Haven't read it, but other popular scientfic literature led me to a number of conclusions:
evolution is not bound on life only but exists for any class of entities that somehow affect their own existence (are part of some cyclic causal chain). Most of them rely on underlying supporting processes to apparently fool entropy.
life is almost inevitable consequence of evolution (which is imannent to dynamic systems) in world of matter and energy and therefore probably abundant in Universe.
civilisations as we know them on Earth, aren't nescecity. Most of the time, evolution brushes out best-fit, well equipped species which don't waste time on suboptimal and indirect life strategies like creating a material culture. And even when they do... see Jarred Dimond's "Germs, Guns and Steel".
Therefore, we are more likely to find dominant inteligent life on a life-bearing planet in the form of "Alien" (as in "Alien vs. Predator") or, if we are lucky, form of cheerful and playful Cetaceans like our Earth's (Ocean's) dolphins and orca whales then in the form of "Alf" or "E.T." or mr. Spock (or "Predator" as in... ).
I like how he irrigates the farms. The sweating of the pipes below ground is a great idea. It seems much more efficient than spraying water everywhere, and having a lot of it evaporate.
I like that part very much, too. So many arable areas in dry climate were salted to "death" by irrigation with "fresh" water from nearby rivers. The water evaporates, salt stays forever (when there is a little or no rain)
Just one word of caution: This WILL affect climate (and oceans) when used extensively.
If it is OK to operate that shuttle in space, but suicidal to land it, why not keep it there "parked" as useful space vehicle/ISS construction tool?
Or, establish a "shuttle chopshop" on ISS (or separate pitstop orbital station) to canibalize broken ones in order to repair others if or when need be.
Why not take it to the extreme: make "nanobateries" which align themself properly in a forcefield (magnetic or electrostatic), then pour nonconducting liquid suspension full of them into the tank, like a fuel, let a pump bring them into "juice sucker" device (instead of carburator) which aligns and discharges them at needed rate (Power = Energy / Time) and then another tank collects used ones?
Oh, wait...
*ducks*
"...and beyond" - Voyager is quite *beyond*, but still... haven't got much photos to send back to pay the phone bill, I guess.
Now it struck me: this whole "astro business" IS mostly tourism, science exploration is piggybacked there just for flavour, sort of guide's talk to make sightseeing a bit more interesting.
A little bit OT, but now that You mentioned it, general broadcast is, in a way You describe (2.), not different from one-to-one communication.
Why? Well,
because we have selection devices, tuners, in our radio and TV receivers and
we choose and even pay too, to access information presented in newspapers.
Therefore, that could better be described as "annonimous asymetric one-to-one communication". If network server couldn't tell (apart from not caring about, as it is) who asks information, how would it be different from "general broadcast" as we know it?
Only communication which could be honestly labeled "general broadcast" is yelling loud in the streets or putting it on billboards.
The point of all this is that classification of communications based on its alleged publicity is vague. So, any regulation that deals with aspect of "public" needs serious rethinking, or else the freedom of communication ("free speech") as whole will be allways a nuisance to law.
Here is a new procedure: cameras scans faces (Please look toward the camera,... thank you!) of passengers passing thru the RFID scanning gates. The digitised picture retrived from passport chip is matched with camera picture and you walk,... or get held for a thorough check if there is a mismatch. Seems like a potential time saver.
You CAN arrange them (command them to arrange themselves) into planar sheets, or any other structure type.
It is almost like magic: submicroscopic gadgets lie around in dirt, unseen, then when you hit the remote, a metal construction begins to emerge, slowly though, but if they are programmed to recursively build larger and larger mechnical manipulators as needed, then speed of construction rises toward the end...Besides, constructions made out of minute and inteligent identical parts may "self-cure" (gracefuly degrade, by rearrangement) if damaged!
