🚀 go-pugleaf

Well, I really hate the fact that my second posting to this conf is going to
be a flame, but I just couldn't turn the other cheek on this.
Sorry, all...

In article <1992Mar30.054542.24644@cs.brown.edu> rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony) writes:

(lots of polemic deleted)

So a student studies only to make his country more competitive and a
businessman works only to make money? I think not! Perhaps this applies to
some (student and otherwise) doctors, lawyers and various species of yuppie,
but what about all those who do it for the simple reason that they enjoy it?

An excellent example of this is the Atari community - there are (still!) a
few people who write _very_ nifty software (that has greatly eased my own
programming nightmares). And yet the return on their time is pitiful. The
market may want what they're producing, but the market is too small. Why do
they persist? Obviously, as you suggest, they are fools and incompetents who
need lessons in business (again) and not people who just think they're doing
something worthwhile for a community they enjoy being part of...

I think the lesson for the NeXT community is obvious. Non-mainstream systems
_need_ small developers to keep them alive by writing 'cool' software. Large
companies will always go where the profits are, but smaller ones can go where
the fun is! (this has all been said 1E6 times already...)

Please don't insult small businessmen by tarring them all with the same
brush as MuckySoft, or their intelligence by painting students as all being
altruists! I don't believe that there can be any argument that, per computer
sold by NeXT, the ones that go to small software businesses generate a _lot_
more revenue for them in the long run than do the ones that are sold into
academia. So think yourself _damn_ lucky to be getting these huge discounts!
_We_ don't!

> The bottom line...

'Hobbyists' need to eat, too, when the hobby is full time!

> ... If you don't earn enough then change your situation and don't bitch.

I refer you to your own .sig :-)

> ...
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
> in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
> unreasonable man."   G.B. Shaw   |  rca@cs.brown.edu or antony@browncog.bitnet

Personal Pet Peeve of the day: dogmatic usenet posters :-)

   oo		markk@sundew.uk.mugnet.org
//\~~/\\	markk@cix.compulink.co.uk