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You are supporting communism! Thats right, the CEO of Huawei is a fully paid up member of the Chinese Communist Party.

In 2001 you had to go through the trouble of Pirating MP3's to support communism but these days you only have to buy the modem.

This guy did an empirical study;

http://hackvan.com/pub/stig/articles/why-do-people-register-shareware.html

We would love to think the honour system works.

it doesn't.

Or perhaps a regular size lap and a Beowulf cluster of iPhones...

Now that would be an awesome utility belt...

Thank you, Techno Bill.

I don't see how it's possible today to argue that our children don't need exposure to computing to succeed.

Tacking "computers" onto the existing public school system will certainly prevent most children from ever becoming an expert in the field.

*ding* "okay class, time to put down your english books. We're going 'learn computers' now."
50 minutes later:
*ding* "enough computers, time for History! Let's all get excited about History!"

(This is Gatto's third lesson: indifference. "Nothing important is ever finished in my class, nor in any other class I know of. Students never have a complete experience except on the installment plan.")

When you say that children need "exposure" to computers, that seems to indicate to me that you think they some kind of formal introduction. My computer learning experiences were a process of discovery; all the computer "lessons" and "classes" I had in the government's schools were mostly worthless. If all they did was "here's a computer, look what I can do with it, have fun" that'd be one thing. But that's NOT how the government "exposes" topics in their child-prisons. First there are lessons, and then there are tests to grade the student's intake of the material. Then the kids who don't care about the topic are put in remedial classes, and thus begins the downward spiral...

Computers are snake oil, offered by politicians as a fix to the structural problems in their schools. The only fix needed is to restore freedom to the educational process. Let the children pick what they want to learn about, and how they want to learn it.

You can read here, linked from TFA that it was from April '94 through February '95. I rather doubt that the numbers would be much more different now -- take a look at the Movable Type example cited later in the article, which covers totally voluntary donationware in the 2000s.

(It was my blog, incidentally. I don't know why the submitter had interest in a days old blog about a years old experiment, but eh, I'm happy you found it interesting.)

Slashdotters will almost certainly find the original article at http://hackvan.com/pub/stig/articles/why-do-people -register-shareware.html as or more interesting as my blog summary of it, which strips out all the detail in favor of talking about another example (Movable Type) and two current programs (one mine, one somebody else's) and their different crippling strategies (features vs. time).

(I would have modded the parent up but I get 2 points for free and modding only gives the AC 1. Sorry, AC.)

Summary links to some guy's blog who briefly mentions the test then explains how he cripples his software.

The actual test is here

Ok, but do you have studies to back that 80%? Or are you just guessing?

Ultimately everything is a guess. There are only levels of certainty.

I do have some support for the 80% figure, though it doesn't come from a study published in some journal. It is the result of experiment. Hey, there's nothing wrong with that, is there? That's the whole point of science. It doesn't depend on what some authority or journal says. You can do the experiment yourself and see what happens.

Anyway, the experiment is described here.

The experiment was set-up suprisingly well. A single variable is altered, and that is also done randomly to prevent biasing.

Basically the author tries to determine how many people will "voluntarily" pay him for his software if they don't have to. When given the option, only about 20% actually pay him.

The obvious solution is to emulate Techno Bill

It is standard operating procedure to include in SEC filings discussion of any factors that will or reasonably may negatively impact business.

That is true, but some of these factors are more far-fetched and amusing than others. My all time favourite was the bubble company NetJ.com. I could never describe NetJ as well as Michael Lewis did here, but in summary, the documents NetJ filed with the SEC indicated that as a matter of policy, it had no business plan. However, the principal risk was not that no business would result in no profit; on the contrary, the main risk identified was competition.

In the article here, shareware author Colin Messit discovered that less than 20% of the people using his software would pay for it voluntarily.

He wrote his software in such a way that a user installing it would have a 50/50 chance of getting a crippled version or a non-crippled version at time of installation. When people registered, they sent their serial numbers which encoded whether or not they had the crippled version or the "honor system" version.

He discovered that the crippled version was registered (people sent money) 5 times as often as the "honor system" version.

Conclusion? Most people only pay if they have to.

On the surface making sure kids stay in school and learn gives them the best chance for success as adults..

