Anthony Bouttell wrote in message <353b1729.37592915@news.povray.org>...
>Can we please dipense with the histrionics people. If you want to
>froth at the mouth at the unfairness of whatever socio-poloitical
>system you are part of go to alt.whatever.
>

Uhmm...
Where did you get THAT? Jeff simply explained simple economics. I saw no
"Frothing at the mouth" or "histrionics". Especially nothing about
socio-political systems. Not intending to flame here, but really, sometimes
it helps to understand what has been written,  instead of taking exception
to what they appeared to say.
As well, it also helps to add something to the discussion, instead of
telling people "Go elsewhere, because _I_ don't agree with what you say."

As a wise man said ( I forget who said it, actually.. ) "I may not agree
with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it."

Personally, I tend to agree with Jeff. There's no money to be made by
porting a program, that you have invested many man-hours into, to a OS where
everything is expected to be free. It's like saying "Oh, i COULD make money
off it, but I don't feel like it." Admittedly, the Blender people DID
release their in-house animation/modelling system for free, but then, they
also make their money off of OTHER products. As far as I know, SoftTronics
only makes one product, that being Moray.

Twyst================================
EFnet and NewNet #povray Channel Operator
Website: http://planet1.v-wave.com/twyst
E-Mail: twy### [at] v-wavecom
=====================================

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Hi Twyst, you recently wrote in moray.win:
>> As far as I know, SoftTronics only makes one product, that 
>> being Moray.
Well, if that were true, Moray wouldn't have gotten past the V1.0
mark<g>. We're a software house and make our living by writing custom
software for banks, insurance companies, museums and anyone else that
needs special software. Mostly quite boring stuff, so Moray is a
welcome change, but unfortunately cannot keep us alive, which is why
new versions take so damn long to do.

- Lutz
  email : lut### [at] stmuccom
  CIS   : 100023,2006
  Web   : http://www.stmuc.com/moray

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Twyst wrote:
> 
*snip*
> Personally, I tend to agree with Jeff. There's no money to be made by
> porting a program, that you have invested many man-hours into, to a OS where
> everything is expected to be free. It's like saying "Oh, i COULD make money

Ok, I just want to clear this up. Most Linux people DON'T expect everything written
for
linux to be free. The people who say that any software written for the Linux platform
should be free, are the same people who will never pay for shareware. They're the
people
who want everything to be free, even the roof over their head. You can make money off
the
Linux platform, but there is one very important thing you have to remember when you
write
commercial software for Linux: It has to very well done. A good example is
Accelx(www.xig.com). They write a commercial X server for Linux and various other
unices
and a large number of their customers are Linux users, because their X server is fast,
stable and well written.

> off it, but I don't feel like it." Admittedly, the Blender people DID
> release their in-house animation/modelling system for free, but then, they
> also make their money off of OTHER products. As far as I know, SoftTronics
> only makes one product, that being Moray.
> 

The people who released blender plan to make money off it by selling a printed manual
and
a "Pro" version...very similar to Digi-Art.

Cheers, Matthew

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On Mon, 20 Apr 1998 16:37:12 -0700, "Twyst" <sir### [at] hotmailcom>
wrote:

>
>Anthony Bouttell wrote in message <353b1729.37592915@news.povray.org>...
>>Can we please dipense with the histrionics people. If you want to
>>froth at the mouth at the unfairness of whatever socio-poloitical
>>system you are part of go to alt.whatever.
>>
>
>Uhmm...
>Where did you get THAT? Jeff simply explained simple economics. I saw no
>"Frothing at the mouth" or "histrionics". Especially nothing about
>socio-political systems. Not intending to flame here, but really, sometimes
>it helps to understand what has been written,  instead of taking exception
>to what they appeared to say.
>As well, it also helps to add something to the..........
>
>Twyst================================
>EFnet and NewNet #povray Channel Operator
>Website: http://planet1.v-wave.com/twyst
>E-Mail: twy### [at] v-wavecom
>=====================================
>
Sorry, wrong thread, meant to be a reply-reference to a one further
back :

Frothing, histrionics and socio-political:

Bill Gates is sellin' the boulevard-press of coding, man! With an
outlook of how the mass might imagine an egghead who nows! But he is
just a selfmirroring lunatic, who wants power! And if you don't watch
out, you'll find out. If you ever will. Your' talkin' freedom? Freedom
starts with education on this earth, my friend! That's the highest
responsibility, one can take here! One tragedy with nouveaux riches is
their lack in education for the responsibility to educate. 
........
Do we need such a man, who never stops?
We had one over here in germany, man, really exciting!
You may admire him for his thrust, but, oh, be careful !

Post a reply to this message

Matthew Mc Clement wrote in message <353C8B47.A9457565@global.net.uk>...

>You can make money off the
>Linux platform, but there is one very important thing you have to remember
when you write
>commercial software for Linux: It has to very well done.

Which is in my opinion just the same for Windows, if you want to sell
something, isn't it?

If Windows users buy software that is not "very well done", then I can see
two reasons for it:

1) The users don't care (bad enough) - but that is not the fault of Windows,
isn't it?

