Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!think!ames!oliveb!olivej!rap
From: rap@olivej.olivetti.com (Robert A. Pease)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: ZOO availability (was: A Short History of Arching on Micros)
Message-ID: <30666@oliveb.olivetti.com>
Date: 14 Oct 88 02:01:55 GMT
References: <13593@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <4330109@hpindda.HP.COM> <6910@dasys1.UUCP> <5107@teddy.UUCP> <4314@bsu-cs.UUCP>
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Reply-To: rap@olivej.UUCP (Robert A. Pease)
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In article <4314@bsu-cs.UUCP> dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi) writes:
>
>It's not a question of gripes.  It's a question of keeping free
>software free, or as near free as will let people distribute it without
>losing money.
>-- 
>Rahul Dhesi         UUCP:  <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!dhesi

Rahul,
    So far, I have just silently read  the  articles  go  by
saying,  "Please  remove  the download price restriction!" I
understood what you were trying to get at, so I  figured  no
big deal.

    Now someone has come up with the first argument  that  I
can agree with.  If any copyright notice on a version of zoo
modifies the copyright notice  on  earlier  versions,  there
WILL be confusion.

    I have seen, throughout my work history, the people  who
make  decisions  for  the company's product make some of the
stupidest choices I can imagine.  While I can see  that  the
company's  customers won't recieve it [the choice] well, the
people making these decisions can't seem to understand this.

    Confusion,    restrictive    capabilities    and    poor
documentation  seem to be the biggest repeated mistakes made
by  companies  who  are  supposed  to  be  "SERVICING  THEIR
CUSTOMERS".

    As far as the downloading-price  policy  that  you  have
chosen,  as  I said, I understand what you are trying to get
at.  I also see you resisting the people who are  trying  to
get  you  to  change  this policy.  My suggestion to you is,
"Let them charge what the market will bear."

    Concider  what  this  means  before  reacting   to   the
statement.  If  Compuserve  (for  lack  of a better example)
charges $100/hr to download the latest and greatest  zoo,  I
can  choose to pay the price or not.  If I know that "FooBar
BBS" only  charges  me  $10/hr  to  download  zoo,  then  I,
obviously,  would  choose  that  source  instead.   But  the
important consideration is that I get to choose.

    If I need zoo and can't (or don't know how  to)  get  it
anywhere  else  than from Compuserve, that option is open to
me.  Again, I get to choose.

    I think you can see that it is important for  me  to  be
able to choose for myself.

    So, the balls in your court.


					Robert A. Pease
{hplabs|fortune|idi|ihnp4|tolerant|allegra|glacier|olhqma}!oliveb!olivej!rap