rusbara2@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Bob Rusbasan) (10/16/90)
Shareware $20. | I'm sorry, but this is absolutely insane. What you Shareware $30. | have here is a collection of small utilities Shareware $20. | comparable to, say, those found in Norton or Shareware $30. | PC Tools. I know they are different, but I think Shareware $20. | its more than fair to say if you judge them by what they Shareware $20. | claim to do they are of comparable value. Shareware. | Shareware, $20. | The price? $250!!!! How's that for the "shareware Shareware $20. | advantage? Oh, and by the way, I didn't include the Shareware $20. | ones where Bill didn't indicate the price. Seeing Shareware. | that they are also labeled shareware (therefore Shareware. | not free by definition) it's a good bet they are, Shareware $30. | like the rest, $20 or more each. Shareware. | Shareware $20. | That would bring the price up to *at least* $370!! Shareware. | Shareware. | Anyone out there objecting to the word "insane?" -----------------+ I download the alarm program before, and it said you had to pay $50 for company use. So if these programs have the same "deal" you could pay well over five hundred dollars for them if you had a business and wanted to register them. If you by a utilites package, you get a nice package, full documentation, disks, etc. Even using the verified price of "just" $250, this is crazy! The author seemed to not be fond of the idea of packaging these together. Maybe this is why. Does he really expect people to pay these prices? Sheesh. (Note: I don't mean anyone of this against Bill. When I discovered this group it had no moderator, so he's the first one I've seen, and I think he's done a great job so far.) ---- Bob Rusbasan bob@en.ecn.purdue.edu
rhys@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (Rhys Weatherley) (10/16/90)
rusbara2@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Bob Rusbasan) writes: >[...] >Shareware, $20. | The price? $250!!!! How's that for the "shareware >Shareware $20. | advantage? Oh, and by the way, I didn't include the >[...] I haven't downloaded these utils, but I bet that the $20 price on most of these is AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS. At the current exchange rate of "around" 80 US cents per Aussie dollar, this is $16 US. A little better Bob? Also, the software industry in Australia is not as good as elsewhere. In fact in general our whole computer industry is not good, with the market driven by overseas companies, and the Australian operations don't get as much coverage, in terms of "Well Known Companies", and a couple of years ago more computer companies were going broke than starting up. There is a "partner" scheme going at the moment, but even for Shareware it can be difficult to make a quid. Also, I've found that many users in Australia don't make donations for Shareware because of the problems of sending money overseas, so an Australian author needs to put his price up a bit more to make it worth his while. >The author seemed to not be fond of the idea of packaging these together. >Maybe this is why. Does he really expect people to pay these prices? As I said, it's a bit difficult, and the prices you are quoting for "purchasing" everything are actually quite reasonable by Australian standards. Consider this: the price I paid for the Turbo C++ Pro Pack, was $395 Australian dollars! And anyway, you probably don't want ALL of the utilities - just pay for those you want :-). I'm certainly NOT saying that Australian computer products are inferior. In many cases it's superior to the overseas' equivalents. It's just a little harder surviving, that's all. Rhys. +===============================+==============================+ || Rhys Weatherley | University of Queensland, || || rhys@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au | Australia. G'day!! || +===============================+==============================+
magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson) (10/16/90)
In article <4615@sage.cc.purdue.edu> bob@ecn.purdue.edu writes: >Anyone out there objecting to the word "insane?" > >I download the alarm program before, and it said you had to pay $50 for >company use. So if these programs have the same "deal" you could pay >well over five hundred dollars for them if you had a business and wanted >to register them. > >If you by a utilites package, you get a nice package, full documentation, >disks, etc. Even using the verified price of "just" $250, this is crazy! > >The author seemed to not be fond of the idea of packaging these together. >Maybe this is why. Does he really expect people to pay these prices? I used the word "grossly overpriced" in a recent posting. That's still my opinion. The sad thing is, the author obviously has no comprehension at all that he's asking for too much, or why people don't like his doing this. (I received a rather silly email message from him today which I find it below my dignity to comment further upon, but which seems to indicate this). I don't think we should ask the moderator not to publish things like this - after all, if people think the programs are too expensive, they won't pay for them (at least, that's the way the free market is supposed to work). But I think the moderator should keep certain standards (at least for shareware - public domain is a different thing!), and if he finds a program doesn't meet these standards, he shouldn't censor it, but at least ask the author to reconsider the pricing, or to add some documentation, or something like that. If the author persists, he could perhaps publish it "under protest"... Otherwise, the risk is that shareware in general, and cbip in particular, will get a bad name if things like this become common - users will say "No, I don't read cbip any more, there's just a lot of bad programs at ridiculous prices". And that's not what we want, is it? Magnus Olsson | \e+ /_ Dept. of Theoretical Physics | \ Z / q University of Lund, Sweden | >----< Internet: magnus@thep.lu.se | / \===== g Bitnet: THEPMO@SELDC52 | /e- \q P.S. Having participated in some rather nasty flame wars on a local News system here in Lund, I know how time-consuming and utterly unproductive an activity flaming is. I do not want to start a flame war, but sometimes one must state one's position, even at the risk of offending someone.