At first glance, future developing efficent procedures for building macroscopic technical systems of nanobots seems like a very big new area of interdisciplinary engineering expertise - something like a cross between programming, architecture, mechanical engineering and organisational/management sciences, perhaps chemistry and biology, too. Before we have that idea tools in our pocket, nanobots for themself don't mean much, but we will need them (or at least a software to simulate them in 3D) to practice and develop new skills. This may prove to be the ultimate engineering method, one for everything, real Santa Claus machine(...-let, a swarm of them, that is), held back only by its cost.
I agree. There should be a law that gives teachers right to a small (given the number of teachers one usually have in course of education) "cut" in income of the student, according to some well-designed system. Some statistics should be involved, too. If attending classes of a certain teacher is associated with better achievement and income of former students, it is resonable to conclude that positive impact of that teacher is more significant then the impact other teachers had on all of those students.
Of course, there could be some very serious drawbacks:
none would want to teach students with learning associated- or even general success-impairing problems (i.e. non- good looking, speech disorders,... ) which could hold back their success regardless of education.
teaching associated with non-lucrative occupations and carriers would suffer loss of quality. The same goes for public schools in poor communities. Oh, wait... no, seriously, they wouldn't benefit as much as needed from such reform.
schools and teachers would put more energy into selecting "good material" and even worse, rejecting apparent "deadends", instead of making best out of what they've got.
It seems that any attempt to better teaching ends in some sort of even more elitistic school system. Of course, every society needs good elite but its wealth, strength and overall level of development is mostly percieved by looking at achievements of it's average, mediocre citizens.
Well, none can know everything in advance. The rules and corrective measures should be and are built as we go.
This is just a proof of principle. Later on, HMV garage probably will be designed.
Building sterility shouldn't be a problem. If you deliver it with precompressed gas in a bottle, no need to start a compressor either. Once again, armies will love that - silent construction.
I wonder if it could be placed directly underground thru narrow shaft (or, underwater, if attached to heavy anchoring weight?) and expand by supplying enaugh pressure from the surface? You get instant underground/underwater bases (i.e. on other planets as well)
Other modified uses for this technology I can think of:
Military (these applications may pose certain preferences in choosing the right fabric - say, kevlar(R)?):
fast hard-hull boat manufacturing as needed (army forced river crossing)
light armour for trucks, for armored personel carrier improvisation.
additional, expendable, "skirt" light armour (well, deflector for cumulative shells) for tanks
Civil (disaster relief):
fast manufacturing of wide crossection, low pressure pipeline (i.e. sewer system)
It doesn't require that, but sometimes what you have is an document designed for paper (ps, pdf, doc,... I need to correct myself if those are note-books) and some of us just can't comprehend the meaning of text from the screen without seeing complete page... while at the same time printer is more affordable then a good, large monitor which would enable a good view to complete page. Even with good display, one frequently has to follow the reference to a picture or part of text on some other page without losing the current page out of sight.
Besides, we all tend to read a lot during the day and I don't like sitting in front of a computer all that time. I like to carry around my reading material. To be truly efficient, we need to handle, dominate objects, not service them (like cabinet sewing machines, desktop computers, or even notebook computers). A book, a lefalet or smaller electronic gadgets are so much more dear then today computers (excluding responsivnest of the latter) to most of us, because they are so "handy" and manipulable (in direct sense).
We do need some kind of "paper page emulator", to avoid using to much actual paper (in other words, killing more trees) just for temporary reading.
Some day soon enaugh, we'll get computers which will be (among other things they do) replacement for most any paper document we read today (except perhaps legal ones) and I am sure they will have displays with characteristics similar to these.
Or, if someone invents "(Re)Printable Paperlike Sheet - RW" media, or a machine similar to printer - an "unprinter", capable of efficient removing toner from and "ironing out" regular paper sheets feeded to it, that would be almost as good as this, too, or perhaps even better. Why shredd and recycle, when you can save by reusing paper.
(Disclaimer: This may as well exist today without my notion of it, but please - no funny Dilbert references to "if only there was a machine to transfer information from one sheet of paper to many")
No need for sarcasm. Nevertheless, thank You for Your eye-opening comment. A clarification is in order and I hope it will be accepted in good faith:
I forgot (no pun intended) to write the pretext to my post, specifying that my comment is focused strictly on hydrogen as direct replacement for organic fuels in certain transportation units and other systems that require extended autonomy. I presumed that the context would be recognizable from the post.
