🚀 go-pugleaf

> 1) If I release good, quality software, that meets a real need, that doesn't
> need lots of support (I *said* quality*), with good documentation, then
> why on earth would people buy it if they could get it free?

This seems highly unlikely.  Not to cast dispersions on your
programming abilities, but even most *commercial* software needs
support - and very *few* have good documentation.  So it is unlikely
that you will not be able to make some money at consultation.  Second,
there is nothing that *forces* people to pay you now.  It only takes
on person to buy the software so that it can be pirated - most people
i talk to in day-to-day conversation do not pirate software because
they feel that the programmers deserve compensation.

> 2) A lot of other people, such as 103% of all the MIS-heads in the world,
> are going to lump it in with all that "public domain bulletin board stuff"-
> useless garbage and probably full of viruses, or at least nasty bugs (their
> perceptions, not mine). They would summarily have someone on their staff
> shot who even LET the stuff in the door.

That is a problem indeed.  The solution is not to stop contributing to
the public domain, but to change the type and quality of software
available in the public domain, thereby giving PD a better reputation.

> This does NOT appear to give me a good chance at making any decent living
> (ie, lower middle class income or above) off the software.

If your statements were correct, then yes.  However, i feel that your
statements do not reflect the consensual hallucenation we call
"reality" - ie. you're wrong, at least as far as my experience goes.  

> Now, people are complaining about Peter's not addressing certain arguments.
> Well, these same people HAVE NOT yet addressed, to the best of my knowledge,
> some of mine. Do you people realize what goes on in a software firm? There's
> not just the cost of the staff (including funding future projects, not just
> paying off old debts), but the cost of the building, legal stuff, accounting
> stuff, marketing, distribution, phones, benefits (vacation, insurance, etc),
> and so on, etc, etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

I am aware of what it takes to run a company.  My dad has done that
same thing (trucking, not software) for the last 15+ years.  However,
it does not take a company to write good software.  So, while a
company may well need to charge ridiculous prices to support its
expenditures and what it wants to do in the future, it seems that
perhaps they should offer fewer benefits to their employees and use
cheaper methods of doing what they are doing now....(using pd
software, perhaps?)...and then they wouldn't have to charge so much.
After all, like Frank Zappa, you guys are just in it for the money,
right?

> So be sure when you blithely talk of "recovering the cost of the
> software development" that you realize not all of us want to hack
> the night away for a year, just to give the world a birthday present.

So don't.

The problem here is that all the opinions are valid, assuming you
assuming the same things that i do, or jay does, or whomever is making
the case of the moment.  However, as long as the answer to ridiculous
prices for software is "it's life - deal with it", then the only
reasonable answer i can give to critics of the GPL is "that's life -
deal with it" or "put up or shut up!" or something equally as flippant
(check my .sig :-)  

I haven't worked for a software development company yet this century.
Howver, i know that some companies such as Sierra On-Line used to
treat their programmers to extragavent parties and incredible benefits
that were "barely coverd by the cost of their software".  Do i feel
sympathetic when people pirate their software?  Doubtful.  Maybe if
they had spent a little more of their personal funds and a lot less of
their company funds for these things, then i would sympathise more.

> -Miles


iain the flippant | You'll PAY To Know What You REALLY Think |
jb3o@andrew.cmu.edu(INTERNET) | Your MIND Left Intentionally Blank |
R746JB3O@cmccvb(BITNET) | SCIENCE DOES NOT REMOVE THE TERROR OF THE GODS|
disclaimer: anything I say may be wrong - I don't represent anyone but me