[Elecraft] K3 USB Drivers

[Dauer, Edward]

 This may be an instance of a much larger problem, one that has been discussed with regard to automobiles and light machinery among other environments of computer-type programming.  It is, I suggest, a problem as much jurisprudential as electronic.

When I buy a computer and an operating system, who owns it?  Does it belong to he who bought and paid for it, or does it continue to belong to the company that produced it?  Windows is not alone in this.  Mac OS has its own version of forcing unrequested and often unauthorized updates, as is Samsung / Android or whoever makes those systems.  Updates are installed at the producer's election, and as often as not in my experience with all three systems they disable or scramble the functions of some application I had been relying on.

I don't recall granting permission to any of the operating system producers to enter my computer unacknowledged and change it, however benevolent their purpose may be.  It is not a stretch in my mind to say that this is not much different from an automobile maker keeping the keys to the car I bought, finding it in my garage and entering it some night, and changing the color of the upholstery without my knowledge or consent.  Absurd, right?  From a macro-legal point of view, it's not a bad analogy.

And then the complaints are met with silence.  If a fix is offered, the user has to go hunting for it.  No-one has ever told me that they patched something they fouled up.  Elecraft itself it very different.  Updates are announced; they are optional; the changes they make are described; and when a bug appears, the discussion even by the company owners is prompt and responsive.  My ire is directed rather at the Big Three of the nether world.

Users of the world unite!!

Ted (normally not at all revolutionary but really quite annoyed), KN1CBR
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    Date: Thu, 31 May 2018 01:09:30 -0700
    From: Jim Brown <jim at audiosystemsgroup.com>
    To: elecraft at mailman.qth.net
    Subject: Re: [Elecraft] K3S USB Drivers
    Message-ID:
    	<12db3b00-aecc-ffb9-eeb8-abfb2b989e54 at audiosystemsgroup.com>
    Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
    
    On 5/31/2018 12:33 AM, Ian White wrote:
    > I didn't realise that Win10 Home lacked those update controls, so my
    > report applies to Pro users only.
    
    Win10 64K Pro is running on the machine I'm using for my engineering 
    work, tech writing, and email, and I've not been able to tame its 
    updating. Can you please help me find these settings? I'm losing stuff 
    when Win10 asks if I want to update, doesn't get a reply, so does it. 
    AAARGH!
    
    73, Jim K9YC