On Wed, Mar 31, 1999 at 09:18:41AM -0500, Steve Dimse wrote:
> On 3/31/99 8:13 AM Hamish Moffatt ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
>
> >> Sure there is per-unit cost. Anyone who says otherwise has never produced
> >> commercial software and had to support users!
> >
> >See my .signature -- I write commercial software. But let's take shareware
> >for example -- usually, the customer receives no physical goods for
> >their money. In this case, there are no per-unit costs -- it is all flat
> >rate.
> >
> In the late 80's I wrote a series of music synthesizer editor/librarians
> for the Mac. They were first released as shareware. While it was kinda
> cool having Steve Winwood and Will Lee call me for help, there were a lot
> of people that were just plain work. I finally sold the programs to a
> commercial company for less than they were worth, just so I could dump
> the support headache.
>
> I maintain there is a per-unit cost!
I agree that there is a per-unit cost for support in some cases.
In Free Software as we see it today (open source or whatever you want
to call it), I think people are cool with the idea that the author
is not the only source for support, and might not be able to offer any
support at all.
In fact, support is one of the best ways for companies to make money
off open source. Companies like Cygnus, who sell support for the GNU
development tools.
Hamish
--
Hamish Moffatt Mobile: +61 412 011 176 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Rising Software Australia Pty. Ltd.
Developers of music education software including Auralia & Musition.
31 Elmhurst Road, Blackburn, Victoria Australia, 3130
Phone: +61 3 9894 4788 Fax: +61 3 9894 3362 USA Toll Free: 1-888-667-7839
Internet: http://www.rising.com.au/
