🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1991Jul6.090850.18499@cs.sfu.ca> miron@cs.sfu.ca (Miron Cuperman) writes:
>Lets try some numbers.  Let us say that a company can develop software
>at a cost of $200K and sell it to 10 customers for $40K each.  Let
>us also say that they can provide support at $15K per year costing
>them $10K per year per customer.  If they "hoard" the software they
>will make $200K plus $50K per year.  If the put it under the GPL
>they will sell one copy and all the other customers will copy that.
>They will lose $160K and will make $50K per year on support.
>If the lifetime of the software is 3 years or less or if the margin
>of profit on support is decreased they will not be able to recover
>the costs.
>
  You are right, and it gets even worse if you consider high-volume, low-cost
software. Take something like dBase for the PC, or even MSDOS. Most users
of these products don't NEED support, except for a small amount of training
or installation assistance. WHere is the incentive for the manufacturer to
continue to make these products easier to use, and where is the guarantee
to the  customer that these products are extensively tested, if the only 
money to be made is on support?
  I don't mind debugging at home. But if I am buying something which I am
going to use to keep my firm's financial records, or give demos to customers,
I want to pay money to someone who will guarantee me that their product will
perform as advertised, not someone who promisis to start hacking if it breaks!

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