> > That's not fair!
> 
> Please reread.

Uh, I've reread it, and I don't understand your original statement either.

> At 6:39 PM 1/7/3, Vince Bonfanti wrote:
> > JRun 4 + CFMX = $900/CPU + $3400/CPU = $4300/CPU
> > Tomcat + BlueDragon = Free + $1000/server = $1000/server
> 
> Hmm... how do you respond to people who point out that they 
> can get if "for free" on a warez site...?

As I said, I still don't get it. If you're referring to the BlueDragon
product itself, I'd imagine that New Atlanta would feel the same way about
piracy of their products as Macromedia surely does. Theft is theft, whether
you steal a $3k product or a $1k product. I'd also imagine that you can get
both on a warez site, if you look hard enough, although that's purely
conjecture on my part.

If, on the other hand, you're referring to Tomcat, well, you don't need to
go to a warez site to get that, since it's already free.

> It's a pretty simple question. I'll rephrase it. If you 
> reduce your equation to initial cost, such as with that 
> ad you posted there, then how do you logically deal with 
> people who find ways to reduce your prices still further?
> 
> Do you use that "it's illegal" line, the might-makes-right 
> argument Rob mentioned?

Yes, I find that to be a wonderful approach. I wouldn't call it
"might-makes-right", I'd call it the rule of law. That's how we deal with
most similar issues. To me, this argument is analogous to saying that the
fact that a Toyota is cheaper than a Jaguar is unimportant to a prospective
new car owner, since you can steal whichever you like. Of course, there will
be those who steal things - we call them "criminals", generally - but their
behavior isn't relevant to how law-abiding people behave.

As far as it being an "ad", well, if only all the advertisements I read were
so simple. It's a simple statement of fact. Those are the prices of the
respective products. Personally, I think that CFMX is worth the difference
in most cases, but that has no bearing on the accuracy of the "ad copy".

> Or might you point out how it's valuable to compensate the 
> people who actually create a technology, how this is an 
> investment in future work?
> 
> Or do you perhaps have some other way to deal with parasites 
> like that...?

It's up to a vendor to set their own prices, and I'd imagine that most
vendors do this by estimating how many people will buy the product at
various prices and choosing the price point that will make them the most
money.

Finally, I suspect that there isn't all that much piracy of application
server products, compared to software piracy in general. If you can afford
the rest of the infrastructure involved in running an application server
(network, physical machines, OS licenses, backup, support, development labor
costs, etc), you won't have any trouble paying lots of money for an
application server, and you'll want the support that the vendor provides.

Usually, I find your posts to be very clear, well-written and illuminating,
so maybe I'm missing something here. I'd appreciate further elaboration if
you don't mind.

Dave Watts, CTO, Fig Leaf Software
http://www.figleaf.com/
voice: (202) 797-5496
fax: (202) 797-5444

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