Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!jb3o+ From: jb3o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jon Allen Boone) Newsgroups: gnu.misc.discuss Subject: Re: Copyleftability Message-ID: Date: 23 Dec 89 10:28:41 GMT References: <8300@stiatl.UUCP> Organization: Class of '92, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 78 In-Reply-To: <8300@stiatl.UUCP> > 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? This seems highly unlikely. Not to cast dispersions on your programming abilities, but even most *commercial* software needs support - and very *few* have good documentation. So it is unlikely that you will not be able to make some money at consultation. Second, there is nothing that *forces* people to pay you now. It only takes on person to buy the software so that it can be pirated - most people i talk to in day-to-day conversation do not pirate software because they feel that the programmers deserve compensation. > 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. That is a problem indeed. The solution is not to stop contributing to the public domain, but to change the type and quality of software available in the public domain, thereby giving PD a better reputation. > This does NOT appear to give me a good chance at making any decent living > (ie, lower middle class income or above) off the software. If your statements were correct, then yes. However, i feel that your statements do not reflect the consensual hallucenation we call "reality" - ie. you're wrong, at least as far as my experience goes. > Now, people are complaining about Peter's not addressing certain arguments. > Well, these same people HAVE NOT yet addressed, to the best of my knowledge, > some of mine. Do you people realize what goes on in a software firm? There's > not just the cost of the staff (including funding future projects, not just > paying off old debts), but the cost of the building, legal stuff, accounting > stuff, marketing, distribution, phones, benefits (vacation, insurance, etc), > and so on, etc, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. I am aware of what it takes to run a company. My dad has done that same thing (trucking, not software) for the last 15+ years. However, it does not take a company to write good software. So, while a company may well need to charge ridiculous prices to support its expenditures and what it wants to do in the future, it seems that perhaps they should offer fewer benefits to their employees and use cheaper methods of doing what they are doing now....(using pd software, perhaps?)...and then they wouldn't have to charge so much. After all, like Frank Zappa, you guys are just in it for the money, right? > So be sure when you blithely talk of "recovering the cost of the > software development" that you realize not all of us want to hack > the night away for a year, just to give the world a birthday present. So don't. The problem here is that all the opinions are valid, assuming you assuming the same things that i do, or jay does, or whomever is making the case of the moment. However, as long as the answer to ridiculous prices for software is "it's life - deal with it", then the only reasonable answer i can give to critics of the GPL is "that's life - deal with it" or "put up or shut up!" or something equally as flippant (check my .sig :-) I haven't worked for a software development company yet this century. Howver, i know that some companies such as Sierra On-Line used to treat their programmers to extragavent parties and incredible benefits that were "barely coverd by the cost of their software". Do i feel sympathetic when people pirate their software? Doubtful. Maybe if they had spent a little more of their personal funds and a lot less of their company funds for these things, then i would sympathise more. > -Miles iain the flippant | You'll PAY To Know What You REALLY Think | jb3o@andrew.cmu.edu(INTERNET) | Your MIND Left Intentionally Blank | R746JB3O@cmccvb(BITNET) | SCIENCE DOES NOT REMOVE THE TERROR OF THE GODS| disclaimer: anything I say may be wrong - I don't represent anyone but me