🚀 go-pugleaf

I know it's probably not the best idea to jump into this fight...

> Irving_Wolfe writes
> > >>  We publish SOLID VALUE for the intelligent investor.   NextMail OK
> > >> Info free; sample $20.  

Just as a little note.  Every copy of Mr. Wolfe's signature contains an  
advertisement.  If I am not mistaken, this violates the rules governing  
the government sponsored portion of the Internet.  The Internet is policed  
to a great degree by cooperation with the rules, just as software use is  
to a great degree voluntary.  I firmly believe that simply because  
something is voluntary, people should do the legally correct thing.

There is a great myth that comes out of Adam Smith's view of economics.   
The myth is basically that stuff with be priced at its marginal value to  
all consumers.  The fallacy with this view is that each of us has a  
different marginal value for a given item.  The man in the desert values a  
cup of water very highly.  The industrial user of software values a  
spreadsheet (just pulling an example out of the air :-)) more than a  
student (i.e., the spreadsheet enables the industrial user to save more  
time and money than it allows the student to save.)  Each person and each  
organization has a different marginal value for each different software  
package, and this changes over time.  The big question is how to price  
software so that the most number of users can afford it (i.e., it is  
priced at or below their marginal value) and such that the producer can  
survive and be comfortable (i.e., the price exceeds the publishers  
marginal cost.)

An example of the above, refering the RightBrain Rulers is a graphic  
artist.  A graphic artist doing production on the NeXT may get a whole lot  
of use out of Rulers.  That person may consider the $79 cost (is that the  
correct price?) a real bargain because it saves that person lots of money  
and time every day.  On the other hand, I do not get that same value from  
Rulers, so I won't buy it (nor will I steal it!)  It is too bad that I  
cannot pay the $20 or so that Rulers would benefit me, and let the graphic  
artist pay the $300 for the same product because that is that person's  
marginal value.  Unfortunately, there is no way to measure marginal value,  
so we have an very poor approximation: a single price for all users.

<<Shameless Plug - On>>

At Athena Design, we have been spending lots of time thinking about this  
issue and talking to other users.  We priced our Mesa spreadsheet below  
both WingZ and Improv so that it is more accessible to the NeXT community.   
We offer a floating license manager to sites of 25+ users.  Because of  
popular demand, we will be dropping that number to 5+ users.

We offer free demo copies of the archives.  These copies load all Mesa  
worksheets and their only limitation is that they can only create and save  
worksheets of 32 by 32 cells.  I expect that quite a number of people will  
be able to use this version of Mesa for simple tasks and these folks will  
never have to pay to use Mesa.  For the small tasks that can be fit into a  
32 by 32 worksheet, paying for a full copy of the product is silly.

We also allow the transfer of the Mesa license.  We include the license  
transfer form with the program.  Users can treat Mesa like a piece of  
tangible property and sell it to others.  We feel that this is only fair.

The only thing that we have not decided on is the educational pricing.  Do  
we sell educational copies at our cost (with no technical support and  
manual on disk) or do we sell a full version for about half the retail  
price to educational users?

<<Shameless Plug - Off>>

We are all in this together.  Pirating software is not only stealing from  
the software publisher and author, but it is stealing from those who paid  
for the software.  As a software author, I am interesting in making enough  
money to continue to develop my product.  As a software publisher, I want  
to make enough money to provide high quality support to my customers.  As  
a lawyer, I want to find a good balance between the rights of the software  
producers and the software users.  As an economist, I want to make sure  
that peoples utility is maximized.  As a software user, I want to make  
sure that there is a constant supply of cool stuff to enhance the use of  
my machine.  As a person, I'd like to make a comfortable living producing  
good stuff for others.  (I wear lots of hats...)

Copyright is the federal government's way of granting a fair amount of  
power to authors.  Just because we authors have that power doesn't mean  
that we have to use all of it.  Various license agreements grant rights  
that expand on federal copyright law (for example, users can freely  
distribute binary copies of Mesa, but they cannot distribute the license  
number and enabling code) like the Free Software Foundation's Copyleft  
agreement which is founded in federal copyright.

I feel that is important for the community as a whole to discuss the issue  
of software licensing.  I am interested in enabling more people to use  
Mesa.  I am also interested in paying my employees.  I'd welcome e-mail on  
ideas for alternate licensing schemes.  The only limit I ask is, please  
recognize that it costs more to create and sell software than simply the  
cost of a diskette.

Cheers,

David

-- 
David Pollak - dpp@athena.com - NeXTMail Compliant
Attorney at Law,
Feeder of the Bears, Athena Design, Inc.