Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!psuvax1!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!spooky!witr
From: witr@rwwa.COM (Robert W. Withrow)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Software, support, and warranties
Message-ID: <1991Mar12.205916.2094@rwwa.COM>
Date: 12 Mar 91 20:59:16 GMT
References: <23510@well.sf.ca.us> <1991Mar9.192526.2572@rwwa.COM> <514@bria>
Distribution: na
Organization: R.W. Withrow Associates
Lines: 27

In article <514@bria> uunet!bria!mike writes:

>Providing a money back guarantee without restriction is equivalent to
>hanging a sign on your front door stating ``No one is home; thieves
>are welcome.''

If this were true companies like L.L. Bean and Land's End would not
exist.  Since they do very profitably exist, it follows that this
statement is false.

Now, before I get lots of posts saying the Shoes are not the same as
Software, let me say that I agree.  But I don't think that they differ
in a way that is significant to discussion a money-back guarantee,
unless is is the fact that most software is full of flaws, and that no
shoe buyer would accept an equivalently flawed product.

Actually, I think the analogy between Software and Shoes is apt;
Another person wrote me something like ``a user could buy the
(software), use it until it was (obsolete) and then demand a
refund...'.  If you replace the word (software) with (pair of shoes)
and the word (obsolete) with the word (worn out) you have the exact
situation L.L Bean faces.  If they can be quite profitable under those
circumstances, why can't MtXinu?
-- 
---
 Robert Withrow, R.W. Withrow Associates, Swampscott MA 01907 USA
 Tel: +1 617 598 4480, Fax: +1 617 598 4430, Net: witr@rwwa.COM