> From: Michael Gherrity <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>
> I have read that the amount of money that a winning computer go program would
> make in a go tournament is insignificant compared to the amount of money that
> such a program would earn selling to the general public.
That is obviously true. Prizes are measured in hundreds or perhaps thousands,
whereas a top program can sell hundreds of thousands of copies, at $50 per;
especially if there is a Japanese-language version. The author of Many Faces of
Go, David Fotland, once posted some numbers to this list, if I recall
correctly; they were fairly impressive, and certainly far greater than the
prize money itself. But the prize certainly increases marketability and profits.
> I have also read that the biggest pirates of computer software come from
> Germany, the UK, and the US.
> The foreign exchange student we are hosting from Beijing China said that most
> people in China do not buy software, but download it for free off the net.
>
> So what is true?
I don't have numbers regarding software piracy; I'm suspicious of anyone who
claims to know how many bootleg copies of software are out there, unless the
software somehow leaves footprints - for instance, it may "phone home", or may
need to access a server for some purpose. Microsoft, I think, has numbers of
people who upgrade Windows, versus the number of copies actually purchased.
Maybe this explains the quantity of bugs in initial releases -- incentive to
phone home for security upgrades?
My thinking is that it is better to encourage people to support authors than to
spend a great deal of effort making software unusable.
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