Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!obsolete.UUCP!nazgul
From: nazgul@obsolete.UUCP (Kee Hinckley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: Piracy
Message-ID: <8905200022.AA22279@obsolete.UUCP>
Date: 20 May 89 00:22:35 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 82


    >When was the last time you went to a car dealer and complained
    >because they wouldn't give you this years version of your car for
    >30% of the price you paid for the old one?
    
       We're dealing with two totally different forms of 'product' here. Software
    can be easily duplicated, cars cannot. What the software houses need to ask
    themselves is "What can we offer the buyer that the pirate does not get?"
    "What can we sell him for a REASONABLE price that will make him buy (not copy)?"
    Pirating is to the software publisher what going to the dealer down the road
    is for cars.  Your analogy is inappropriate.

Wait a minute.  Two things here.  First of all I was not attempting
to address the issue of stealing software.  I was addressing the
complaint that charging 20% for an upgrade was too much money.  Those
are two independent issues (or at least they can be).  Secondly, the
"stealing == different-dealer" analogy doesn't fly.  I go to different
dealers for software all the time in order to save money.  Sometimes
I buy a different piece of software, sometimes I just find a different
distributor.  I can save as much as 50% doing that, which is certainly
a lot better than I'll ever do with a car dealer.

What I'm not going to do is get into an argument about stealing
software.  I will merely say that just because you may believe that
the GNU Project is right and all software is free, doesn't mean you
aren't guilty of stealing when you "pirate" software.  If you want
to do it and live with it - fine, but don't try and justify it
legally.
    
    >the amount of work that went into a particular product.  However
    >believe me, the amount of work that goes into an upgraded product
    >is usually equal to or greater than the amount in the original.
    >With the original you could do things anyway you wanted, with the
    >upgrade you have to maintain compatibility (even when you did it
    >wrong the first time), plus fix all the bugs that were found, but
    >*without* creating any new ones.  Starting over from scratch would
    >often be much simpler.
    
        I take it you're not a programmer.  If they designed it properly in the

I beg your pardon.  I've been programming for a living for almost 10
years now.

    first place, you wouldn't have to start from scratch, wouldn't have many bugs,

In the real world you rarely have time to spend as much time as you
should in up-front design.  Even if you do you often find you missed
things, or you simply discover that your competitor can now do something
that you can't, and it turns out to be non-trivial to add that to your
model.

    wouldn't have to worry about upward compatibility (ever hear of Abstract Data
    Types?).  If it WASN'T designed well, then people are paying for a product

Abstract Data Types are not much help.  They provide very little when
you have to worry about dynamic binding, global libraries, and release
to release upward compatibility.  Procedural abstraction and object-oriented
models are much more useful.

    just as useless as a lemon car (to stick with the ever-popular "let's
    compare piracy to totally inappropriate situations").

Over time any design is going to be insufficient to unforseen needs.
Might I point out the case of the BinaryII format and forked files as
a classic example.
    
        I think a major distinction has to be made simply because megabytes
    of computer information can be duplicated cheaply and quickly.  Attitudes
    about intellectual "property" need adjusting. Only then can this industry
    truly mature.

I don't disagree here.  For system software I tend towards the GNU Project
philosophy, for specialized software I don't.  However!  And this is a big
"however".  I do *not* believe that the correct way to deal with the 
problem is by breaking the law and stealing software.  If you think that
software should be free, then support the people who are giving it away
rather than hurt those who are trying to sell it.  (Did I say I wasn't going
to get dragged into this argument?)  Right now for every Pirate freedom-
fighter there are 10 Pirate terrorists pretending to be freedom fighters.

						-kee
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