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!
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...

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

-- Johannes.

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