DISQUS

Technology Liberation Front: The Technology Liberation Front » Archive » First Sale and the Software Industry

  • MikeT · 2 years ago
    Under the current model, retailers (aside from college bookstores) have no incentive to card people buying academic licenses. The software is generally shipped at cost to them, so a retailer can easily make a $195 profit off the sale of an academic license of Microsoft Office as just one example. If they want to control the loss of revenue, they have to focus on enforcing contractual relationships with the retailers instead.
  • e_f · 2 years ago
    Great post.

    I see so much concentration on what is necessary because it will support business plans, business plans which are supposedly required to support 'innovation.'

    One item I'd like to see is inclusion of how some recent decisions might affect this. In particular, the Blizzard v. BNetD decison would seem to bear on this issue.
  • e_f · 2 years ago
    Mike:

    The easing of restrictions on academic sales is a way that Microsoft has stealthily lowered the sales prices of their software, this is part of their effort to head off growth in FOSS.

    Like a crack dealer, MS would be happy to give the first 'hit' away for free, especially to school children.
  • eric · 2 years ago
    enigma_foundry, if you believe that, then you should be glad if MikeT's suggestions for very strict enforcement at the retail level is realized, since it will limit the use of Microsoft OS by our impressionable youth (addling their minds and setting them on the road to commercial software addication). We all know that Windows is a "gateway" to worse things. :)
  • Mark Blafkin · 2 years ago

    Tim is also glossing over the most important point. Free software depends on "license agreements" as much if not more than Ballmer and Co. By my reading, if the courts were to fully subscribe to the ideas of Fred VL and Tim, the entire Copy Left movement would be crippled. They would not be able to impose any of the limitations on use/redistribution that are contained in the various versions of the GPL. The proprietary software industry can probably survive without shrinkwrap licensing as Tim suggests, but I don't see how the Open Source/Free Software communities can survive under the legal framework that Tim is espousing.