On 27/11/2005, at 9:13 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
I have a couple of educational titles being sold by my University
that cost the same number of Australian dollars to Harvard as they do
to universities in Africa. It doesn't seem fair. Perhaps software
prices could be adjusted for the average (modal) wage in a country.
It wouldn't harm me for people in low wage countries to pay me almost
nothing instead of absolutely nothing...
I don't currently make money from writing software - I make utilities
for my own use. But if I did sell software I don't think I'd be
interested in getting paid 3rd world wages (no offense intended - just
don't know another way to say it) and paying U.S. rates for my
housing,
food etc.
Making your software available at locally-affordable rates should not
influence your ability to charge appropriate amounts in your country.
Locally-affordable would be higher in the USA than in Brazil, and
higher in Brazil than in Zaire.
If you're rich and don't care, you can give your software
away. I'm sure many of the pros on this list who make money
programming,
program because they like doing so. I'm sure the RunRev people love
what
they do. But we all have bills to pay too.
When someone sets a price on a piece of software, I get to decide if
that's worth my money.
You've missed the point. If you only use a US-centric view of
economic values then you leave out most of the people alive. What is
offensive about asking a locally-affordable price for a product that
has no cost for reproduction once produced?
I don't figure it's their job to make sure I can
afford it - they don't owe me a thing (which is the attitude that
socialism breeds IMHO, sorry to digress into politics!).
Given how we have gotten to the current world financial model, it
would be more likely that we owe them than they owe us! Remember that
the unequal distribution of wealth has come from the unequal
distribution of power, not the unequal distribution of worth. It
serves the ruling minority interests to equate means and success with
moral worth, but we should be able to see beyond it.
Certainly it's
noble to want to see everyone have access to good software. But having
directed a local soup kitchen for 6 years, I can tell you there are
people in the U.S. who are desperately poor. Who would administrate a
system that would charge based on income? I think I would always be
VERY
poor when I went to make my purchases!
Marty Knapp
I hope that you are kidding about that last comment, or at least
exaggerating to illustrate a possible abuse of the proposed system.
At the moment, in your country and mine, the very wealthy pay very
little tax. The inevitability of abuse and loopholes should not be
taken as a reason not to attempt to improve something.
Regards,
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