rusbara2@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Bob Rusbasan) (10/17/90)
In article <5253@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> rhys@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au writes: >rusbara2@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Bob Rusbasan) writes: > >>[...] >>Shareware, $20. | The price? $250!!!! How's that for the "shareware >>Shareware $20. | advantage? Oh, and by the way, I didn't include the >>[...] I'm the one who wrote the little price run-down last night. Anyway, even though I just emailed the author privately and told him otherwise, I'd like to apologize somewhat for that posting. I still think the programs are very overpriced, and I think a package deal is usually the best thing for a set of utilities like this. However, I was much more shocked when they were put together than when the alarm clock came out. There wasn't really a reason for that since the author didn't group them together himself. Also, I guess I have to take back what I said about none of it being against Bill. ;-) (Calm down, IT'S A JOKE! Bill's doing a fine job.) >I haven't downloaded these utils, but I bet that the $20 price on most >of these is AUSTRALIAN DOLLARS. At the current exchange rate of "around" >80 US cents per Aussie dollar, this is $16 US. A little better Bob? A very little... >Also, I've found that many users in Australia don't make donations for >Shareware because of the problems of sending money overseas, so an >Australian author needs to put his price up a bit more to make it worth >his while. I'm not sure I understand this...do you mean that he jacked up the price because he didn't think he'd get that many donations? I don't think that's true. If they were five, or maybe ten, dollars each I'd probably buy a few of them. If the whole package was thirty I might send in my donation. As it is, forget it. I think you'll find a lot of people have this attitude, and justifiably so, IMNO. >As I said, it's a bit difficult, and the prices you are quoting for >"purchasing" everything are actually quite reasonable by Australian >standards. Consider this: the price I paid for the Turbo C++ Pro Pack, >was $395 Australian dollars! Let's see...that's $50 for the grep, $70 for the make, $500 for the compiler...hey, you've already got quite a deal! ;-) > And anyway, you probably don't want ALL >of the utilities - just pay for those you want :-). Normally I'd agree. I don't like paying for what I don't want. However, with a small set of utitities it's different. Almost all of them could come in handy now and then. Like with Norton or PC Tools, you don't use most of them on a regular basis, but it's nice to have them when you do need them. I'd hate to have to be force to either pay for each one or return it. If he's worried about money, a big package would be easier to distribute than each thing separately, and he would probably be more likely to get donations on a whole collection of tools. >I'm certainly NOT saying that Australian computer products are inferior. >In many cases it's superior to the overseas' equivalents. It's just a >little harder surviving, that's all. I appreciate that, but I question the survival techniques being used. In fact, they are, in my opinion, borderline offensive. After the furor from the first ones that came out the author should have seriously though about having Bill not release them until they could be repriced. Also, even though I was against it in the past, maybe there should be some arbitrary price limit for posting here. $1 for each 1K seems completely unreasonable. Perhaps some authors would actually consider lowering their prices to get their products posted here. >Rhys. Well, thanks for another opinion on the subject... Bob Rusbasan bob@en.ecn.purdue.edu
dsims@uceng.UC.EDU (david l sims) (10/17/90)
rusbara2@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Bob Rusbasan) writes: [some talk about overpriced shareware deleted] >Also, even though I was against it in the past, maybe there should be >some arbitrary price limit for posting here. I just have one thing to say and one thing to ask. Speaking: c.b.i.p.d (pronounced "C-Bipped" :-) is a public forum, am I not right? Then certainly we can't say "no software over US $X". Like someone said, it's a free market.... Asking: I learned from my shareware poll a few weeks back that some people consider shareware programs in c.b.i.p to be "unsolicited software" and, therefore, they don't have to pay for what gets dumped in their mailbox. Do the authors of shareware posted to c.b.i.p realize this? Do the authors even *know* that their stuff is being posted? Perhaps c.b.i.p should contain public domain and freeware packages only. David L. Sims Go Reds! Beat Oakland! dsims@uceng.uc.edu
rusbara2@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Bob Rusbasan) (10/17/90)