The hydrogen is looked up to as preferable means of energy storage for fuel replacement, after the energy crisis is solved by nuclear fusion - or any other kind of electric powerplant which doesn't bear dire pollution problem.
The very core of my opinion, expressed and explained in grandparent post, is that we should avoid using hydrogen (for the reasons mentioned) for said purpose and try to produce synthetic organic fuels from intensively grown biomass instead (which would have effect of trapping atmospheric CO2 and we can choose to sequester carbon from, instead of converting the biomass into fuel, thus healing the atmosphere from greenhouse effect). Even so, production and use of these fuels should be limited to unavoidable applications only.
"This electric power thing":
Using rechargable electrical battery power in urban, short operation radii vehicles is not exactly new idea and there is promissing ongoing research in US and Japan.
OK, here is the deal for solar (high temp steam turbine thermo solar), without wasting acres of land:
erect a large solar dome in the center of populated urban area. Perhaps it could double as radio/WiFi/TV emmission tower, provided the temperature problem gets solved.
make deal with every landlord who has sunny roof and roof-to-dome line of sight to pay per wat of solar energy mirrored to dome (now there ought to be a way to measure it, or compute it, considering the area of a given mirror, distance from the dome, actual light power measured on a fixed distance from the mirror, to account for the cleanness of it, which is landlord's - mirror's owners' bussiness )
now, basically we have city-wide solar power plant, distributed maintainanace, we can even have competition - if I am a landlord and my building has heliostat mirror on the roof, but I am payed to little by dome A (perhaps I am to far), if company B puts another dome on a location more convinient for me, I may cancel the contract with dome A and switch to dome B.
Hydrogen leaks easily, burns invisibly and, finally, given the nasty habit of "considering details later" we humans have, it would all end up with excess oxigen air polution (and it may get MUCH worse then CO2 pollution), shrinking water supply of the planet (you think Earth is abundant with water...TODAY), while "insignificant" "tollerable" "acceptable" percent (thousand tons) of leaked hidrogen annually fly on the atmosphere roof and eventually disperse into outer space.
I say forget the whole Hydrogen idea! My vote goes to electric power for most anything but autonomous systems. And for them, bio fuels made from biomass grown intensively in hydroponic facilities with assistance of electric power for ilumination, pumping CO2-enriched air into water and for maintainance.
We'll have to catch atmospheric CO2 anyway, so why don't we use the same facilities for both energy storage AND carbon catching (I guess we can carbonize biomass for storage instead of fermenting it into fuel)?
Back to tidal - it's often old technology that has been in use in large scale facilities for decades (it's just hydro in plants like the big one in France) - and the problem is finding somewhere with enough of a tidal difference close enough to populated areas which is not already built up.
Why? Just make a huge circular (or some shape dictated by local streams and wind/wave pattern) concrete-wall "tub" on a shallow part of continental shelf and exploit the differences in water level that occur between the tub and sea. Using ferrocement (naval concrete, used to make ship hulls) and reinforcing columns for construction should do just fine.
Well, it is "take it or leave it" situation. Why should anyone in US care about others' legislation? It is clearly "not their problem". If anyone don't like it, they don't buy it.
No, I mean: "Pay me NOW for my effort and then get out of my face". I need obscurity only untill I sell this first copy and after that I couldn't care less, it is up to the buyer to ensure he doesn't lose his investment.
If you do that, you will lose most of your customers. Only big business will want to pay high prices (say a couple of hundred dollars) for any software, and when you reduce your target from everyone (1 billion people) to big businesses (10000?) it's a big deal.
Only if you continue thinking about it the same way you consider proprietary software. This way, initial cost may be somewhat high, but once your company buys it, they can install it on limitless number of "seats".
Besides, high price may be exactly why they should buy from you: say, i.e. "Digbrut inc." has to improve its design process because they suffer market losses from "light" competitor "Rotbart ltd.".
