Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!pacbell.com!decwrl!adobe!heaven!heaven.woodside.ca.us From: glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: Adobe Type Manager to NeXT Message-ID: <482@heaven.woodside.ca.us> Date: 21 Apr 91 20:21:54 GMT References: Sender: glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us Lines: 80 Anthony Berno writes > glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid) writes: > > > I bought a set of five tires for my Jeep Cherokee the other day. I was > > really incensed when the tire dealer didn't give me a free set of tires > > for my Chevy; after all, I had already *paid* for the *very same product* > > for my Jeep. All they did was make the same tire in a slightly different > > size, and they want me to pay full price for it. Sheesh :-) > > > As for the guy with the fonts, why shouldn't he use them on his NeXT if he > can convert them? The conversion process is trivial, and he probably isn't > going to be using them on BOTH computers! If he doesn't use them on both computers, then it's legal, as far as I know. But if you do use them on both computers, it's not. > As a final note - I don't agree with piracy, but there are degrees of > piracy, some worse than others. An entire accounting firm, making millions > of dollars a year, using copies of some accounting program written by some > small, struggling software company and having pirated it, sure, that is > unconsciable. But what about the starving student, who has a choice between > Microsoft Word and his tuition, while Bill Gates frets about importing his > $600,000 Porsche into the country? I would frankly advise him to copy it. > Likewise, I will confess that I have pirated software in my day, for the > sake of curiosity, to see what a product is like. If I don't use it, and > wouldn't buy it anyway, nobody knows and nobody is worse off. However, if I > do use it and find it important to me, I'll buy it for upgrades, manuals, > support, and in order to do my fair share supporting the company by paying > them what is rightly theirs. That's like saying that the people in the ghetto should rightfully be able to steal from Bill Gates because after all, he has so much money that he ought to share it with the poor starving people. And I'm not trying to be sensationalist; it really is equivalent, to argue that law should be bent depending on how "deserving" people are. > There are no cut and dry solutions - the software industry is in a very > strange state right now, and can't really be compared to the publishing > industry. (Actually, the only comparason I can make is in the publication of > orchestral scores, where the royalties can be so exorbitant that they are > actually curtailing the production of modern music where royalties must > still be paid to the composer.) Time will sort things out - I can only hope > that the resolution is *not* elaborate 1-CPU copy protection schemes! One thing that people forget is what might happen if there were no software piracy. That is, it was physically impossible, in the same sense that you cannot make a copy of your Jeep tires for your Chevy when no one is looking. For one thing, a font might cost $10 instead of $185. Really. I've heard estimates that only 2-3 percent of the fonts "out there" are actually paid for. Of course that drives the price up. Wouldn't you all love to be able to buy fonts for $10 a piece? Well you can't, and perhaps a large reason for that is the number of them that are copied without being paid for. There is a cut-and-dried solution. Software should be paid for item by item, the same way auto parts are paid for, or the same way CD's are paid for. And I buy a lot of software, so it's not just from the point of view of a software publisher that I speak. The prices would come down and the availability of truly excellent software would go up. A few years ago every bit of software in the Mac environment was copy-protected. Severe public outcry caused copy-protection to be removed from essentially all software. And you know what? The prices have gone up. You now pay $595, $695, $995 for major desktop publishing packages. In other words, it's not all about "political correctness". There is a very direct and serious economic impact from the rampant theft of software. Many good products don't hit the market because the market will not pay for them. The market wants everything, and they want to pay nothing for it. This forces software houses to charge high prices, and it makes it very difficult for small companies to survive. We should probably move this from comp.sys.next, or else just quit talking about it :-) -- Glenn Reid RightBrain Software glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us NeXT/PostScript developers ..{adobe,next}!heaven!glenn 415-851-1785 (fax 851-1470)