[plug] [link] a lawyer Switches

[Brad Campbell]

Peter J. Nicol wrote:
>> As far as I'm concerned, I win and they win. They buy my product because
>> it's competitive with my featureless opponents product on price and
>> features, but if they need to upgrade it they can with less outlay than
>> purchasing a completely new product.
> 
> 
> If your product takes off, you are leaving youself wide open to anyone who can
> disable your restrictions.  When I discover that I paid $3000 for something that I
> only had to pay $1500 for, I am not going to be happy.

Hey, great.. If you can do that then do it :p) Better still, pay $1550 
for my competitors product and then come and pay me $3000 when you need 
to upgrade :p)

> Interestingly, yours are the exact same arguments used by Micrsoft amongst others
> to justify things like CALS etc, that is, artificial restrictions on the use of
> their software.

And just like them, if you don't want to pay it, use another product. 
Except unlike them, in this case there is not another product.
I did not want to pay the Microsoft Tax, so I installed an open source 
system. There is no opensource replacement for my product as it does not 
run on commodity hardware and nobody has the inclination to create one.

> I have bought the software, it will run on my hardware, but if anyone wants to use
> it, I have to pay per user.  This is on of the big reasons why Linux is taking off
> ... no CALS.

Ahh, here you lose.. My software will only run on my hardware.. You are 
buying a system, not a component.

> iirc, there was an registry hack that changed the number of users that could
> connect to an NT server.  It was artificially restricted to maybe 10 users in some
> versions.

Cool, I don't have or use a registry. I'm sure if you removed my chip, 
disassembled the code and did some simple analysis you could enable the 
features that I charge $1500 for. Of course you'd void the warranty and 
not recieve any support if you did so :p)

If I need big iron like IBM, then I have an application that is not 
covered by the general run of the mill "itch scratch" type of open 
source project. These are projects that people pay BIG money to develop, 
both hardware and software. You need to SELL stuff like that or you go 
broke. Pretty simple really.

If people won't pay for it, then it won't get developed.
If my hardware costs me $400 to produce and to offset the software 
development cost I need to sell it for $3000, then I can still make some 
money toward the cause by selling a cut down version for $1500. I'm not 
going to sell my full version for that because the market is not big 
enough to move enough units... Ahh why wase my time..
You'll only come back with a one line quote and reply and not listen to 
the argument at all..

Simple reason. If I did what you wanted me to do, I'd go broke and have 
to find another job. Then there would be nobody to sell these systems 
and people would lament the loss of these products. Some other person 
would design and manufacture a replacement and sell it exactly the same 
way I do or else they too would go out of business.

Oh yeah, when I go out of business I leave others without a job also.

It's all about what the market will bear. Some of us have to eat and 
support staff against the insane taxes and costs that remove our 
incentive to employ people.

I'll make this my last E-mail as it has strayed well OT..

-- 
Brad....
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