Now, You offer a copy of a software tool that is pricey, but it is FOSS (because you used the free code base to avoid reinventing the wheeel, although you have added Your own expertise in processes meaningful to both companies).
If Digbrut inc. realises that their most feared competitor cannot follow the bid and that you have obliged yourself not to sell at lower price, they will pay you high, because they will be buying themself a competitive edge therefore.
Now, back to "sell to billions": If you don't have any industrial and technological mumbo-jumbo secrets to offer and you write some nice software that fits the need of many or all, You can still put high price, it is just that You need to emphasize that it is free software and what it means, so that potential buyer can understand that it is an opportunity to earn money by selling copies of it to those who cannot afford to buy directly from You. Besides, even if they don't want to resell, if they intend to use it on several computers, for some "species" of software it may already beat the price of that many proprietary licences.
Of course, it is only fair that You make them understand before they buy it that their customers are their potential competitors too, so that they should be cautios with their pricing system and wary on the software's current market price. There is profit, but it is neither huge, nor persistent. Your "first hand" buyers are urged to buy early if they wish to profit. The system has to be restarted with new version/edition eventually.
What I see as a good thing is that eventually everyone gets the software they want, at a price that is right for them, only that comes sooner for those who need it now and can afford it, but later for those who can't. Just like the movies: pay higer price to see it fresh released in the theater, or wait some time to rent it from the DVD rentals, or wait even more to see it on TV for virtually free.
All this came to my mind when I made an "whatif":
What if the piracy was (or is?) inevitable? How would You secure that you are payed for your hard work? The only answer was: "Don't give it out of your hand without getting all (or most) you're good for, not on your life!!".
If mister bigtime copier can afford a CD or DVD factory and buy any software at any price in the store, then make gazillion copies and sell it at fraction of their price, well then he won't get a copy of mine from the store for 99.99!
The developer, of all people, has the right to have a cut in the deal.
The big "pirat" and others from his "industry" would have to attend an auction and one single copy would go to the highest bidder. Starting price would be, of course, slightly above my expenses or what I belive its worth is. (I know, I know, this is so 007-movie villain like, but this legal nature of transactions would make some businesses legal...provided they start paying tax!)
I can imagine that soon there would be a new profession: software broker and that the copies of new versions of popular software would be reselled several times, at higher prices each time, before they hit the factory floor and get out to the world.
Now, with copying becoming legal (but risky and heartattack-bringing) busine
How the hell can you make a living off of coding and giving everyone the ability to compile/install/modify and redistribute with no credit to yourself.
Well, actually you can:
First, you must not put the product on the web and let just anyone download a copy without paying you. OSS != zero price !!! I know it is so common today with F/OSS software projects, but no licence requires you to charge nothing (free beer), they just require that when you let it go (for a fee or otherwise), you keep nothing hidden or secret (free speech).
You need to price it high as hell (read further to find out why).
You sure have to make it worthy (and cost effective) to buyers, it has to be something that gives immediate edge to them, so that they wouldn't be inclined to give it away for free, or at all, for that matter.
If you think that there is a possibility that they would want to sell copies further, therefore competing with you with price, then it is wise to multiply initial price and say: "Well, it IS pricey, but you are totally allowed to sell (verbatim) copies yourself, so consider it AN (good) INVESTMENT."
To assure them, you may even offer an signed warranty that YOU will not at any given time sell copies at LOWER price then their, unless they charge more per copy then they payed you.
Finally: profit... untill prices drop while pyramid base widdens and someone finally burns his money and puts it on the web for free download (which was possible, but quite unlikely as long as the price to get a copy was too high). But I think that you would have enaugh time and money to prepare new and improved version and start a new cycle all over again.
Now, it is apparent that FIRST you have to build a good reputation and merit by actually giving away (freebeer) your initial versions, so that your customers would trust you, then slowly, as your project matures, raise your fee.
I didn't even made this up! Name any succesful (profitable) OSS provider and you'll see that they already do more or less as explained. Red Hat, any of the embedded Linux RT-ers,...
