On Thursday 27 January 2005 9:59 pm, Magnus Danielson wrote: > From: Marvin Dickens <marvindickens@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Subject: Re: gEDA-user: More footprint stuff > Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 21:41:57 -0500 > Message-ID: <200501272142.01835.marvindickens@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > > > On Thursday 27 January 2005 8:26 pm, Stuart Brorson wrote: > > > The basic problem with software is explained by Capitalist Economics > > > 101: Software's marginal cost of reproduction is basically nil, so > > > in a ideally competitive market its price will tend over time to > > > zero. Ways to get around this iron law of economics are: > > > > > > * Disrupt perfect competition, e.g. somehow become a monopoly, or > > > prevent customers from having a real choice in the market place. > > > > > > > > > * Keep the market in flux via research and/or constant introduction > > > of new features/products, so that prices can never asymptote all > > > the way to zero. > > > > > > * Don't sell software. Give it away as a loss-leader for some other > > > product which doesn't have zero cost of reproduction. > > > > > > > > > You can see all three methods at play in the real world all the time. > > > > > > Stuart > > > > There is always IBM's favorite: Tie the software to the hardware so you > > can't use the hardware without the software and visa-versa. > > Actually, it wasn't until IBM started charging for software that others > also started to see buissness in selling software itself. > > If they only had avoided that step. :/ True. I also remember when I was a child back in the mid 60's my dad leased computers from IBM. At that time, IBM did not sell them. They *only* leased them. It wasn't until the 70's when IBM was sued for anti-trust by the government did they begin to sell them (Which was part of the settlement with the government). Incidentally, it was on these leased computers that I got my first taste of computing. As I recall, on this machine, I had the huge choice of of programming languages: Assembler or cobol. I could, however, script using APL and send output to a selectric typewriter. At the time, it was so cool: I could name a file using up to *5 letters* (I could go on and on...). And to think: The computer itself was the size of a VERY LARGE stand up freezer. When configured with all of the peripherials, it took up a huge room at his office. Regards Marvin
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