Re: I'm at a loss for words

[guenter@student.uni-kl.de (Marvin)]

Charles A. Plater (cplater@rattlehead.pass.wayne.edu) wrote:
: : THE THING THAT KILLED APPLE WAS APPLE COMPUTERS' ARROGANT NON-LICENSING OF
: : APPLE II ROMS, NON-EXISTANT DEVELOPER SUPPORT AND OVERPRICING. IT IS THE
: : SAME REASON THE MAC'S AND POWER PC'S ARE GOING TO THE LANDFILL. WILL YOU
: : BLAME PIRACY FOR THE DOWNFALL OF THE MAC TOO?

: No, I do not blame apple for any of it.  Apple has licenced Mac technology
: (very late, but still they did license it), and now after cleaning up from
: the Sculley/Spindler years, they are returning to profitability, and they
: should be around for years to come.  People keep thinking that Micro$loth
: will be the end of Apple, but I have a feeling that they are going to be
: broken up (much like what happened to AT&T, althought I don't know what MS
: will be like after the breakup) due to anti-trust laws.  That is just my
: opinion, but I have a really good feeling that this is what is going to
: happen.

Yes but they don't license the AppleII technology. I think if they had, the
AppleII would be as widespread as the PC now, especially in schools.

: : You see above. Piracy did not kill the apple II. Apple computer did. 
: : There was limited support for the apple II because most families could
: : not afford a $3000.00 apple // with all the cool stuff, but they could
: : afford a $500.00 commodore 64.

: Well, you see the price itself did not kill the Apple II, neither did
: Apple Corp.  The price kept the market small, which allowed it to be hurt
: if not killed by piracy.  The point that I was trying to make was that
: piracy will kill small markets.  If the market is big enought, there are
: enought people to legitimately buy software, and the market stays alive.
: As the Apple II market shrinks, there is less profitablility in writing
: software for it, so pirating really hurts in these situations. 

I think they did. While the prices for the Mac dropped and the Macs have
been advertised, the marketing dept. of Apple has tried to kill the gs
by holding the price high and has not advertised it. The reason is
simple: Backwards compatibility is expensive and you can always make
more money with Macs. Software companies (with the exception of Sierra)
has stopped producing software for the IIgs when Apple officially
declared that they won't support the II line anymore. The dagger in
the back came from Apple Inc., not from the pirates.

However, I agree that piracy can hurt the developers. I think that the
only way to fight piracy is to let the users feel that they are
stealing the fruits of the labour of programmers. I don't think that
sledge-hammer methods like copy protection, legal wars or flames will
change anything. I think that the user must learn that he is killing
his own system if he only steals and never buys...

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