Re: Software Economics was RE: Ada 95 for an ARM-based bare board?

[Darren New <dnew@san.rr.com>]

Preben Randhol wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 23 Aug 2002 07:52:52 -0700, Robert C. Leif wrote:
> > From: Bob Leif
> > To: Tom Moran et al.
> > The GNU approach is essentially monopolistic. The ultimate in unfair
> 
> In what way?

In the same way that people complain about giving away IE for free.

> This is a very strange statement as Microsoft has released IE and other
> programs free of cost. Of course you must buy their dratted OS to use
> them.

Well, then, that's the cost, isn't it? :-) They give away their OS for free,
too. You just have to buy their OS to use it.
 
> The GNU model is different. It says that the source code should be free
> (as in speech) for everyone. 

Not "as speech". Free like free beer.
http://denbeste.nu/essays/freebeer.shtml

> What will decrease it? 

OK, put it this way. The latest video game is released. Everyone gets to
copy it for free. Indeed, before it is announced, everyone knows they'll be
able to get free copies. How many copies actually sell? How do you pay the
people who did the voice work? How do you pay for the plane tickets to fly
around taking pictures of textures to be used? How do you pay for the food
you eat while you're spending 2 years working on the game? How do you pay
the artists who draw the logos for the product? How do you pay for the
actors that do the motion-capture?

Now, if you have to pay for each one you use, then the company can
guesstimate that they'll sell 100,000 copies, and charge $20/copy, and
thereby collect $2million before people find a way to pirate it. They can
spend some of this on employees, some on plane tickets, some on computers,
electricity, etc.

-- 
Darren New 
San Diego, CA, USA (PST). Cryptokeys on demand.
   ** http://images.fbrtech.com/dnew/ **

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