saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs) (07/18/89)
I guess this is an indirect follow-up to the recent discussion of ways to
make the human tendency toward theft (aka piracy) less harmful to the soft-
ware developer. It kinda addresses one of the most piratical of all markets:
universities. I've certainly taken at least one course where the text was
a sheaf of photocopies from a few books the instructor didn't consider worth
buying. Anyway, there isn't much money to be gotten from students because
their expenses generally exceed their incomes.
The suggestion is to follow the textbook publishers an have a separate
teachers's edition of programs that are specific for the educational market.
Include LOTS of supplementary material. I mean dozens of megabytes. Things
like digitized page images. Stuff an instructor can use, but instead of
following the usual imperative to make it as compact as possible, make it
LARGE. And put it on CD-ROM. As portable as the technology allows, so
the teacher can get maximum use out of it.
In cases where this is applicable, it would permit a class to use many low
priced copies of the student version (and if some were pirated, the developer
wouldn't lose too much) and one medium-priced copy of the teachers's edition.
Through tuition, the students split the cost of the extras. The extras have to
be useful, or no teachers's editions will sell. It's difficult and expensive
enough to copy many megabytes so sheer bulk is reasonable protection.
Steve J.terrell@druhi.ATT.COM (TerrellE) (07/19/89)
In article <8991@chinet.chi.il.us>, saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs) writes: > The suggestion is to follow the textbook publishers an have a separate > teachers's edition of programs that are specific for the educational market. > Include LOTS of supplementary material. I mean dozens of megabytes. Things > like digitized page images. Stuff an instructor can use, but instead of > following the usual imperative to make it as compact as possible, make it > LARGE. And put it on CD-ROM. As portable as the technology allows, so > the teacher can get maximum use out of it. I think your idea is interesting, but as a software developer myself, I take a big risk even printing 100 copies of a paper manual, buying the disks, etc. It is expensive to "manufacture" software, just as it is expensive to develop the code... The costs of putting everything on a CD-ROM would be even worse (at least for a single developer...) Terrell