2) The users have no alternative (and I mean the application here, not the
OS) - which isn't the fault of Windows either.
For example: Inbetween doing my software-developers job here, I also have to
keep the machines of our two graphic design people running. And I am at the
point of buying a ticket to fly over the atlantic and bomb Adobe, because
their software (Photoshop, Pagemaker etc.) crashes so often or needs
bugfixes etc., it drives me crazy! Software that expensive should work more
dependently! But the designers want Photoshop and Pagemaker, because they
are the industry standard! No way to go without, so you just have to live
with the bugs!
And nobody tell me it is NT's fault, because I know better. If an
application like Photoshop crashes when you open a certain menu command,
that is almost always the fault of the application, not NT. And a bad
application crashes on Linux just as it does on NT.
I guess the lots of talk about Microsoft's "unstable" OSes come from W95 /
3.x users, where it certainly may be true. Not so for NT (in my experience).
While I can very good remember the last time an application crashed on me, I
can not remember the last time NT crashed on me. A crashed application is
easily killed. And I am using my computer (and several others) 8+ hours a
day, in development work, where buggy alpha-stage (or pre-alpha prototypes)
really lay a strain on the OS.

While reason 1 may not be as valid for Linux users (probably they really do
care how good a software is and rather buy another product instead of a
buggy one more than the average Windows user), I don't see the reason 2 not
appying to Linux users!
Or do you really think that an "In-love-with-Linux" graphic designer would
not buy Linux Photoshop (if it came out), just because it has more bugs than
it should have for the price? And rather leave the beloved Linux and go to
the Macintosh where (since it is Photoshop's homeplatform) the software may
presumably (and I am guessing here) be more bugfree? Or not use any other
"really needed killerapplication" only because it is "not very well done"?
Never! He/She would grumble and rebel (as I sometimes do with the Adobe
products), but still use the software!

Johannes.

Post a reply to this message

>Ok, I just want to clear this up. Most Linux people DON'T expect everything
written for
>linux to be free. The people who say that any software written for the
Linux platform
>should be free, are the same people who will never pay for shareware.
They're the people
>who want everything to be free, even the roof over their head. You can make
money off the
>Linux platform, but there is one very important thing you have to remember
when you write
>commercial software for Linux: It has to very well done. A good example is
>Accelx(www.xig.com). They write a commercial X server for Linux and various
other unices
>and a large number of their customers are Linux users, because their X
server is fast,
>stable and well written.


I stand corrected.
I am not a major Linux user, and everyone that I have come into contact with
continually slags on my OS of choice, Windows, because they say "Well,
everything's free for Linux...."
Sorry for the assumption.
=)

Re: Blender.. Again, same thing.. everyone who's mentioned it stresses that
it's free cuz it's on linux, or so it appears to me.... Again, not being a
Linux user, I have no incentive to go and read the website of software that
I'll never use. I took a quick look, liked what I saw, noted it was Linux
only, and that was it. =/

Twyst================================
EFnet and NewNet #povray Channel Operator
Website: http://planet1.v-wave.com/twyst
E-Mail: twy### [at] v-wavecom
=====================================

Post a reply to this message

Twyst wrote:
> I stand corrected.
> I am not a major Linux user, and everyone that I have come into contact with
> continually slags on my OS of choice, Windows, because they say "Well,
> everything's free for Linux...."
> Sorry for the assumption.
> =)

Actually I should say sorry. The rant was not meant for you. I was just letting off
some
steam...;-)

> 
> Re: Blender.. Again, same thing.. everyone who's mentioned it stresses that
> it's free cuz it's on linux, or so it appears to me.... Again, not being a
> Linux user, I have no incentive to go and read the website of software that
> I'll never use. I took a quick look, liked what I saw, noted it was Linux
> only, and that was it. =/
> 

Pitty, as Blender is pretty cool. I've only been playing around with it for a short
while
but it seems promising...

Cheers, Matthew

P.S. Just out of curiosity Twyst, what puts you off about linux? (reply by e-mail...)

Post a reply to this message

Johannes Hubert wrote:
> 
> Matthew Mc Clement wrote in message <353C8B47.A9457565@global.net.uk>...
> 
*sniped because news.povray.org decided my message had too much "included text"...*
> 
> While reason 1 may not be as valid for Linux users (probably they really do
> care how good a software is and rather buy another product instead of a
> buggy one more than the average Windows user), I don't see the reason 2 not
> appying to Linux users!
> Or do you really think that an "In-love-with-Linux" graphic designer would
> not buy Linux Photoshop (if it came out), just because it has more bugs than
> it should have for the price? And rather leave the beloved Linux and go to
> the Macintosh where (since it is Photoshop's homeplatform) the software may
> presumably (and I am guessing here) be more bugfree? Or not use any other
> "really needed killerapplication" only because it is "not very well done"?
> Never! He/She would grumble and rebel (as I sometimes do with the Adobe
> products), but still use the software!
> 

Your points are all true. I'm not trying to argue that the OS is the root of all evil.
The
real problem is a conbination of marketing and "industry" standards. As you pointed
out
people just have to have Photoshop because it is the industry standard. It does not
matter
that other graphics programs can also export to photoshop files and load them with
ease.
Photoshop was a leader, and probably pretty stable, in the beginning, and the only
reason
it has remained the leader is through marketing hype, rather than product quality.
Same
goes for Microsoft Office, Pagemaker and AutoCAD(AutoCAD is really only included
because
of its cost...). Now all this marketing makes the average win95 user go ohhhhh,
wow...I
must have that. And the big ones make more money...