Where do Springfield Cartographers fit into this map.

This modest experiment suggests that most people, if given the chance, will not pay for software that they should pay for.

The experiment found that only about 1 in 5 will "do the right thing" and pay.

Taken together with Agent Smith's insightful words:
"Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague. And we are... the cure."

I think the message is clear - Mother Earth is trying to get rid of us.

As far as I can remember from various conversations with some japanese people the voluntary export restraint (VER) was a product of protectionism from both Japanese and American car producers and USA.

In 1981 the american car producers was struggling because off:
1. The high oil price.
2. Competition from fuel efficient smaler cars from Japan.
So Japan, affraid that the US Congress might impose trade restrictions or quotas came up with VER.
Originaly the Japanese manufacturers did not like the idea, but after a couple of months they found out that the system with quotas controlled in Japan would split the market between them (make it difficault for smaller producers to get export quotas) and prevent price competition in both Japan and USA.
American manufacturers wanted the VER as it would give them time to restructure(something that is questionable that happened) and Reagan wanted it because of pressure to protect jobs in the idustry.

Unconfirmed rumors has it that there was some pressure on Japan from USA about the VER. Something about USA protecting Japan aginst China.., trade relations and stuff like that. We probably won't know if these rumors are true until stuff gets declassified. Take it with a grain of salt.

So after the start of the VER the Japanese auto stocks rose with 50%, the export fell with 120000 units the first year and later rose as they expanded the quotas. The american manufacturers lived happy for 3-4 years.
After 1981 the Japanese maufacturers started to export higher value cars to get more for each unit. As the american manufacturers never thought about using the time to restructure and improve their production and instead spent thier time lobbying for import restrictions they did decent until Japanese manufacturers started to build factories in USA in the late eighties.

Two interesting articles on this subject:
The Japanese Automobile Cartel and The Philosophy of Trade Protectionism, Its Costs and Its Implications. Both are kind of right wing/ pro free trade for USA, but good stuff anyway.

And what would RMS say?

He would surely say this.

Here's one of the Techno-Bill strips. A classic.

The peak of production was in 1999 when 38,900 individual titles were released. But by 2001 this was down to 27,000. Releases grew again in 2002 but were still below the previous high.

Isn't it possible that the lack of new releases is a consequence of music piracy? Isn't it possible that some people are consciously not releasing because they are afraid their work will be stolen?

When is the RIAA going to address these concerns? How can keep saying it's all file sharing when it's obvious these factors come into play.

Well, file sharing very likely plays a role. This experiment with shareware showed that only about 20% of the people pay for the shareware they use if they are not forced to pay. I'm sure the same thing happens with other media.

Here is the text of the article:

Why Do People Register, Does Crippling Work, Does Anybody Really Know?
Colin Messitt

Most authors... ...like I did, enter the Sharerware industry with the belief that nobody is going to pay them for their software unless they take some positive steps to ensure that happens. The real question of course is what the most effective steps are.

There are many, many things that must happen for a shareware program to become sucessful (and I define sucessful as producing a good income for the author, not just being a widely used and acclaimed program), but there are five that seem to me to form the fundamentals for success.

Five Fundamentals For Success
First, the program must be something that users actually need, which, sadly, a lot of shareware releases aren't.

Second, it must actually be good, and again the vast majority of shareware releases are second-rate and buggy (and consider that this becomes more important for shareware because it is much simpler for the user to reject it than for him/her to reject commercial shrink-wrapped software if he/she doesn't like it).

Third, potential users must be alerted to the availability and desirability of the program - good old fashioned marketing that, again, a lot of shareware authors either don't enjoy or aren't very good at.

Fourth, the product must get into the hands of the potential evaluator, either by his getting the evaluation version himself (from a BBS or Vendor or the Internet etc.), or by it being presented to him in some way (on a magazine cover disk, bundled with other software or hardware etc.).

And finally, assuming the user actually needs the program after all the preceeding steps, there must be a reason for him to pay for it.

Industry Myths
As anybody reading this will know, there are a vast number of "experts" in the shareware industry who purport to know what works and what doesn't, and they put forward any number of reasons why a user would pay for a piece of shareware, including additional features, removal of nag screens, printed manuals and just plain honesty. These so called "experts" also often put forward the myth that crippled software doesn't get distributed, doesn't sell and harms the shareware industry in general.

