Re: German CD-ROM (Was: Re: Addressing home-made adapter cards)

[rwifall@nmsu.edu (Richard J Wifall)]

Glenn Taylor (gtaylor@sr.hp.com) wrote:
: Richard J Wifall (rwifall@nmsu.edu) wrote:
:  |two of my programs are listed in the catalog of the CD-ROM despite
:  |saying in the documentation that they are not to be distributed for
:  |more then a $5 disk copying fee.  And I really doubt they're selling
:  |those CD-ROM's for $5.
: Why is it that Shareware authors get so upset over having their pgms
: included in one of those shareware collection CD-ROMs?  Look folks, CD-ROM
: is just another storage media!  Why fret about it?  Is it the 'capacity'

	I don't like other people making money off my work.  Plain and
simple.  People are less likely to put out money for a program when
they feel they already have "bought" it.  (When in fact they haven't)
This means I'm less likely to get a shareware fee.  (And seeing how
scarce shareware fee's are in the GS world, it makes a big difference
to me.)

: that scares you?  What about the incredible low cost?  Face it, CD-ROM is
: here to stay.  Nothing at this point can beat CD-ROM as a low cost
: publishing medium.

	It isnt' CD-ROM's that scare me.  It's people that don't
follow the restrictions I have placed on the distribution of my
product.  These restrictions are protected (in the US at least) by
copyright laws.

: Someday, when your last 5.25" floppy disk goes bad from 'iron oxide eating
: fungus', you'll wish you'd saved all those neat shareware pgms that used to
: exist for the Apple // on CD-ROM.  It will certainly be a shame to lose all
: that history.  This stuff deserves to be saved forever.

	I haven't used a 5.25" disk for about 3 years.  And the "shame
of losing it all to history" doesn't give you the rights to another
person's intellectual property.

: What's gonna happen is this...  20 years from now you'll be taking your
: grandkids to the Smithsonian, and one of them will point at the Apple ][
: on display.  The museum guide will then remark "oh that...  that's an Apple,
: one of the first micro computers ever made.  Too bad we don't have any
: software for it, or else I could show you how it worked."  <fade to black>

	I won't have grandkids in twenty years.  Not like the
Smithsonian would let you run programs on an old computer they have on
display anyway.  So lets assume you have all that stuff on CDROM.
You're still outta luck.  (And that's even assuming you still _had_
the CDROM.)

: - Glenn

	Richard
--
rwifall@nmsu.edu