Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!mcrware!jejones
From: jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: What does free mean.
Message-ID: <1581@mcrware.UUCP>
Date: 21 Mar 90 15:55:28 GMT
References: <1151@mtxinu.UUCP> <1990Mar14.234322.16167@NCoast.ORG> <6110@becker.UUCP> <1990Mar20.005906.21181@NCoast.ORG> <NELSON.90Mar20094646@image.clarkson.edu>
Reply-To: jejones@mcrware.UUCP (James Jones)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Microware Systems Corp., Des Moines, Iowa
Lines: 21

In article <NELSON.90Mar20094646@image.clarkson.edu> nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu writes:
>The way to sell GNUware is to find a user group who will pay for your
>software *in advance*.  As you say, people are unlikely to pay for it
>once you've distributed it.

I promised myself I'd stay out of this, but I guess I'm succumbing.  Sorry.

The question then is, how does one find such a group?  If I were a potential
group, I'd say "let the other guy pay for it, since then I can get it for
nothing afterward."  The only groups who would pay for software under such
circumstances would be

1. Anyone for whom there might be some advantage in having the software first,
   for however long it takes until someone redistributes it.  How long will
   that be, unless members of the group are bound by some trade secret
   agreement, and what does that in turn do to the high-sounding philosophy
   behind GNUware?
2. Ideologically-motivated groups, e.g. some non-profit organization that
   funds software so that it can be given away.

	James Jones