jpm@bnl.ARPA (John McNamee) (03/31/85)
>Date: 29 Mar 85 05:00:00 GMT >From: Brad Templeton <brad%looking.uucp@BRL-TGR.ARPA> >Subject: Re: The GNU Manifesto - let the people decide > > ...But I made my statements in the light of some important facts. > >The most important is that most people, unlike Richard Stallman, want >good rewards for what they do. While it may be very nice of Mr. Stallman >and his friends to give us all this software, they certainly can't handle >everything. True, most people won't program for free. The point you miss is that a large number of people will do it. They are not the majority, but there are still a lot of them out there. The amount of CP/M and IBM-PC public domain software and the software that comes over net.sources should be proof that there are plenty of people willing to do it. Given time, I think RMS and friends WILL write everything that is needed for hacking on GNU. I don't see them writing a lot of applications software, but that doesn't bother me so much. You will probaly be able to sell high priced word processors, spreadsheets, and database managers to GNU users (at least until enough people get sick of paying the high price and write something that does the same thing for free). >Sadly, in a market where there is a high quality, high priced product and >an inferior free product, many will use the free product not because it >is the BEST but because it is free. And thus you get the advancement of >inferior products at the expense of superior ones. Of course, this is >from a purely technical viewpoint, as you might argue that the free product >is "superior" in the long run due to the low cost. Cost is a very real part of which is the "best" product, at least here in the real world. I've heard stories of places where money grows on trees, and cost has nothing to do with which product is selected. I never believed these stories, but since you seem to be in such a place, could you please tell me where it is? I'd love to live there too. Another issue is whether the free product does the job that the majority need. Crosstalk-16 has lost a lot of sales to PC-TALK, no doubt about it. I would argue that PC-TALK does the job that the majority of people want, and that Corsstalk is overkill. People just don't need its extra features. The ones who need what Crosstalk has to offer will buy it. The ones who don't (I would say the majority), aren't forced to buy an overpriced and overfeatured programs. >I know the above rule >from personal experience. I have a $50 programming utility on the market. >There is a free one, modeled after mine, which the author admits is clearly >inferior. Yet I lose many sales to it and piracy, the result being that >I've moved on to other things. You didn't say what your product does, or the name of the free one, so I can't comment on the merits of each. I would not be surprised if your program is better, but that the free one does the tasks the majority of users need. And remember that back here in the real world, price is a major factor in deciding which product is best. >I am not opposed to any quality product, free or not. What I don't like >is inferior products that displace superior products because they were >written by fanatical communists like RMS. (I'm not name calling, I use >these terms as an accurate description based on my mail conversations with >the man.) I don't like to see inferior products replace superior ones either. But lets not forget to include price when we determine what is "inferior" and what is "superior." From a technical standpoint, Intel has never made a good CPU. I wish the 68000 or 32016 was as cheap as the 8086 and was used as often, but its not. From a technical standpoint I can complain that systems with 8086 family CPU's are terrible, but right now I'm using my Tandy 2000 (with a 186 CPU) to compose this reply. When it came time for me to buy a 16-bit system with my own money, I went for a machine with an Intel CPU. The price was better than anything with a 68000 or 32016, and it had more and better software support (in terms of price and features). In summary, I think GNU is going to be a big win with programmers. It may not go very well with the end-user community, but that doesn't bother me at all. GNU might not be the best system around from a technical standpoint, buit I think it will be a good system that will satisfy the needs of the majority of hackers out there. Add the fact that it will be distributed in source form, so people will have the ability to correct its flaws and make it better. And people WILL do that. Take a look at how many PC-TALK hacks have come out, or look at the history of the CP/M MODEM7 program. There are plenty of programmers willing to improve upon what the last guy did.