Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: soi!sun2!chip@husc6.harvard.edu (Chip Morris)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: Mathematica pricing gouging on Sun
Keywords: Software
Message-ID: <99@brazos.Rice.edu>
Date: 11 Jul 89 12:31:14 GMT
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X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 8, Issue 69, message 2 of 16

aks@hub.ucsb.edu (Alan Stebbens) writes:

>Although Wolfram, Inc. is not all that different from most vendors, as
>Steve pointed out, I don't believe that reduces their moral culpability
>for opportunistic price gouging.  Just because everyone does it, does not
>make it right.

I get very tired of folks insisting that they have a right to the fruits
of someone else's labor on "moral" grounds.  If Wolfram and his company
hadn't produced Mathematica in the first place, we wouldn't have much to
argue about, would we?  I may dislike his prices for the Sun, in which
case my *worst* option is to do without, which is just where I would have
been had Mathematica never existed.

What gives you the idea that Wolfram owes you software (or money, or his
time, ....)?  What makes his pricing policy right is that it's his
product, not yours.  There is *no* moral culpability here at all.

-- 
Chip Morris, Senior Engineer
US Mail:  Software Options, Inc., 22 Hilliard St., Cambridge MA 02138
Internet:  chip%soi@harvard.harvard.edu
UUCP:     ...!harvard!soi!chip                   Phone:    (617) 497-5054