zben@umcp-cs.UUCP (10/23/83)
eally like his OWN copy of the manual. This same argument happened many years ago when paperback books became technically feasable. People said the paperback would kill the hardback. It didn't happen because: * The hardback is usually marketed 6 months to a year before the paperback. If you want it NOW you will have to pay. * Many people still buy hardbacks because they hold up longer. It happened again when the Xerox was invented. How many people do you know that own a xeroxed copy of War and Peace? The books are just too cheap to waste your time xeroxing. This would also have the really nice side effect of introducing an element of competition into manual writing - the current state of the art could sure use it... Remember the original software author would have the advantage that he would not be shooting at a moving target. If the competition manuals started to hurt him too much he could always release version ++V of both the software and manual and have a free six month advantage. This is also a solution to complaints "well, they sell it, but they don't seem to be overly interested in supporting it...". If there were some competition here (service contracts?) things might be better. Think about it zben (Ben Cranston) seismo!umcp-cs!zben zben@umd2 Computer Science Center University of Maryland