However, if you ask for statistical evidence of any of these claims you won't get any. And perhaps most sadly these mythical beliefs have been enshrined in what is known as the ASP's Policy on No Crippling (PONC) and taken to be gospel without a shred of evidence. Indeed people who put forward alternative views were decried in almost the same way as people who suggested the Earth was round back in the Middle Ages.

When I started attempting to market my programs as shareware I effectively time-limited them, and achieved a reasonable if not spectacular measure of success. Then I listened to the "experts" and thought that maybe I was doing things wrong, and would have more success by removing the time-limiting.

My registration rates went down dramatically, even though there were the suggested incentives of a manual an

I found this interesting experiment concerning shareware registration/payment and I think it has some bearing on discussions about music copying, file trading and sharing.

The same experiment is also related here.

What it shows is that people were 5 times more likely to pay for the shareware when they were made to pay versus relying on the honor system. So when the shareware was "free", only 1/5th of the time was the author paid for his work.

The extension of this result into the discussion of music sharing I think is obvious.

No one is superior to this guy.

• Barry Trotter harry potter parody article.
  
• gone with the wind judgment on parody.
  
• peta parody judgment
  
• copyright article
  

> Can someone find that cartoon?

Here.

Check it out! They sampled Linus for the techno remix of RMS's free software song!

Check it out! They sampled Linus for the techno remix of RMS's free software song!

I was thinking weasel. Someone should do a parody cover. I've always liked this one.

I made sure to cite that study in my article. It was a major factor in our decision making process.

Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.

Link's broken, should be here. Looks like my browser's treatement of textboxes doesn't like long names with dashes...

I don't have any links off-hand, but I've read many accounts of people who have worked with RMS and came away hating the man because he would couldn't stand to let go of control.

If I had more than 120 characters to work with, I might have the quote followed by "J. R. Oppenheimer, leader of the Manhattan Project, (possibly mis-)quoting Vishnu in the Baghavad Gita, upon successful first test of a nuclear device at Trinity test site, Alamogordo, New Mexico". If I had more room, I would likely also include Bainbridge's quote, which I really like.

Now we're way off topic and the only reason that I'm posting this is because I've had several questions about it. I don't mind the questions. I think it's a relevant quote even for Lord of the Rings. It's easy for me to think of the ring as a nuclear device. None of the good guys want to use it except Boromir. How many of us would be able to resist the temptation to put on the ring? Think of all the good you could do with it. :) Think of all the evil that you would unleash if you did use it. Tolkien was teaching us, as do all good storytellers. Power corrupts. Ultimate power corrupts absolutely.

I'm out. Peace.

I would say you make money based on how big or user-unfriendly your software is. Easy-to-use software that is a relatively small download will sell less, since the convenience-factors of having it on CD or getting a manual matter less.
You have to give people a reason to pay. "I use the software daily and it makes my life easier" is not a reason to pay for it for the majority of people. See also http: //hackvan.com/pub/stig/articles/why-do-people-regi ster-shareware.html

I could go on, but I think it is obvious that not maintaining that source code is intellectual property, but service, still allows for a whole lot of money to be made by the programmers.

And I suppose that is why Redhat et al are raking in money instead of losing money? Oh wait, they're not...

Hmm, I heard something about it on BBC Radio4, I think the price was slightly over £1000. I don't think I'd buy one of these (I'm sure others will), but the other Vacuums he makes are excellent.

As a previous post stated, Dyson is a bit of a cult figure. How can you argue with the inventor of the Ballbarrow (a wheelbarrow, with a spherical wheel ;-).

I can understand him going mad on patents now, as he's been ripped off in the past by other companies. Here's a brief (if biased) article. I still don't think he should have been awarded the patents he got for this machine, mind.

I met the inventor, James Dyson, earlier this year; he's quite a cult figure in the UK having re-invented the vacumn cleaner (by removing the bag, and using an internal vortex for suction.)

anyhow, he's a major engineering guy, and is trying to spearhead a movement to bring engineering and design back into schools.

he's a top man...check out here