Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!stl!crosfield!magna
From: magna@crosfield.co.uk (john hartridge)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Legal action against STrabble game.
Message-ID: <10107@suns4.crosfield.co.uk>
Date: 29 May 91 11:52:00 GMT
References: <3080@odin.cs.hw.ac.uk> <1624@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> <3089@odin.cs.hw.ac.uk>
Reply-To: magna@crosfield.co.uk (john hartridge)
Followup-To: comp.sys.atari.st
Organization: Crosfield Electronics, Hemel Hempstead, United Kingdom.
Lines: 46

In article <3089@odin.cs.hw.ac.uk> neil@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Forsyth) writes:
>In article <1624@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> warwick@cs.uq.oz.au writes:
>
>>> ... if PD stuff competed really
>>>strongly with commercial products then companies would go out of business.
>>
>>So what?  I think if someone is willing to give you something BETTER for
>>FREE, then they shouldn't be punished.  The problem is too many people like
>
>It could hurt some companies every bit as much as piracy, which is the illegal
>version of free software. Say a company comes out with a new and very
>innovative game for the ST in the UK. Some other group produce a clone,
>a BETTER clone and start distributing it via the net. Soon the world will have
>the PD version before some have even heard of the commercial one. When the
>commercial version turns up reviewers would be saying "Not as good as the PD
>version" and so no sale. Does that sound extreme? Maybe, but that is what
>worries companies and that is what they are trying to prevent.
>

Surely any company that tries to produce and sell software that is not as 
good as something an individual working on at home can produce and give
away does not deserve to remain in business.  A software company does not
deserve to do well (ie make a lot of money) out of what must be a very
inferior product.

Although I have not personally seen the STrabble game in question, it
does not sound like a particularly difficult game to code (more difficult
getting the dictionary together I would have thought), and yet it is being
sold for the same price as some of the more complex games (anything involving
a lot of high speed graphics, say).

I therefore see the PD world as not only providing the "little" utilities
that are not worth writing yourself, and not worth paying money for, but
also for keeping the "Big" software houses "on their toes" and ensure
that their latest "masterpiece" is actually worth the money that they are 
asking for it.

(What a rant !!!! Sorry about that)



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*  John Hartridge  Crosfield Electronics Ltd  Hemel Hempstead UK            *
*  Ext 3402        Tel:- (0442) 230000        Fax:- (0442) 232301           *
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