Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!eunomia!bro
From: bro@eunomia.rice.edu (Douglas Monk)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Shareware Mac
Summary: Don't tread on toes...
Message-ID: <3268@brazos.Rice.edu>
Date: 27 Nov 89 19:45:09 GMT
References: <641@nixpbe.UUCP> <1989Nov26.172437.10709@sun.soe.clarkson.edu> <6997@portia.Stanford.EDU> <5466@orca.WV.TEK.COM>
Sender: root@rice.edu
Reply-To: bro@eunomia.rice.edu (Douglas Monk)
Organization: Rice University, Houston
Lines: 29


A few points:

1) In order not to violate Apple's copyrights, ROMS must be made available
for this guy by way of a cartridge. That is going to be expensive, so the
likely result is the shareware fee will be paid even less often than usual.

2) In fairness to David Small and as an obvious business move, don't make the
cartridge steal his thunder. (His software has checks to make sure the ROMS 
are in one of his cartridges and aren't EPROMS. Making a cartridge to get 
around this like the Discovery cartridge tries to results only in OUTRIGHT 
PIRACY of his software for use with the alternate cartridge. Also, if the 
cartridge is compatible, VIRTUALLY NO ONE WILL EVER  USE THE SHAREWARE 
SOFTWARE OR PAY THE FEE: they'll just use his software and hurt his business
AND yours.)

3) Comparing David Small to Lotus is laughably self-serving, the kind of 
defense that pirates sometimes make: "No one gets hurt, only some big
business..." David Small is a small businessman trying to make a living while
producing outstanding technical achievements on a machine that much of the
world can easily afford to ignore. The market for STs in general is too small
to take the existence of such guys for granted: if they get burned enough,
they'll just go work somewhere else. We cannot afford that. Dave Small sells
STs with his work, and that helps keep my machine viable.


Disclaimer: These views are mine, not necessarily my organization's.

Doug Monk (bro@rice.edu)