Slashdot Mirror
- evolution is not bound on life only but exists for any class of entities that somehow affect their own existence (are part of some cyclic causal chain). Most of them rely on underlying supporting processes to apparently fool entropy.
- life is almost inevitable consequence of evolution (which is imannent to dynamic systems) in world of matter and energy and therefore probably abundant in Universe.
- civilisations as we know them on Earth, aren't nescecity. Most of the time, evolution brushes out best-fit, well equipped species which don't waste time on suboptimal and indirect life strategies like creating a material culture. And even when they do
... see Jarred Dimond's "Germs, Guns and Steel".
Therefore, we are more likely to find dominant inteligent life on a life-bearing planet in the form of "Alien" (as in "Alien vs. Predator") or, if we are lucky, form of cheerful and playful Cetaceans like our Earth's (Ocean's) dolphins and orca whales then in the form of "Alf" or "E.T." or mr. Spock (or "Predator" as inJust one word of caution: This WILL affect climate (and oceans) when used extensively.
The 'Singing Frog' cartoon comes to mind.
If it is OK to operate that shuttle in space, but suicidal to land it, why not keep it there "parked" as useful space vehicle/ISS construction tool?
Or, establish a "shuttle chopshop" on ISS (or separate pitstop orbital station) to canibalize broken ones in order to repair others if or when need be.
Why not take it to the extreme: make "nanobateries" which align themself properly in a forcefield (magnetic or electrostatic), then pour nonconducting liquid suspension full of them into the tank, like a fuel, let a pump bring them into "juice sucker" device (instead of carburator) which aligns and discharges them at needed rate (Power = Energy / Time) and then another tank collects used ones? Oh, wait... *ducks*
... humanity had natural adjustment and savings. Why can't we have it today, with present technology?
We could work shorter time in winter days, when daylight is short and make up for it in the summer.
Or, if that's too radical idea, then at least, make adjustments of "official time" each day a bit, over the whole year.
"...and beyond" - Voyager is quite *beyond*, but still ... haven't got much photos to send back to pay the phone bill, I guess.
Now it struck me: this whole "astro business" IS mostly tourism, science exploration is piggybacked there just for flavour, sort of guide's talk to make sightseeing a bit more interesting.
A problem similar (and related) to spam filtering. How to tell ham from spam.
Maybe our browsers should have a-sort-of spam filters checking popups to see which should be held suppressed and which should maybe get presented?
Why? Well,
- because we have selection devices, tuners, in our radio and TV receivers and
- we choose and even pay too, to access information presented in newspapers.
Therefore, that could better be described as "annonimous asymetric one-to-one communication". If network server couldn't tell (apart from not caring about, as it is) who asks information, how would it be different from "general broadcast" as we know it?Only communication which could be honestly labeled "general broadcast" is yelling loud in the streets or putting it on billboards.
The point of all this is that classification of communications based on its alleged publicity is vague. So, any regulation that deals with aspect of "public" needs serious rethinking, or else the freedom of communication ("free speech") as whole will be allways a nuisance to law.
Here is a new procedure: cameras scans faces (Please look toward the camera, ... thank you!) of passengers passing thru the RFID scanning gates. The digitised picture retrived from passport chip is matched with camera picture and you walk, ... or get held for a thorough check if there is a mismatch. Seems like a potential time saver.
You CAN arrange them (command them to arrange themselves) into planar sheets, or any other structure type.
It is almost like magic: submicroscopic gadgets lie around in dirt, unseen, then when you hit the remote, a metal construction begins to emerge, slowly though, but if they are programmed to recursively build larger and larger mechnical manipulators as needed, then speed of construction rises toward the end...Besides, constructions made out of minute and inteligent identical parts may "self-cure" (gracefuly degrade, by rearrangement) if damaged!
