[Re: piracy and oss]

[Marcel Kunath]

> 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?

True but only for a two person society. If you have ten customers they have all
different pricing ideas and the price most profitable to the bartender may be
$4 and actually forego your business by not selling to you. That is why I don't
play games because I see no value in them but the creators do. That is why so
many people don't buy their software because the price on some is over what
value they can gain from it. They view piracy as simpler than using free
software which is or should actually be targetted at exactly those people who
don't fall within the demand market of the proprietory producers.

I am sure people read about pcforkids.org which got caught for donating PCs for
people less fortunate and needy of a technological exposure. I just don't see
why they need to have access to DOS and Win 3.1/95 licenses if the cheaper
product of free software/Linux is available to them. I doubt a bartender is
willing to cut prices on his beer just because 5% of the people coming into his
bar cannot afford to pay the price of his most profitable business model.

I am not sure if I am right on all of this but I just think about this sort of
stuff... Why spend time writing free software if the people who according to
the laws of economics should be using the free software go ahead and pirate
proprietory goods instead?

 mk