mjp@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi) (01/05/87)
Keywords: When is owning an Amiga not fun? When you encounter the following scenario: I was at home in Detroit for Christmas. I decided to pick up some software for my machine while I was there. My two prime objectives were to get a copy of the 1.2 Enhancer and access to the Fish Disk collection. I investigated two dealers in Detroit that were big on Amiga support -- The Slipped Disk and Micro World (the place sells the reconditioned Amigas and also the same place from which I bought my machine). Micro World has four shops in the Detroit area. I called Micro World's Roseville store earlier in the week and asked if I could get copies of the Fish Disks. Sure, they said, but you have to be a member of their software rental club. I explained to them that my permanent home is Detroit, that I spend most of my time attending college in Pittsburgh, and that a membership in their software rental club would be useless to me. They said that I could copy the disks in-store for a fee of $3 per disk NOT COUNTING media, which I had to purchase myself. They also told me they sent all their disks back to their central store in Livonia for updating (since the contents of the disks do not change, I silently wondered to myself why this was necessary). I would have to go to the Livonia store (a 60 mile round trip drive from my house, compared to 10 for Roseville) to get copies. I called the Livonia store and asked if it was okay for me to stop in and get copies. After explaining my situation and the fact that I purchased my Amiga from Micro World, the man on the phone confirmed it was okay. This was Tuesday; I planned to go out and get the copies Saturday. Saturday came. I decided to call The Slipped Disk, since they were much closer to me than the Livonia Micro World store. They politely informed me there was no way I could obtain copies of the Fish Disks without being a member of their rental club. I explained my situation. They refused to allow me access to the disks. Fine, I thought to myself. I can still go to Micro World. I called the Micro World store in Livonia one more time to see if they had the 1.2 Enhancer in stock, so I could pick it up along with the Fish Disks. The salesman said he didn't have any of the Enhancer disks, but that he was going to go to the Dearborn store that day and pick up two dozen copies. If they would let him have that many, he added. He also told me that 20 of those copies were already reserved for people that paid in advance. I asked him when he would be going to the Dearborn store, so that I could stop by Livonia when the disks were in stock. He told me that he did not know when he would be able to go and thus did not know when the Enhancer disks would be in stock. I asked him if the Dearborn store had the Fish Disks, since I did not want to add another 40 miles minimum to my trip for the day. He said he did not know. I asked him if the Roseville store might have gotten either in stock since the last time I talked to them, on the off chance he might know (after all, this was their central store). At this point he shouted at me: "Look, I just don't know!" followed by "If you would just get off the phone and let me tend to my customers I might be able to find out something!" Obviously I was not considered a customer, since I was not worth his time. I politely replied, "This conversation is clearly counter productive", said goodbye, then hung up. Too bad I didn't get his name. I went to the Dearborn store. They had the Enhancer in stock, but not Fish Disks. So after a day of hassle and downright rudeness from the Amiga dealerships in the Detroit area, I ended up with half of what I was searching for. I have but two questions: 1) Where do these people get off restricting access and charging fees for access to freely redistributable software? Can they legally do this? For the record, Micro World's rental club requires a $19.95 fee to join (free if you buy your machine from them) plus a $200 security deposit. The rental fee is 25% of purchase price, applicable toward purchase should you opt to buy it. I would be interested in hearing Fred Fish's word on this issue. Fred, are you listening? 2) How does the largest Commodore dealership in Michigan expect to sell Amigas, let alone compete with Atari and Apple, if they have the rudest salespeople to be found anywhere? If anyone else had to go through the hell I went through to get one piece of software I'm sure they would have tossed their Amiga into the ocean and bought an ST or //gs instead. I did not treat the salesperson like he was dirt; I was merely asking him innocuous questions. He was the one to alienate me. The above opinions are my own and not those of my institution. -- +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Mike Portuesi | | Carnegie-Mellon University Computer Science Department | | | | ARPA: mjp@spice.cs.cmu.edu | | UUCP: {harvard | seismo | ucbvax | decwrl}!spice.cs.cmu.edu!mjp | | | | "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture" | | --Laurie Anderson, "Home of the Brave" | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
fnf@mcdsun.UUCP (Fred Fish) (01/06/87)
In article <1112@spice.cs.cmu.edu> mjp@spice.cs.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi) writes: >When is owning an Amiga not fun? When you encounter the following >scenario: > [detailed description of Mike's frustrating experience deleted -- fnf] Wow, I hope most people are able to find copies of the disks without having to go through that kind of run-around. At least you didn't drive all over the place to boot! > They said that I could >copy the disks in-store for a fee of $3 per disk NOT COUNTING media, >which I had to purchase myself. Copying 50 or so disks ties up a machine for quite a while (believe me, I know :-), so in principle, it doesn't sound unreasonable to me for a store to charge a "machine rental fee" for arbitrary people wandering in off the street (as opposed to their regular customers). However, most stores are perfectly satisfied to just sell you the disks and point you towards a machine. If you walk in the door with a box full of blanks they might not be so cooperative though. I must admit $3 per disk sounds kind of steep since it is your time and materials. > They also told me they sent all their >disks back to their central store in Livonia for updating (since the >contents of the disks do not change, I silently wondered to myself >why this was necessary). Updating!!! I have a firm policy of not changing disks once they are released. If anyone is adding material to, or deleting material from, any of my disks and then passing them on as official copies I would definitely want to know about it. I had one scare about 6 months ago when a rather irate gentleman called and wanted to know why I was distributing copies of his commercial product on my disks. I had never heard of him or his