Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!rutgers!columbia!cs!cs.columbia.edu!dupuy From: dupuy@cs.columbia.edu (Alexander Dupuy) Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss Subject: Re: Copyleftability Message-ID: Date: 21 Dec 89 18:12:27 GMT References: <8300@stiatl.UUCP> Sender: news@cs.columbia.edu Reply-To: dupuy@cs.columbia.edu Distribution: gnu Organization: Columbia University Computer Science Department Lines: 26 In-reply-to: meo@stiatl.UUCP's message of 20 Dec 89 20:20:38 GMT In article <8300@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes: 1) If I release good, quality software, that meets a real need, that doesn't need lots of support (I *said* quality*), with good documentation, then why on earth would people buy it if they could get it free? 2) A lot of other people, such as 103% of all the MIS-heads in the world, are going to lump it in with all that "public domain bulletin board stuff"- useless garbage and probably full of viruses, or at least nasty bugs (their perceptions, not mine). They would summarily have someone on their staff shot who even LET the stuff in the door. It seems to me that there's a bit of a contradiction lurking here - first Miles says "why buy it if you can get it for free?" nad then says that there are lots of people ("MIS-heads") who won't use anything they don't have to pay for. The obvious resolution for this is to advertise the program at the going rates (with different prices for different CPUs, of course) in the MIS magazines, and let people copy it if they care to. I think you'd be suprised how many people will pay for it just so that the MIS-heads are happy. @alex -- -- inet: dupuy@cs.columbia.edu uucp: ...!rutgers!cs.columbia.edu!dupuy