At first glance, future developing efficent procedures for building macroscopic technical systems of nanobots seems like a very big new area of interdisciplinary engineering expertise - something like a cross between programming, architecture, mechanical engineering and organisational/management sciences, perhaps chemistry and biology, too. Before we have that idea tools in our pocket, nanobots for themself don't mean much, but we will need them (or at least a software to simulate them in 3D) to practice and develop new skills. This may prove to be the ultimate engineering method, one for everything, real Santa Claus machine(...-let, a swarm of them, that is), held back only by its cost.
Of course, there could be some very serious drawbacks:
- none would want to teach students with learning associated- or even general success-impairing problems (i.e. non- good looking, speech disorders,
... ) which could hold back their success regardless of education.
- teaching associated with non-lucrative occupations and carriers would suffer loss of quality. The same goes for public schools in poor communities. Oh, wait... no, seriously, they wouldn't benefit as much as needed from such reform.
- schools and teachers would put more energy into selecting "good material" and even worse, rejecting apparent "deadends", instead of making best out of what they've got.
It seems that any attempt to better teaching ends in some sort of even more elitistic school system. Of course, every society needs good elite but its wealth, strength and overall level of development is mostly percieved by looking at achievements of it's average, mediocre citizens.Well, none can know everything in advance. The rules and corrective measures should be and are built as we go.
Building sterility shouldn't be a problem. If you deliver it with precompressed gas in a bottle, no need to start a compressor either. Once again, armies will love that - silent construction.
I wonder if it could be placed directly underground thru narrow shaft (or, underwater, if attached to heavy anchoring weight?) and expand by supplying enaugh pressure from the surface? You get instant underground/underwater bases (i.e. on other planets as well)
Other modified uses for this technology I can think of:
Besides, we all tend to read a lot during the day and I don't like sitting in front of a computer all that time. I like to carry around my reading material. To be truly efficient, we need to handle, dominate objects, not service them (like cabinet sewing machines, desktop computers, or even notebook computers). A book, a lefalet or smaller electronic gadgets are so much more dear then today computers (excluding responsivnest of the latter) to most of us, because they are so "handy" and manipulable (in direct sense).
We do need some kind of "paper page emulator", to avoid using to much actual paper (in other words, killing more trees) just for temporary reading.
Some day soon enaugh, we'll get computers which will be (among other things they do) replacement for most any paper document we read today (except perhaps legal ones) and I am sure they will have displays with characteristics similar to these.
Or, if someone invents "(Re)Printable Paperlike Sheet - RW" media, or a machine similar to printer - an "unprinter", capable of efficient removing toner from and "ironing out" regular paper sheets feeded to it, that would be almost as good as this, too, or perhaps even better. Why shredd and recycle, when you can save by reusing paper.
(Disclaimer: This may as well exist today without my notion of it, but please - no funny Dilbert references to "if only there was a machine to transfer information from one sheet of paper to many")
Finally a comfortable way to read e-books without killing more trees.
I forgot (no pun intended) to write the pretext to my post, specifying that my comment is focused strictly on hydrogen as direct replacement for organic fuels in certain transportation units and other systems that require extended autonomy. I presumed that the context would be recognizable from the post.
The hydrogen is looked up to as preferable means of energy storage for fuel replacement, after the energy crisis is solved by nuclear fusion - or any other kind of electric powerplant which doesn't bear dire pollution problem.
The very core of my opinion, expressed and explained in grandparent post, is that we should avoid using hydrogen (for the reasons mentioned) for said purpose and try to produce synthetic organic fuels from intensively grown biomass instead (which would have effect of trapping atmospheric CO2 and we can choose to sequester carbon from, instead of converting the biomass into fuel, thus healing the atmosphere from greenhouse effect). Even so, production and use of these fuels should be limited to unavoidable applications only.
"This electric power thing":
Using rechargable electrical battery power in urban, short operation radii vehicles is not exactly new idea and there is promissing ongoing research in US and Japan.
I say forget the whole Hydrogen idea! My vote goes to electric power for most anything but autonomous systems. And for them, bio fuels made from biomass grown intensively in hydroponic facilities with assistance of electric power for ilumination, pumping CO2-enriched air into water and for maintainance.
