Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!spool.mu.edu!uunet!fernwood!uupsi!sugar!peterc From: peterc@Sugar.NeoSoft.com (Peter Creath) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps Subject: Re: All Commercial Software Developers or Companies (pls read) Summary: testing software prior to buying it. Message-ID: <1991Jun24.024712.25346@Sugar.NeoSoft.com> Date: 24 Jun 91 02:47:12 GMT Article-I.D.: Sugar.1991Jun24.024712.25346 References: <25662@unix.SRI.COM> <1991Jun23.011635.19552@gn.ecn.purdue.edu> Organization: Sugar Land Unix -- Houston, TX Lines: 22 Well, I wouldn't have any problem with your argument EXCEPT: Take a look at shareware. You've got workable demos that you can test until you decide to keep it. Then you're supposed to buy it. This system eliminates the SHIT that large corporations are allowed to get away with. (pardon my emphatic adjective) Take a look at, say, a database on the IBM. Some resourceful guy decides to recompile it on the Macintosh and sell it for $500 (the IBM version being $400, but they need the extra $$$ to compensate for the "risk" they took in developing the product for such a limited market). This piece of software has NO mac interface. It's just text, just like the ol' IBM version. Now tell me it's not shafting the customer to do that... Well, to avoid getting royally shafted by large corps (and very few small corps), people will test software before buying it. If the company offered demos, it'd eliminate the legitimate excuse for pirating. If everyone who pirated ended up buying the program they used most, we wouldn't have a problem. Both sides need to give & take. (But Big Business has got the cash to hold its interests) --