From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_40,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,577c9f9c0cdd76d X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: tmoran@bix.com Subject: Re: Confusing language, was Re: Help help.. please.i am totaly new in ada programing Date: 1999/11/06 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 545040337 References: <38233108.F3540F0@ebox.tninet.se> X-Complaints-To: abuse@pacbell.net X-Trace: typhoon-sf.snfc21.pbi.net 941849933 206.170.2.136 (Fri, 05 Nov 1999 16:58:53 PST) Organization: SBC Internet Services NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 05 Nov 1999 16:58:53 PST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1999-11-06T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: >Proprietary sw is also a great way of riping of customers if >the copyright holders so desire. >A small example: >Here in Sweden we have a small one-man company. >He has been using for 10 years a proprietary economy system. >Every year he pays a yearly amount of money (about 1000 dollars) >This year (1999) he badly needed a y2k safe version so he contacted >the company and was told that it would cost him 8000 dollars. > >This is a rip-off and it was doable because the software was >proprietary ie non-free. Since he's paid 10,000 dollars so far, I presume this is not a trivial system. If it were GPLed and he had the source code, how much would it cost him to find and fix any y2k problems before January? More or less than 8000 dollars? If the scale of the problem is such that it would cost him more than 8000 dollars even given source code, what would prevent a vendor of a GPLed version from doing exactly the same thing, ie, charging 8000 and not caring whether he's happy or not? Are there competitors with cheaper systems? If it were GPLed, it would be easier to start up a competitor, but that ease of entry would also make it less attractive. Would there likely be more or fewer competitors if it were GPLed?