We'll have to catch atmospheric CO2 anyway, so why don't we use the same facilities for both energy storage AND carbon catching (I guess we can carbonize biomass for storage instead of fermenting it into fuel)?
Why? Just make a huge circular (or some shape dictated by local streams and wind/wave pattern) concrete-wall "tub" on a shallow part of continental shelf and exploit the differences in water level that occur between the tub and sea. Using ferrocement (naval concrete, used to make ship hulls) and reinforcing columns for construction should do just fine.
New 007 movie ?
Well, it is "take it or leave it" situation. Why should anyone in US care about others' legislation? It is clearly "not their problem". If anyone don't like it, they don't buy it.
No, I mean: "Pay me NOW for my effort and then get out of my face". I need obscurity only untill I sell this first copy and after that I couldn't care less, it is up to the buyer to ensure he doesn't lose his investment.
Only if you continue thinking about it the same way you consider proprietary software. This way, initial cost may be somewhat high, but once your company buys it, they can install it on limitless number of "seats".
Besides, high price may be exactly why they should buy from you: say, i.e. "Digbrut inc." has to improve its design process because they suffer market losses from "light" competitor "Rotbart ltd.".
Now, You offer a copy of a software tool that is pricey, but it is FOSS (because you used the free code base to avoid reinventing the wheeel, although you have added Your own expertise in processes meaningful to both companies).
If Digbrut inc. realises that their most feared competitor cannot follow the bid and that you have obliged yourself not to sell at lower price, they will pay you high, because they will be buying themself a competitive edge therefore.
Now, back to "sell to billions": If you don't have any industrial and technological mumbo-jumbo secrets to offer and you write some nice software that fits the need of many or all, You can still put high price, it is just that You need to emphasize that it is free software and what it means, so that potential buyer can understand that it is an opportunity to earn money by selling copies of it to those who cannot afford to buy directly from You. Besides, even if they don't want to resell, if they intend to use it on several computers, for some "species" of software it may already beat the price of that many proprietary licences.
Of course, it is only fair that You make them understand before they buy it that their customers are their potential competitors too, so that they should be cautios with their pricing system and wary on the software's current market price. There is profit, but it is neither huge, nor persistent. Your "first hand" buyers are urged to buy early if they wish to profit. The system has to be restarted with new version/edition eventually.
What I see as a good thing is that eventually everyone gets the software they want, at a price that is right for them, only that comes sooner for those who need it now and can afford it, but later for those who can't. Just like the movies: pay higer price to see it fresh released in the theater, or wait some time to rent it from the DVD rentals, or wait even more to see it on TV for virtually free.
All this came to my mind when I made an "whatif":
What if the piracy was (or is?) inevitable? How would You secure that you are payed for your hard work? The only answer was: "Don't give it out of your hand without getting all (or most) you're good for, not on your life!!".
If mister bigtime copier can afford a CD or DVD factory and buy any software at any price in the store, then make gazillion copies and sell it at fraction of their price, well then he won't get a copy of mine from the store for 99.99!
The developer, of all people, has the right to have a cut in the deal.
The big "pirat" and others from his "industry" would have to attend an auction and one single copy would go to the highest bidder. Starting price would be, of course, slightly above my expenses or what I belive its worth is. (I know, I know, this is so 007-movie villain like, but this legal nature of transactions would make some businesses legal...provided they start paying tax!)
I can imagine that soon there would be a new profession: software broker and that the copies of new versions of popular software would be reselled several times, at higher prices each time, before they hit the factory floor and get out to the world.
Now, with copying becoming legal (but risky and heartattack-bringing) busine
After creating robotic sports team, he basically decided to add robotic cheerleaders, too!
Now, it is apparent that FIRST you have to build a good reputation and merit by actually giving away (freebeer) your initial versions, so that your customers would trust you, then slowly, as your project matures, raise your fee.
I didn't even made this up! Name any succesful (profitable) OSS provider and you'll see that they already do more or less as explained. Red Hat, any of the embedded Linux RT-ers, ...