In article <6419@uceng.UC.EDU> dsims@uceng.UC.EDU (david l sims) writes: >rusbara2@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Bob Rusbasan) writes: >>Also, even though I was against it in the past, maybe there should be >>some arbitrary price limit for posting here. >c.b.i.p.d (pronounced "C-Bipped" :-) is a public forum, am I not right? >Then certainly we can't say "no software over US $X". Like someone said, >it's a free market.... Is it? I thought Bill was more like a friendly dictator. I still crack up over how this group was going on and on and on about which archiver to us. There were like 400 articles a day about it, and then Bill came in and said something like, "Hi. I'm the new moderator. We're using zoo." End of subject. >I learned from my shareware poll a few weeks back that some people >consider shareware programs in c.b.i.p to be "unsolicited software" >and, therefore, they don't have to pay for what gets dumped in their mailbox. >Do the authors of shareware posted to c.b.i.p realize this? Do the >authors even *know* that their stuff is being posted? I don't know about that. I think by reading it we solicit it. On the other hand, there is the age-old debate over whether or not shareware should be allowed on usenet AT ALL. But let's not start that again... >Perhaps c.b.i.p should contain public domain and freeware packages only. I don't see how you can reconcile this with the "public forum" bit, unless you're saying that we have to either allow shareware at any price, no matter how ridiculous, or we have to ban it completely. If that's what you're saying I must disagree. I think it's up to Bill. If he doesn't like something he can trash it, but hopefully he'll take what we want into consideration. And he does; he's posted many things with a note saying he didn't particularly care for this type of thing but though some of us might. In other words, if there is a clear consensus on a price limit and he agrees to go along with it I don't think that violates any law or anything. He judges things on certain criteria, and we can suggest that we'd like the price to be one of them. On the other hand, I must admit I like the idea of only free software. I remember the good ol' days when I would get Compute!'s Gazette and type in free, and often very good, programs for my old 64. For a long time now Compute!'s PC Magazine has just been serving up a disk of pre-compiled shareware that you're expected to pay for in addition to buying the disk. Really nice. To answer another questions, while it's not always the case it seems that the author's often submit things. If no shareware was allowed it would be nice if we could get some genuine PD or freeware. Maybe some people would waive the fee just to get more exposure. Yeah, right. It would be nice though. Shareware *is* a good idea, but it seems to have the unfortunate side effect of all but killing PD for PCs. On unix free things with source code still float around freely, and you'll also notice that many UNIX-like things for the PC are genuine PD...kind of tells you something, huh? Unfortunately, I'm afraid the PC trend represents the wave of the future. ---- Bob Rusbasan bob@en.ecn.purdue.edu
rhys@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au (Rhys Weatherley) (10/17/90)
dsims@uceng.UC.EDU (david l sims) writes: >c.b.i.p.d (pronounced "C-Bipped" :-) is a public forum, am I not right? >Then certainly we can't say "no software over US $X". Like someone said, >it's a free market.... Well, at least some guidelines for author's which says what a REASONABLE price may be per K or per feature etc, wouldn't go astray. >Perhaps c.b.i.p should contain public domain and freeware packages only. I disagree. Some of the world's best software is shareware, and I certainly wouldn't want to see it dropped from c.b.i.p.d, since this is usually where I first find out about new shareware packages. Rhys. +===============================+==============================+ || Rhys Weatherley | University of Queensland, || || rhys@batserver.cs.uq.oz.au | Australia. G'day!! || +===============================+==============================+
dsims@uceng.UC.EDU (david l sims) (10/17/90)
rusbara2@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Bob Rusbasan) writes:
Me>Perhaps c.b.i.p should contain public domain and freeware packages only.
Him>I don't see how you can reconcile this with the "public forum" bit
Hmmm... I agree with you. I can't reconcile restricting C-Bip software
to PD or freeware only if C-Bip is a public forum.
Of course, the moderator can do anything he likes so I guess I'll drop
this subject for now. Like Charlie in my lab said today, "Sometimes
I wish we'd forget this democracy stuff and get ourselves a good dictator."schikore@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Dan Schikore) (10/17/90)
In article <6419@uceng.UC.EDU> dsims@uceng.UC.EDU (david l sims) writes: >rusbara2@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Bob Rusbasan) writes: > >Perhaps c.b.i.p should contain public domain and freeware packages only. NEVER! I think that shareware authors want their packages to get to as many people as possible. If something gets posted to c.b.i.p and someone doesn't want to use it, they don't have to pay for it. Can't it be that simple? > >David L. Sims Go Reds! Beat Oakland! >dsims@uceng.uc.edu Dan Schikore schikore@mentor.cc.purdue.edu
dsims@uceng.UC.EDU (david l sims) (10/17/90)
schikore@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Dan Schikore) writes: >>Perhaps c.b.i.p should contain public domain and freeware packages only. >NEVER! I think that shareware authors want their packages to get to as >many people as possible. If something gets posted to c.b.i.p and someone >doesn't want to use it, they don't have to pay for it. In a previous post I retracted my statement, and said that, indeed, shareware authors ought to be able to post to c.b.i.p. >Can't it be that simple? The problem is that it might not be that simple. Another issue raised in the shareware poll is the question of who gets to use the Internet. Some people remarked that since the Internet is funded by the gov'ment and commercial interests, then other commercial entities who have not paid for access to the net should not be entitled to use the net. These "other commercial entities" are shareware authors, although they might post posing as a student or an employee of a company that does pay to have Internet access. So unless there exists my_shareware_company.com, I shouldn't be allowed to post shareware programs.