🚀 go-pugleaf

mib@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Michael I Bushnell) writes:
> In article <1992Jan18.070335.26058@alphalpha.com> nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee H
>    After your cogent explanation of the differences between the different
>    copyright models you now have totally confused me.  In what way does
>    the current commercial software system allow people to get away
>    with selling bad software?  And in what way would the GNU system
>    change it?  Are you implying that people buy the bad stuff because
>    they can't afford the good stuff?  And does that therefore mean
>    that under the GNU model there would only ever be one version of
>    any given type of product?  I think not.
> 
> What I mean is this.  If software is not excellent, then its producers
> won't get any money.  Nobody will shell out donations; nobody will pay
> money hoping to get more software in the future.  Only excellent
> software will get money.  With a market, instead, you get money
> proportional to your excellence.  In the current state of affairs,
> that gives a lot af dismal programmers a lot of money.

Of course, where your argument skates over thin ice is the assumption that
if software *is* excellent, the producers *will* get money.

As any shareware author knows, the fact that your program is excellent,
used by just about everyone, and praised as the best program of its type,
does not mean that anyone will send you any donations.


mathew

-- 
"Tolkien's writing appeals also to those with the mental age of a child --
 computer programmers, hippies and most Americans"
                                                        (Private Eye #785)