Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!emory!hubcap!gatech!purdue!sage.cc.purdue.edu!rusbara2
From: rusbara2@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Bob Rusbasan)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: v08i116: ozshare1, shareware utils (part 01/10)
Keywords: Shareware
Message-ID: <4623@sage.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 16 Oct 90 17:13:24 GMT
References: <2071@sixhub.UUCP> <4615@sage.cc.purdue.edu> <5253@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au>
Reply-To: rusbara2@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Bob Rusbasan)
Organization: Purdue University
Lines: 82

In article <5253@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> rhys@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au writes:
>rusbara2@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Bob Rusbasan) writes:
>
>>[...]
>>Shareware, $20.  |  The price?  $250!!!!  How's that for the "shareware
>>Shareware $20.   |  advantage?  Oh, and by the way, I didn't include the
>>[...]

I'm the one who wrote the little price run-down last night.  Anyway,
even though I just emailed the author privately and told him otherwise,
I'd like to apologize somewhat for that posting.  I still think the
programs are very overpriced, and I think a package deal is usually
the best thing for a set of utilities like this.  

However, I was much more shocked when they were put together than when
the alarm clock came out.  There wasn't really a reason for that since
the author didn't group them together himself.  Also, I guess I have to
take back what I said about none of it being against Bill. ;-) 
(Calm down, IT'S A JOKE!  Bill's doing a fine job.)

>I haven't downloaded these utils, but I bet that the $20 price on most
>of these is AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS.  At the current exchange rate of "around"
>80 US cents per Aussie dollar, this is $16 US.  A little better Bob?

A very little...

>Also, I've found that many users in Australia don't make donations for 
>Shareware because of the problems of sending money overseas, so an 
>Australian author needs to put his price up a bit more to make it worth 
>his while.

I'm not sure I understand this...do you mean that he jacked up the price
because he didn't think he'd get that many donations?  I don't think that's
true.  If they were five, or maybe ten, dollars each I'd probably buy
a few of them.  If the whole package was thirty I might send in my donation.
As it is, forget it.  I think you'll find a lot of people have this
attitude, and justifiably so, IMNO.

>As I said, it's a bit difficult, and the prices you are quoting for
>"purchasing" everything are actually quite reasonable by Australian
>standards.  Consider this: the price I paid for the Turbo C++ Pro Pack,
>was $395 Australian dollars!

Let's see...that's $50 for the grep, $70 for the make, $500 for the
compiler...hey, you've already got quite a deal!  ;-)

> And anyway, you probably don't want ALL
>of the utilities - just pay for those you want :-).

Normally I'd agree. I don't like paying for what I don't want.  However,
with a small set of utitities it's different.  Almost all of them could
come in handy now and then.  Like with Norton or PC Tools, you don't use
most of them on a regular basis, but it's nice to have them when you do
need them.  I'd hate to have to be force to either pay for each one or
return it.

If he's worried about money, a big package would be easier to distribute
than each thing separately, and he would probably be more likely to get
donations on a whole collection of tools.

>I'm certainly NOT saying that Australian computer products are inferior.
>In many cases it's superior to the overseas' equivalents.  It's just a 
>little harder surviving, that's all.

I appreciate that, but I question the survival techniques being used.
In fact, they are, in my opinion, borderline offensive.

After the furor from the first ones that came out the author should
have seriously though about having Bill not release them until they
could be repriced.  

Also, even though I was against it in the past, maybe there should be
some arbitrary price limit for posting here.  $1 for each 1K seems
completely unreasonable.  Perhaps some authors would actually consider
lowering their prices to get their products posted here.  

>Rhys.

Well, thanks for another opinion on the subject...

Bob Rusbasan
bob@en.ecn.purdue.edu