Slashdot Mirror
Free 3D Animation DAZ|Studio 1.0 Released
Thyme3333 writes "DAZ Productions, Inc. has officially released DAZ|Studio 1.0, a free 3D figure posing and animation software package. DAZ has a made a commitment to keep the DAZ|Studio core application free to the public for as long as possible by relying on the revenues generated by the purchase of content available in the DAZ online store. To obtain a free copy of DAZ|Studio, users must register for a free account on the DAZ website and agree to participate in the company's aptly-named "Tell-Ware" program, which asks that each DAZ|Studio user share information about DAZ|Studio and/or the DAZ website with at least two friends." Good to see that more companies are trying to keep their software free, but perhaps the Slashdot crowd could offer advice on a better business model than spam and merchandising?
Sheesh! And they talk about *my* gall!
It's really not a difficult concept to understand, but if you want the Cliff's Notes version of my point: "Nothing in life is free."If you want to see what happens with a society tries to avoid the basic laws of economics go vacation in North Korea (or to a lesser extent, Cuba).
OK, now let's learn something about computers: When I grow corn, if I give it away, I have no corn and no money to buy something else. When I knit a sweater and give it away, I have no sweater and no money to compensate me for my effort.
When I make software and give it away, however, I'm dealing with something that can be copied. That can be reproduced. Endlessly. One copy of a program is exactly the same thing as ten billion copies of a program. Once I've written my program to solve my problem, it costs nothing for me to make a copy of it and let somebody else have it.
Your jibe at pirated software would be justified, if you were indeed talking about pirated software. It is brainless to steal that which can be legally gotten for free. But you mean to attack Linux, as your misplaced communist reference shows.
If you knew anything about computers *or* economics, you would be able to see that the economic model (be it capitalist, socialist, or communist) falls apart when applied to something like computer data which is not bound by physical constraints. Show me one of your sweaters or ears of corn, which somebody need produce only once and then can be freely copied forever, and I'll start paying attention to economics as applied to computer data.
In case somebody equally dense (I see 'em coming!) goes, "Hah! What about movies and books and songs, then? They're all media which can be re-produced forever for free!" No, dummy - when I produce a movie, I am not likely to get the same enjoyment out of watching the movie when I made it myself and know how it ends! Authors of books seldom spend evenings curled up reading them - they had to re-read them so many times during the proof-reading and editing process, they're likely sick of them by then! But the window manager or editing utility that I make can benefit me as much as it can benefit anyone else. This is a *unique* *category* we're talking about, here.