NOW: paradigm shift

Sun Sep 23 21:16:39 PDT 2007

It's certainly anyones right to offer their services and their creations 
under whatever terms they want.
That was never in question.

It's just also anyones right to try as much as possible avoid being put in a 
position where they can't operate under their own power. Paying for services 
and property/products is fine. Knowingly entering a deal where someone else 
has the power to shut you down is another. Or worse, where you know without 
a doubt that you _will_ be shut down, repeatedly every 2 or 3 years, 
forever, and there is only one single source of the magic key to turn you 
back on each time that happens. Agreeing to that is plain stupid. If you 
have no choice then you have no choice and it's more logical to accept that 
kind of deal than not operate at all, but it's entirely correct and logical 
to view that arrangement as something that needs to be changed as soon as 
possible all the while that arrangement is in effect.

Yes it's certainly a common arrangement that most people don't fight that 
vigorously. That doesn't make it right and it doesn't make someone wrong for 
recognizing that it's a bad deal and striving to minimize being entangled in 
such deals. The fact that lots of software companies do a thing and lots of 
customers allow it, really doesn't mean squat in the way of justification or 
validation. Just as the fact that a lot of people successfully get away with 
stealing software doesn't justify that either.

The only honorable way to make a continuouis living writing/selling software 
IMO is to keep selling to new customers and keep writing updates and 
upgrades that existing customers voluntarily buy, and via services & 
customization.

Trying to analogize with other requirements of doing business don't really 
apply, or I guess they do, they just don't disprove my point. Not many other 
things you might need to buy are immortal. But neither are they unique and 
supplied by only one source and irreplaceable with some other similar 
equivalent. Any machine you buy will probably break down some time, but you 
are also free to take care of it and keep it alive forever. If the 
manufacturer injected some artificial disabler that if you moved the machine 
to some other building, or changed anything about the existing building or 
site, it stopped working until the original vendor re-enabled it, Would you 
buy such a machine if you had any other choice? If you had no choice, would 
you not express dislike at the very least? When you by services, which don't 
last beyond the act of performing the service, (even if the results might 
last a while), generally the person or company providing the service is not 
the only one in existence. When you need more later, you can get someone if 
not the same guy as last time.

But the typical software copy protection scheme is a newly possible thing 
since the advent of software, and basically a rip off, a bad deal. You 
depend on the software, but unlike machines or property or services you 
can't reasonably substitute something else (it's usually possible, but only 
at the unreasonable expense of starting up all over again from scratch), and 
it's garanteed to break in a couple years, and every couple years, and 
unlike property or services only this one special person can keep 
reactivating it. You can't choose to invest in redundancy and security. 
Basically you _can't_ perform due dilligence, which should be anyones right 
in all things. I'd say that knowingly accepting an arrangement like that is 
basically incompetent management putting your business in such a position of 
being at the mercey of some other entities whim or existence. If something 
happens and you rely on something, and it can't be renewed, and your 
business suffers from it, it's not an act of god and no ones fault, it's the 
fault of whoever knowingly accepted that arrangement if there was any other 
choice. It's just not wrong to seek to avoid this. Especially, doubly so now 
that it's long since been shown to be a fact of life and not a theory or 
fearmongering.

-bkw

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "GCC Consulting" <gccconsulting at comcast.net>
To: "'Ron Kracht'" <rkracht at filegate.net>; "'Walter Vaughan'" 
<wvaughan at steelerubber.com>
Cc: "'filePro'" <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 23, 2007 10:03 PM
Subject: RE: NOW: paradigm shift

