourself maybe. Someone not using his real name (talk) 03:44, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Antifeature def 

message: From the uber-academic UChicago press :
Anymore objections against equating crippleware with damaged goods? Or for using the poor big computer companies as examples? Someone not using his real name (talk) 05:17, 25 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  For the annalismost wikipedian(s) 

message: The article is flagged for POV, but from the talk page here it looks like there hasn't been any active discussion on the POV issue for the better part of a year now.  Any objection to removing the tag?... -Helvetica (talk) 07:16, 20 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV - Still disputed?.... 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Crippleware. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090111094411/http://home.att.net:80/~srschmitt/jargonfile/jargon_file-152.html to http://home.att.net/~srschmitt/jargonfile/jargon_file-152.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 00:26, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: This entire article pushes a POV. The title itself is an insult term. Frankly, the article should be removed or merged into another article. If it remains, it requires some semblance of balance. Objective3000 (talk) 01:26, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV 

message: What’s the purpose of the CyberLink link in the See also section? The CyberLink article doesn’t mention crippleware. I removed it, but it was added again. – 2003:CD:716:A700:F9CF:2873:AA7C:AD7D (talk) 20:44, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I reverted and templated the editor with a WP:COI warning. O3000 (talk) 21:20, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link to [[CyberLink]]