From: Stefan Blandow [mailto:ste### [at] stuttgartnetsurfde]
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 1998 3:28 PM
To: moray.win
Subject: Re: MORAY for Linux.


On Wed, 22 Apr 1998 12:01:55 +0200, in moray.win Johannes Hubert
wrote:

>Stefan Blandow wrote in message <353### [at] 20310318550>...
>
>>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.

This  remark should have stated that I cannot approve this approach.
Sorry, for me it's a bit of this and that.

>
>This is a common misconception I think - and I am not talking about
>Microsoft here but about how software is produced in general:
>
>You really can't compare software to music, only because it is
delivered on
>the same media, a CD.

I wanted to say: If they are selling it like music, no real fine
bughunting, more often throwing in new features without streamlining
the old ones, hit after hit, than it is much too expensive. There was
no w95b, there was a cheat. The new one is called w98. It is the
attitude. They are not saying, look, we fixed every possible bug you
mentioned twice, as it was annoying at least for 200 000 people, we
care what you say, you are the boss, and what else did you want?
They say: Hei! You know what you want next year? I tell you, bla blah.
No, I have to stop now. Sorry. I have w95b, and a file entry in an
open folder is still not updated at the screen, if it was processed
and saved by an app. This is ridiculous. If with all the money, they
do not have the idea to hire why not 500 users that sit down 4 weeks
and try to smoke up any bit of code they get to use AND make that a
marketing hit, they don't want to be helped..


>
>For music: Once a CD is finished, you only have to do the marketing and
sell
>it. You can move on to produce the next CD which is then sold
*parallel* to
>your first one, ond so on, until at the end you got lot's of CDs out,
all
>selling parallel to each other, all made by the same
"development-team": The
>artist(s) and technical staff.
>
>For software, that is not possible! The moment a software is on the
market,
>you already begin developing the next version (or probably even
earlier), at
>least if you want to stay in business, because software gets old
*really*
>fast. But in contrast to music, this new version will *replace* the old
>version: Once the new one is out, nobody wants to buy the old one
anymore!

That's the question! If a piece of software was made for a specific
purpose and does it 100%, why the heck should I buy something else?
Now, for the new features, there is a magic word: Plug-ins.
Good example: a modeler. Man and woman have two feet, two arms, two
eyes, so forth. A modeler, that has a viewport handling like a dream,
is never old. Just not, like the two hands and eyes. It is like a good
old car, where everything fits, with a spirit that did it, awareness.
An old Porsche is fun to drive. Or an old citroen. Or an AC Cobra.
You could say, ah ha, but people had enough struggle to get used to
it. More or less. If I have to bump at the gauge, to see how much
there is in the file, in the second version, that's humiliating.
There are things here, that are pretty perfect for it's purpose, and
it's not a bad habit, to go for it with v1. If I have made a car with
known bugs, I am not advertising the new radio that comes with v2,
that's desperate.

>
>So what you essentially get is *one* developer-team working on *one*
>product. If you want to do a second product, you need a second team.
This is
>like Madonna taking a CD off the market the moment the next one comes
out,
>or cloning herself (god forbid!) to work on the next CD.
>
>Actually, software is never finished (like a music CD): If you want to
stay
>in business, you have to keep working on your software. The versions
that
>are sold could be seen as "intermediate-releases" on the endless way to
the
>"never-finished" product.
>So the thinking of "once the software is finished it is cheap to put it
on
>1.000, 100.000 or even 1.000.000 CDs" just doesn't work, because
software is
>never finished!
>
>>>and b) really
>>>most shareware comes nowhere near the commercial products,
>>
>>Not true for Moray.
>
>Of course not :-) Never said that! See my quote:
>
>
>>>this is not to say that Moray is crap! Far from that!!!)

Sorry, I know, you could never say that. One must not forget, there is
a considerable part of shareware on the market, where people try to
code, and do not have the viewpoint of selling a commercial product.
That's a pity for the original shareware idea like promoted. I'd like
the therm careware much better. The coders care a bit more, yes more,
and the users. One must also not forget, the distributional concept of
shareware is much cheaper. So it must not at all be this, please,
please, send me the money. Just make it disfunctional. If it is good
and people had enough time to try and get addicted, they will buy,
eventually. If not, if they forget it, it was not good enoug, or not
really wanted. That easy.
I wonder, how many Max, Alias, Pro/E or even Softimage users use
Moray. I bet, quite a few.

>
>
>Johannes.
>
>
>

steff

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