On Tue, 14 Apr 1998 21:40:14 +0200, "Johannes Hubert"
<jhu### [at] algonetse> wrote:

>Julian wrote in message <3533A723.3AAC4386@tig.com.au>...
>
>>"A better question is how do software companies get away with charging
>>so much? Software is not like making a car. Once you've made one copy of
>>your software, the production costs to make a million more are tiny...
>[snip]
>
>Hi!
>
>I don't want to go into the discussion about Linux / Windows good or not,
>because I don't know nothing about Linux and I never use Windows 95, only
>NT.
>
>But to respond to the lines above:
>That's a quote that *reaallly* sounds good, but when thought about (not even
>very hard) it quickly becomes obvious, that it is quite some way off the
>reality!

This depends on what you call cheap. What Julian probably ment, he
shall correct me, if I am wrong: The difference of developer's
investment for a good software that sells in the hundreds to one that
sells in the thousands is enormous, let alone tenthousands.
Provided, the software is so good, that one 'needs to have it',
working in that specific field, the software is made for.
Except the cases of 'lets do another patch for customer xy', this is a
goal, probably every developer goes for. This field really is not
covered in a few sentences, but in short, the 100 000th music record
of a hit is really cheap in production, its the plastic and a little
this and that and the GEMA. And thats really like Bill Gates is
selling his software, oh, and other big software firms.  I don't see
any upgrades, speaking of heart's blood, just advertisement. So, for
me, the question of linux or MS is more a question of style and where
we want to go with this somehow biggest mass adventure of the
technical age so far.
And what I am missing in this already being a mass movement is the
spirit of science, of research and discovery. That could have been a
chance of Bill Gates, that for instance Steve Jobbs and his crew then
took to a larger degree. If he ever would have wanted that. Bill Gates
wants to control people. That's his real goal. And the contributors to
linux want to make happen the most functional software by the
thrilling phenomen of an ant's nest, and it proofs. The effect, that
it's free or cheap is a side effect in my opinion: There was no
archimedes, euclid, einstein, galilei, marconi, no, even no bell, no
watt, faraday, diesel, fleming, that sat down: now, how can I make
money! The spirit of discovery, perception and thinking puts the idea
of money as something- worlds apart. Linux is an open system, for
anyone to see, it's a machine, one can understand and contribute, if
he/she  wants to and has the courage to learn. But, of course, people
must live, and I do not see any reason, why the people of GIMP  or
POVray should not ask for the money to be able to. The approach
towards money is a different one. If a big company is asking 500 $ for
a buggy product, that's on version 5, something is wrong.

>Anybody who thinks that softwaredevelopment is cheap or can be cheap, lives
>with the head in the clouds.
>TANSTAAFL!
>
>O.k., if somebody really get's his/her heartblood into a project, it can be
>produced quite cheaply, but this someone then also needs some other income,
>or the project will soon die!
>Software is in so huge demand that developers can happily ask for nice
>salaries (though nowhere near exorbitant for the huge bulk of them), or
>otherwise just go to some other firm (and I am happy with that, because I am
>one myself :-).
>And these salaries just have to be payed! Now think about the thousands of
>man-hours that go into the big commerical software - or even Linux - and sum
>that upp...

OK. How many hours you estimate were spend on Visual C++? And how much
you think, the average salary per man-hour development, distribution
and administration should be? And how much of it they have sold so
far? One also has to take into account the running costs per units
selling of course. I think, they are earning to much. The color picker
palette and that it only has 16 colors to store, which are not saved
by default are a joke of the sleeping chief administrators for the
development of a future oriented programming language.
Now, what does that mean for the user? He is made the dumpy one.
Anytime he/she, let's say in Moray wants to modify the color bands
throughout different layers in a texture, he's/she's pretty fast out
of palette entries for a direct comparison. This is just DOS smelly,
from the good old days, when computers were typewriters. So why are
there still so many artists on Mac? Just sleeping. They buy it anyway.
Why do they buy it anyway? Because it's new to them and they do not
know what else could be. And then MS: Oh, artists, is there money in?
Ah no, really, they live in offices, so office is what they get.

>
>This is even something Linus Thorwald himself recognized in a way: I read a
>quote where he stated to not like shareware, because a) it is usually
>"guiltware" (ok, I should pay, but I don't, so I feel guilty)

so make it unfunctionable after a trial period, of , why not 60 days.
If it is really good, people will buy it.

>and b) really
>most shareware comes nowhere near the commercial products, 

Not true for Moray.

>but you still
>have to pay for it, if it is so bad then it should at least be free and c)
>you don't get the sourcecode.
>
>I see a) as something everybody has to take up with himself and c) as
>something most people are not really bothered about (hey, I myself - as a
>developer - never feel the urge to look into the sources of the software I
>use, I hate looking into other people's sourcecode!)
>And b), if read from another point of view, actually means: Shareware is
>mostly crap (or at least far behind commercial products), because it
>generates very little money, and developers therefor just can't afford to
>give it as much time as it would need to make it a good product (that's why
>we have to wait some time for new Moray versions: Lutz and Markus have to
>work on "real" income-generating products inbetween their Moray-"Hobby" -
>this is not to say that Moray is crap! Far from that!!!).
>
>The point, even indirectly stated by the father of Linux, is: No money, no
>good software.
>
>Yes, there are the *really* good projects (like Linux and POV-Ray) that are
>free. But they only exist because of a dedicated group of hundereds
>(thousands?) of programmers that put in a little time now and then.
>Now imagine, that all software would be developed that way: That would
>essentially mean, that all software developers of the world put in a little
>time now and then to produce all the software needed. And it is easy to see
>that this is not possible, because all the developers in the world already
>put in nearly 100% of their time and it still isn't enough!!! That's why you
>read numbers like 10% missing IT personell in the U.S., which already
>threatens the State's economy!
>And there you are again: They all would have to work fulltime, thus having
>no other way to generate income, so they have to be paid, so the customers
>have to pay for the software (or who else? the state, who would then finance
>that with taxes?) -> Software (the big bulk of it) can't be free, and, with
>the argument of Linus Thorwald, we should be happy for it, because otherwise
>the quality would be much lower.

Of course. Anybody needs a roof, a table, 3 times a day something to
put on it, the watering system needs to be made by people, that need a
roof, a table..

>
>-- Johannes.
>
>
>

steff

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