Look, the point I'm trying to make is that your average computer user will buy
whatever
product that has been marketed the best, even if it is buggy. But I'm not trying to
say
that Linux will solve everyones problems and make the world a better place. If
SoftTronics
decides not to port Moray then thats their decision. Only companies that already have
the
money and already do a lot of their work on unices or like linux(good example is
IDSoftware) are likely to port their current products over to Linux. Unfortunately
their
are those that do not want to accept this and bitch and moan the developers to port
their
applications over to Linux. I don't think this is the approach to take. Either you ask
them politely if they would port their programs to Linux and if they say no and give a
good reason, drop the issue or offer the developer some kind of incentive, like lots
of
money...;-)

Anyways, am tired and must goto bed.

Cheers, Matthew

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On Tue, 21 Apr 1998 13:55:20 GMT, bou### [at] rogerswaveca (Anthony
Bouttell) wrote:

>On Mon, 20 Apr 1998 16:37:12 -0700, "Twyst" <sir### [at] hotmailcom>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>Anthony Bouttell wrote in message <353b1729.37592915@news.povray.org>...
>>>Can we please dipense with the histrionics people. If you want to
>>>froth at the mouth at the unfairness of whatever socio-poloitical
>>>system you are part of go to alt.whatever.
>>>
>>
>>Uhmm...
>>Where did you get THAT? Jeff simply explained simple economics. I saw no
>>"Frothing at the mouth" or "histrionics". Especially nothing about
>>socio-political systems. Not intending to flame here, but really, sometimes
>>it helps to understand what has been written,  instead of taking exception
>>to what they appeared to say.
>>As well, it also helps to add something to the..........
>>
>>Twyst================================
>>EFnet and NewNet #povray Channel Operator
>>Website: http://planet1.v-wave.com/twyst
>>E-Mail: twy### [at] v-wavecom
>>=====================================
>>
>Sorry, wrong thread, meant to be a reply-reference to a one further
>back :
>
>Frothing, histrionics and socio-political:

Now I got it! Well, it was not ment to look and feel like frothing at
the mouth. It's just, ifone wants to get somewhere, one needs to
choose his way of drive. I was not talking about resistors and
transistors and what else you can do with it, to build computers and
they are quite useful. I am talking about computerizing and that it is
long gone a very hot socio-political item, Anthony! 
OK, another try:
There is a planet, with x plants of a certain kind on it. Puh, a small
amount, covering a tenth of it. Let's say, this plant kills any other
plant, that tries to keep it's ground. It also induces the feeling,
that everybody must have it around and that everybody else has it,
except oneself (To enlighten the analogy, this is done by marketing
and advertisement). Next some generations, it's 2 times x.
Eight tenth left, who should feel threatened? 4 times x. There will be
people, who say, wait a moment! Overnext population doubling, there
will be no people left to say, wait a moment, there will be lost the
urge to individualize on computer-platforms, to ask for the best
solution to a (even known) problem.
It is simply not true, that the best survives, since mass psychology
and advertisement, if the people loose there urge to name what they
think is best.
I repeat an example: I have a 6 (six) years old Acorn A5000 here, that
has a 8 MHz bus, a clock speed of 30MHz. It is multitasking, it has
drag and drop to better extend than w98, it has a middle button mouse,
that opens menu right under the cursor.  And it opens it's folders on
an anti-aliased screen faster than a DX4/100 with a 30MHz bus. But if
I never would have known Acorn computers, I would never have known,
how slow MS systems are. Including NT. Now, what's Acorn?

>
>Bill Gates is sellin' the boulevard-press of coding, man! With an
>outlook of how the mass might imagine an egghead who nows! But he is
>just a selfmirroring lunatic, who wants power! And if you don't watch
>out, you'll find out. If you ever will. Your' talkin' freedom? Freedom
>starts with education on this earth, my friend! That's the highest
>responsibility, one can take here! One tragedy with nouveaux riches is
>their lack in education for the responsibility to educate. 
>........
>Do we need such a man, who never stops?
>We had one over here in germany, man, really exciting!
>You may admire him for his thrust, but, oh, be careful !
>
>
>
>
>

There is a freedom of choice, that to defend you may call pathetic or
histrionic, but it is not alt.something, Anthony, it is main. And so
it happens, this having been the thread about the OS being and, if
ever, which one to come for Moray, I have to declare the underlying
reasons for my would be choice.
I am not complaining about unfairness, I am talking about interests.

steff


steff

Post a reply to this message

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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