product. Turns out a computer dealer had "reorganized" some of my disks to produce his own library, and this gentleman's product somehow ended up on one of them. The matter was resolved amicably for everyone concerned. > 1) Where do these people get off restricting access and >charging fees for access to freely redistributable software? Can they >legally do this? For the record, Micro World's rental club requires a >$19.95 fee to join (free if you buy your machine from them) plus a >$200 security deposit. The rental fee is 25% of purchase price, >applicable toward purchase should you opt to buy it. I would be >interested in hearing Fred Fish's word on this issue. Fred, are you >listening? There are quite a few user groups that charge small fees for mail-ordered copies of their library disks, and a few that do the same for disks copied at their meetings. I do not feel "ripped-off" or taken advantage of by this practice, as in most cases, any small profit generally goes to help fund other activities and promote the Amiga. The same goes for magazines like Amazing Computing that make the disks available for their readers. I think the law of supply and demand will probably prevent profiteering, for the most part. -Fred -- =========================================================================== Fred Fish Motorola Computer Division, 3013 S 52nd St, Tempe, Az 85282 USA {seismo!noao!mcdsun,hplabs!well}!fnf (602) 438-5976 ===========================================================================
mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (Don't have strength to leave) Meyer) (01/08/87)
Fred (and everybody else out there), One of the things I've been thinking about doing is going through all the disks you distribute (and any other PD disks I can get my hands on), finding and classifying the most useful programs, and then rearranging things so that 1) each disk only has programs of one class, and 2) the most recent version of each program was on that disk. For instance, a general utilities disk that has dirutil, popcli, Dillon's shell and such like on it; a development utilities disk with cc, make and who knows what else (lex, yacc, bison, maybe others?), a source examples disk, and an Emacs disk. Other things are obviously possible. However, I don't want to get involved in distribution, and this involves a significant amount of work that I'd rather not do (the thought of which makes me appreciate what you do all the more!). The thought of making some money off of it makes it more likely that I'd do it, but I'd hate to make anyone mad by doing so. The bottom line question is: if I did this, and charged dollars for the disks (say, $20 to $30, including printed copies of the documentation, where available), how many people would be upset. Most importantly, how many people contributing software to the PD would get upset? Thanx, <mike
fnf@mcdsun.UUCP (Fred Fish) (01/09/87)
In article <2125@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (Don't have strength to leave) Meyer) writes: > ... The >thought of making some money off of it makes it more likely that I'd >do it, but I'd hate to make anyone mad by doing so. > >The bottom line question is: if I did this, and charged dollars for >the disks (say, $20 to $30, including printed copies of the >documentation, where available), how many people would be upset. Most My position is that anyone is free to do anything with my disks. Period. I have no interest in, nor could I legally enforce, putting any restrictions on distribution or use of my collection. It exists primarily through the generosity of the many people who have made their software freely available in source and/or binary form, and permitted redistribution. Since it is reasonably clear from your posting that your intention is to treat it as a "business", the only way I can see that you could possibly stay in business at that price (I'm assuming you mean $20 to $30 per disk) is to prevent others from taking your resultant work and remarketing it for substantially less. One way to do this, would be to claim a copyright on the resultant collection (but not necessarily on each individual piece). It is my understanding that copyright law allows you to do this. Witness what CIS claims about their collection... Previous postings on this subject, by myself and others, have made it clear that doing anything with truely public domain software is perfectly legal, but can draw public flames from the author if he deems such action to be somehow out of line with his wishes for the software. Doing the same thing with copyrighted, but freely redistributable, software can not only draw public flames, but possibly legal action if it somehow violates the author's stated restrictions on the software. Note that a good portion of the software on my disks falls into this second category. One of my goals was to get as much software as possible into the hands of people that could take the time to enhance it and make it better, value-added if you will, and thus increase both the quality and quantity of available software for the Amiga. What you propose to do is certainly within the bounds of that goal. -Fred -- =========================================================================== Fred Fish Motorola Computer Division, 3013 S 52nd St, Tempe, Az 85282 USA {seismo!noao!mcdsun,hplabs!well}!fnf (602) 438-5976 ===========================================================================
adjones@mcnc.UUCP (Amy D. Jones) (01/16/87)
In article <2125@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> Mike Meyer says:
-> One of the things I've been thinking about doing is going through all
-> the disks you distribute (and any other PD disks I can get my hands
-> on), finding and classifying the most useful programs, and then
-> rearranging things so that 1) each disk only has programs of one
-> class, and 2) the most recent version of each program was on that
-> disk.
-> . . .
Our users group (ready?...Amigoids Anonymous--There I've said it.) already
does what you described--sort of. We actually share the library of another
users group (AURA--Amiga Users of the Raleigh Area) who does this. We take
all the PD stuff we can find (mostly Fish & AMICUS material) and categorize
it onto various disk types--currently Demos, Games, Utilities, Applications,
How2 (how to... files), and Nets (Usenet news). We have not culled out all
of the things that don't run, but we do replace old versions of a program
with any updates we find. As the AA librarian, I plan to propose to the
group that we do what you said--that is, include only the useful programs
in our library. We distribute the AURA disks by mail at $5 each. I suppose
I could upload a copy of our directory along with ordering information as
soon as I get a chance.
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--> // Amiga | adjones@mcnc / UNC@CH Chemistry / PLink: ohs733 <--
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