> Top post:
>
> We as developers sell time.  Time may be the form of an application; time
> may be in the form of consulting (advise); time may be .....
>
> The one truism I have learned over the years is that "time" is not valued 
> by
> some as much as a physical product.
>
> Now time is not just seconds/minutes ticking off on a clock.  Time is our
> accumulated knowledge and our ability to apply that knowledge.
>
> You log into a client's system or arrive there to correct a problem.  You
> take care of it with relative ease as you have seen the problem before or
> are aware of how to correct the problem.  You render a bill for your
> service.  Many times, your client really has no idea of what it took to
> correct the problem.  He gets your bill and complains, "you were here for
> only xxx, why is you bill so high?"
>
> Now you must support the reason for billing them the amount you did.  If 
> you
> had delivered a widget to him and told him it would cost xxx, he most 
> likely
> would have accepted the price as it is a tangible object that can be seen
> and touched.
>
> I'll relate a personal situation which happened to me many years ago. I 
> had
> a friend as a client and had written software for his lace and embroidery
> business.  His partner always questioned by bills and after a while I
> decided that I could no longer afford to have them as an account.  As I 
> had
> licensed the application I had written using filePro, when they wanted 
> some
> additional programming, they went to small computer and contracted for a
> programmer.  I gave them a release to have this person modify my code 
> which
> was on their system.
>
> I had not been in their office for over a year and while the programmer 
> from
> small computer was there, the computer crashed.  Tandy Model 16 Xenix with 
> a
> 35Mb hard drive and a Bernoulli box for backup.  My friends partner blamed
> me for the crash.  I explained that their secretary had specific
> instructions for backing up the system each night on her bulletin board.
>
> They called me in to see if I could recover their data.  This was just
> before Thanksgiving.  I worked through Wednesday night and had an 
> agreement
> that a check would be there for me on Friday when I arrived to finish up 
> the
> job.  Well, there was no check.  I called my "friend" at home and asked 
> him
> where my check was.  He said his partner didn't want to pay me as he felt 
> it
> was my fault and his brother told him it was an easy job to recover the
> data.
>
> My answer to him at that point was to have his partner come in and recover
> the data himself.  My friend came in a cut me a check in the agreed upon
> amount. We used the same bank so I deposited it immediately.
>
> I was able to get back most of his costing file, about 2000 of 2400 items.
> I could have recovered all of his billing information but was annoyed 
> enough
> to only restore billing through the end of March of that year.  His 
> billing
> clerk had to rekey all of the missing items.
>
> We all have had incidents like this or something similar.
>
> We may not agree with fptech's licensing but to some extent it is 
> protecting
> our work product.  How would or do you feel when you find out someone has
> copied your application and is using it without paying you for it?  I had
> this happen with my first major application.  I quickly wrote in code to
> incapacitate the software if it was moved off the original machine it was
> installed on.
>
> So, why is fptech or any other software company different?  Now I may 
> differ
> on how the license is implemented, i.e. sessions rather the seats, and 
> some
> other items, but they do have a right to insure that their software is not
> pirated.  Just like we need cash flow from our work product, so do they.
>
> Richard Kreiss
> GCC Consulting
>
>
>
> Our ime and softeware
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From:
>> filepro-list-bounces+gccconsulting=comcast.net at lists.celestial
>> .com
>> [mailto:filepro-list-bounces+gccconsulting=comcast.net at lists.c
>> elestial.com] On Behalf Of Ron Kracht
>> Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 4:57 PM
>> To: Walter Vaughan
>> Cc: filePro
>> Subject: Re: NOW: paradigm shift
>>
>> Walter Vaughan wrote:
>> > Ron Kracht wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> >> You do not correctly understand.
>> >>
>> >
>> > I think the paradigm shift is that some people are quite
>> comfortable
>> > with paying for support contracts but are unwilling to continue
>> > treating and paying for a pattern of bits on a disk as if they are
>> > physical objects that consume space with a relation between
>> consumption and cost to deliver.
>> >
>> I recognize that thinking exists and that it affect perceived
>> value, I'm just not sure it's always valid outside of mass
>> consumer markets - especially in the case of a tool that
>> allows you to earn/save money.  If that person is making or
>> saving money using a software tool that someone else created
>> is that significantly different than any physical tool.
>> The equation is still the same, is the tool worth the cost?
>> Both 'worth' and 'cost' can mean different things to
>> different people. One person may calculate worth simply as
>> 'how much income I can generate in a given period of time'
>> another person might factor in availability of support,
>> timing of bug fixes, priorities given to special needs,
>> reliability of the toolmaker, availability of source code,
>> cost of other comparable tools, or a number of other factors.
>>  The same thing is true of cost. It might be a simple dollars
>> and cents calculation, it might be more complex.  Almost
>> certainly the calculation would ultimately involve relative
>> value - is the worth of this tool (however they choose to
>> calculate that) compared to the cost of this tool (however
>> they choose to calculate that) greater than any comparable
>> tool or set of tools.
>> That's a process I can understand.  I even understand when a
>> customer decides they can get more value with other tools -
>> even though I may not always agree with that decision.
>>
>> I'm not sure I understand the mentality that says because the
>> physical nature of this tool is nothing more that bits on a
>> disk it has no more value that the disk. To me that is like
>> saying a prescription medication should cost no more that the
>> total cost of the physical ingredients.
>>
>>
>> > Currently the world is in a flux between boxed software
>> mentality, and SAAS.
>> > No one likes change. Niche markets will be able to hold out longer,
>> > but eventually "the computer is the network" will win out.
>> >
>> We're working toward a model that will more easily allow our
>> customers to be a provider of services. If our work creates
>> tools that bring value to our customers it does not seem
>> wrong to me to expect to be compensated for what goes into
>> creating and maintaining those tools.
>> Creating tools does not fit easily into the software as a
>> service model.
>> I suppose we could reinvent ourselves by using our software
>> to create services rather than selling it to others but in
>> the long run there would seem to me to be a lot less value created.
>>
>> Ron
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Filepro-list mailing list
>> Filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
>> http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/listinfo/filepro-list
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Filepro-list mailing list
> Filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/listinfo/filepro-list
> 