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From: rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Freewhare hurts the NeXT (was Re: Desktop publishing)
Message-ID: <70504@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 2 Apr 91 03:34:46 GMT
References: <1446@toaster.SFSU.EDU> <1991Mar30.063733.27117@news.cs.indiana.edu> <70367@brunix.UUCP> <1991Mar31.084853.18232@news.cs.indiana.edu>
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Reply-To: rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony)
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
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In article <1991Mar31.084853.18232@news.cs.indiana.edu> jashley@loanshark.cs.indiana.edu (J. Michael Ashley) writes:
>I'm not questioning the fact that GNU software is good.  My point is that
>somebody can *always* do *better*.

No doubt, it's just a question of marginal costs. If something is only
marginally better than something is for free then the free things will
be on more peoples preference curves. If the difference in quality is
big enough, it does not matter if something is free, they will buy the
better stuff. The important economic keyword here is opportunity cost.

>> The software that is around is pretty high quality
>
>Well, I disagree with that, but "high quality" is a pretty subjective thing.
>
>>Given
>>the time NeXT is on the market there is quite a reasonable number of
>>programs out there.
>
>Really?  I still can't find a decent TeX previewer.  I hardly think Emacs
>is a great text editor.  Other people must share the same sentiments I do,
>and like me, they don't have time to remedy the situation.  We'd rather
>leave it to the people who are really good at it.

Well, emacs is a lifestyle. It's very efficient when you are used to
it. Other than that you have all the standard UNIX stuff like vi and
ed :-) next to Edit.

>>The only way the free software can hurt NeXT is that people like you
>>do not like quality but quantity.
>
>Relax, champ.  I like quality a lot.  But I think diversity is a good
>thing, too.  How can diversity be bad?

I'm not opposed to diversity. I just see it as a second priority where
as you seem to see it as a first priority.

>>[Story about this Sirius computer deleted]
>>Thats why people like you thought: OH, IBM MUST BE SOOO GREAT!
>>and they went on and bought it.
>
>Oh, now I'm an IBM lover and a NeXT basher.  Wow, I thought it was ok to
>be critical on this board... :-)
>
>Seriously, I can't believe your statement that millions of people bought
>an IBM based solely on the diversity of add-ons.  You might be right: people
>bought a piece of crap because it had lots of add-ons.  But why should
>I think add-ons would hurt NeXT?  Then we'd have a great computer *and*
>lots of spiffy software and hardware extras.  You haven't convinved me
>that diversity is bad.

My point only was and is that the diversity helped create add pages to
the magazines, and add pages mean editorial coverage etc. i.e. the
crippled IBM filled more pages than the complete Sirius. The diversity
of add-ons was not that much of an issue. I mentioned the Sirius story
only because I think the NeXT and the Sirius have (given the
difference in time) quite a few things in common and also shows where
the ridiculous economic axiom of rational expectations and rationals
decisions leads: to many unexplained phenomena. N.B it is completely ok to
be critical here, but no one should take a little bit of sarcasm to personal
either. 
>"Freewhare hurts diversity" is a conjecture.
>"Freewhare doesn't hurt diversity" is a conjecture.
>The issues are really complicated, and I don't think either "side" is
>entirely right, including my own side.

Well, I'd say Freeware hurts diversity in so far as that it raises the
entry level of quality you have to have in order to sell something.
This discourages some companies, but then again, if they can be
discouraged by that, their products could not have been significantly
better anyway.

>I just want good software and was offering my opinion on why there is not
>a lot of good software out there.  This was a mistake, and that's why
>I cancelled the original posting.  This issue about freewhare just
>gets too emotional.
>
>I care about the fate of NeXT probably a lot more than you think.  Peace.

Hey, there never was war. Discussion is actually never a mistake (as
long as it remains somewhat reasonable and to the point). 

Ronald
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man."   G.B. Shaw   |  rca@cs.brown.edu or antony@browncog.bitnet