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From: rick@ameristar (Rick Spanbauer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: An issue for the entire Amiga Community.
Message-ID: <1990Jun3.233558.12937@ameristar>
Date: 3 Jun 90 23:35:58 GMT
References: <20930@snow-white.udel.EDU> <1990Jun3.163532.12083@ameristar> <12779@netcom.UUCP>
Organization: Ameristar Technology, Inc
Lines: 76

In article <12779@netcom.UUCP> mcmahan@netcom.UUCP (Dave Mc Mahan) writes:
>> In a previous article, rick@ameristar (Rick Spanbauer) writes:

>True.  PD does have it's place.  So does TryWare, ShareWare, FreeWare, lowball
>commercial, high priced commercial, etc.  Later in this posting you talk about

	When I use PD, it is in this sense:  PD != Commercially sold, supported.

>learning lessons and economics.  Since when does a free market approach preach
>that one should take into account the number of children a competitor has?
>If the competition isn't good enough to survive with a PD alternative, then
>so be it, IMHO.  Darwinian selection can be good, and Yes, I have lost my job

	I am not suggesting that we setup a welfare state for would be
	Amiga software houses.  I am however trying to inject input from the 
	"other side" - too often it seems this forum acts as as judge, jury, 
	and executioner of business without taking time to gather the facts.

>due to working on a project that wasn't competetive.  It happens.  Do you
>think it's fair that Detroit suffers regular waves of severe economic hardship
>due to the antics of Ford/GM/Chrysler while trying to compete against the
>Japanese et al?  Give the people an option, and let the Free market decide who

	Cars are hard goods that have non zero duplication costs.  To the
	extent of materials costs, etc the Japanese are on the same footing
	as Detroit.  The same cannot be said of "PD" software versus commercial
	suppliers.  Several commercial suppliers competing in a stronger market
	is good for all of us.  One or more commercial guys competing against
	several PD dudes in a weak market isn't helping the any of the players
	or their user community.

>lives and who dies.  If consumers shouldn't feel obliged to buy from BrandX
>because the guy just had a baby and really needs the money, why should Joe
>HackerDude worry about cutting his legs off on the commercial market?

	Because Joe HackerDude may find himself at some point needing
	Carl CommercialDude.  I buy from the guy up the street who makes 
	Mexican Food every now and then just to help ensure he is there when 
	I don't feel like rolling my own.  Joe HackerDude can find other 
	things to get his thrills rather than to reinvent the wheel that the 
	commercial guy is selling.  Especially so when the motivation is that 
	the commercial guys charges too much.  After all, unless Mr HackerDude
	is digging beach sand, mining bauxite, making electricity, etc and 
	turning them into machines, he is relying the commercial sector already.

	My particular beef along these lines is the GCC hackers who are
	threatening to drag me into the compiler support business through their
	actions.  My thing is to produce systems solutions for the Amiga, eg
	I used to do tcp/ip networking, and the last thing I want to do is spend
	my time fixing GCC if Manx or Lattice was forced from the market by 
	freeware (I did a GCC port myself > a year ago but for personal thrills
	but sat on it out of respect for the commercial guys).  Imagine the
	irony of using a commercial compiler product to build a GCC port....
	
>Fair?  I don't know about anybody else out there, but nobody ever promised me
>life would be fair!  Who decides what 'fair' is and what it's not?  People
>who do PD have a different motivation than those who don't.  Who's to say that
>isn't right?  Maybe Joe Coder doesn't want to deal with the hastle of trying
>to get the world to reward him with money.  

	And maybe we all should live by the least common denominator of
	the least of us.  The point here is simply because some people might 
	live in a dung huts doesn't mean all of us do :-)  

>  -dave

	I would like to add that there are days when I pretty much buy
	the Stallman theory of free software.  Maybe it is true that
	computing would benefit from having everything available for the
	asking.  The question is what you software types will do for a
	living to support all those midnight PD production cycles?  Work
	at McDonalds?  Ain't my idea of living!
	
>>					Rick Spanbauer

PS: usual disclaimers: my opinions are my own, etc.