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From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Software (and other kinds of) copying
Message-ID: <1878@optilink.UUCP>
Date: 25 Jan 88 16:29:50 GMT
References: <8055@g.ms.uky.edu> <174@piring.cwi.nl> <1861@optilink.UUCP> <3471@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA
Lines: 45

> In article <1861@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
> >
> >Wrong.  The stuff that gets pirated include word processors, spreadsheets,
> >data base managers -- that's why there's a major industry producing books
> >about the more popular software products that replicate the content of the
> >manuals -- frequently with no other additions.
> 
> - that proves the original point: if the software is out there people can
> make money on selling documentation.  And who will pay the programmers'
> rent?  The company that plans to sell the books!  Or perhaps the company

Who doesn't have to pay the author of the program at all.  You still haven't
come up with a method that incentivizes writing software.

> that plans to sell the hardware!  Apple corp. is giving Hypercard away
> (almost) even though it must have taken a staggering amount of work to
> create.  Why?  To enhance the Mac's usefulness image ---> more HW sales.
> Other options: a tax on blank disks could provide funds for public SW
> writing efforts (a la Berkeley, MIT).

And who will get the money from that tax on blank disks?  Everyone writing
software?  No.  Software developers who are big enough for the government
to consider them "software developers".  People with the right credentials:
previous products, degrees in computer science.

Sounds like a great way to stifle software startups.

> The overnight reductions of SW prices by 50% or even 75%, a common
> occurence in the industry when competition hits, proves that some
> high-priced SW _is_ overpriced and over-enriching the publishers.  Most of
> the retail price of SW goes to the retailer, distributer, advertisers,
> etc.---NOT the authors.  Since computers are so good at copying, leaving
> the distribution to the users would save most of the resources and therefore
> would make us all (_on_the_average_) better off.
> 
> - Moshe Braner

If someone is willing to pay exorbitant amounts of money for software, it's
not overpriced -- just expensive.  There is nothing wrong with profit --
it provides incentive not only for a company like Lotus to build 1-2-3, but
for someone like Borland to build Quattro.  If software development gave a
4% profit, who would write it?  You'd put the money in the bank and get a
guaranteed 5.25% return.

Clayton E. Cramer