> > The problem here is that because the scripts are free, and because they were out first, everybody uses them, despite the low quality. It seems a bit like a monopoly; the market has been flooded with cheap, low quality scripts, and now it's difficult for newer, much improved scripts to find use.
>
> Umm...you can't have a monopoly on free stuff. A monopoly is when a single *business* entity controls the market so that other businesses cannot emerge. Laws against monopolies are designed in part to spread the wealth. If you're talking about something that's free, the word does not apply, and with good reason.
>

I don't think that 'free' necessarily implies 'no monopoly'. (ref. Microsoft/free Internet Explorer) But you're right that this is a poor analogy in this case. My point is that the wide usage of Matt's Scripts make it hard for better scripts to find use.

> So a lot of people use Matt's Script Archive instead of allegedly better archives -- so what? That's the problem of the people using MSA, if indeed there's a problem at all -- not yours. One using scripts from MSA fixes the bugs, as I do, or puts it on the web as is -- either way, that person is getting what they ask for, whether that's good in that person's eyes or bad. What's that got to do with you? (Because you're not paying to view his or her web site either, what right do you have to expect to be given more than you were given?) A smart web site owner who doesn't know how to fix the bugs or doesn't want to will find the best of the free scripts out there and use them. I fail to see a problem here.
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> > Even though WWWBoard is an alpha version (as you noted), and hasn't been updated in over three years, people still download it and use it!
>
> Why does this bother you? People use it because they find it useful. Regardless of your opinion of the script, who are you to object? Not that I'm taking this personally or want to make it personal, but using me as an example, as someone who downloaded WWWBoard and used it (again, with heavy modifications), are you telling me that use, which was beneficial to me and didn't have anything to do with you, was somehow wrong? Come on.

Note that in my original post, I did not try to forbid anyone from using Matt's Scripts. I pointed out legitimate problems with the scripts (bugs, poor coding style) that I think people should know about. Just because something is free does not mean people should be kept unaware of its flaws.

It is very frustrating, however, to see people in comp.lang.perl.misc ask for help with Matt's scripts, because A) they're unlikely to get help, because no one there wants to support the scripts, and B) if they had chosen to use better written scripts, they probably wouldn't have needed help in the first place.

Obviously, I think people should not use Matt's scripts, which is a valid opinion, but of course I can't actually stop them. :)