----- Original Message ----- From: "Philip S Tellis" philip.tellis@iname.com Subject: Re: [ILUG-BOM] Promoting Linux
Ok...i havent been chking my mail for some time..so i missed all this action, and this thread has been really interesting....great inputs from some of the guys here but i thought i'll play a little devil's advocate here...
While it is accpeted that software piracy is a problem and must be curtailed, it is also possible that we aren't striking at the cause of the problem.
The cause is not wanting to pay...greed....wanting a free ride..plain ol human wanting !
What most software consumers fail to realise, is that software is not a product that one buys off the shelf like a tube of toothpaste. The reproduction costs of software are negligible and there are no raw materials involved. The software industry is therefore falls into the services sector rather than the manufacturing sector. More time is spent in providing support for software than is spent in developing it.
The "negligible cost" that you are referring to is the cost of making the delivery mechanism(CDs), and not the product per se. There are development costs..i need to keep fixing bugs, i need to keep adding features.. to do that, i need to keep testing..i need to keep talking to my customers about the performance of my product...and i need to keep paying salaries to my developers. and i need to keep paying bills... You cannot compare the traditional model of raw materials + labour = unit cost with software products...
Once this is understood, it becomes clear that the software itself should not be priced highly, but after sales service and support should be charged for.
Why? It took me so much time/energy/brains to make the product..why shouldnt i charge for it? And what is 'high price"? its relative to what money i'll save for the client...or what value he attaches to my product! What if the client doesnt require support? where do i make money?
As consumers too, one must realise the difference between support contracts for proprietary software and free software. Proprietary support agreements give you support only for the systems that you have purchased support for. In other words, if you own ten systems, but only have licences for five of them, you will get support for those five only.
Whoa! when i sell support, i sign Service level agreements... To provide quick and efficient service, i need to have an idea of the number of users that i will have to service..can i service them properly if i dont know how many systems they have? How do i decide how many engineers i need on standby? The rationale behind pricing support per user is sound business logic...the more users the client has, more the manpower/resources i need for giving him proper service..
well..just some points that i thought needed a different viewpoint....
regards, kishor PS: btw, does anyone remember the name of the guy who trademarked "Linux" in his name in India?