[Re: piracy and oss]

[Matt Graham]

Edward Glowacki <glowack2@msu.edu> wrote:
> I don't think the problem with commercial software is paying full
> price for it, it's paying full price for it before you really know
> if the product is any good.

Isn't this why you can download limited demos?  Y'know, the first level of
Quake3, a virtual desktop program for WinXX that expires in 30 days and
constantly nags you to register, etcetera.

> I've bought many games over the years, and a lot of them turned
> out to be losers that I'd play once or twice (that's playing
> sessions, not completions of the game).

AOL.  At least with Nintendo/PSX games, you can go down to the local video hut
and rent the latest game before deciding to buy it.

> Then there's Windows Commander, a shareware file manager (for MS
> Windows) that I used for years and finally paid $30 or whatever it
> was to register my copy.  This is an example where I'm getting a
> real bargain for my money.  I feel that Windows Commander is worth
> far more than most of the games I've purchased. [snip]

> This hits upon one of the same flaws that
> commercial software sales has: the price you pay does not usually
> reflect the consumer's perceived value of the product.  Shareware
> also fails in larger scales because of a company's need to recouperate
> costs ASAP, meaning they can't wait for the customer to become
> attached to the product and maybe decide to send in money someday.
> Business just doesn't work like that.

Businesses usually lose money for a while before making money, if they ever
make money at all.  I don't think it's the time needed so much as the "maybe"
factor that scares businesses away from shareware.  "They will pay us X
dollars in Y months as per contract Z" is easy to deal with; "They might pay
us X dollars, possibly tomorrow, possibly in 6 months, there's no binding
contract" is relatively impossible.
 
> It's an interesting paradox, the way that works best for the consumer
> (try before you buy) works worst for the seller, and vice-versa.

Yeah, that's how it usually works.  What works best for me (free beer) works
out worst for the bartender.  What works out best for the bartender ($50 for
each beer) works out worst for me.  Eventually, a compromise is reached. 
($3/beer)  Econ 101, eh?

> Then of course there's free software.  Unfortunately here there's
> no way to financially encourage software authors to continue working
> on their products or start new ones.  Say you think Apache is worth
> $100 to your business.  Who do you send the money to?  Which authors
> get paid and how much?  Basically there's no good business model
> for working on "free" software full-time, except in some cases
> where companies fund people to work on the project in general so
> they can have expertise in-house.

I have, in the past, sent checks to the principle authors of some free
software projects.  The authors are usually easy to find via e-mail.  Of
course, this doesn't work in the general case.  The KDE project has a place
where you can contribute cash, but I don't know whether they use this for
buying bandwidth, buying servers, paying programmers, paying for pizza
delivery, or developing Giant Nuclear Death Frisbees.

> It's a crazy world...

"Only the insane have the strength to prosper."
"Only those who prosper get to decide what is 'sane'."
 --Warhammer40K "Rogue Trader" manual

> [1] If only Midnight Commander, or Konqueror (the file manager
> part), or any any other Unix file manager (commander type or
> otherwise) were as good as Windows Commander...

So what's so nifty about it?  All right, I'm not the best person to judge file
managers; Konqueror fits my needs for the most part and if I'm working with
lots of files, a bash prompt works even better.

-- 
Matt G / Dances With Crows
There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
"I backed up my brain to tape, but tar says the tape contains no data...."