"ray" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Right. All commercial software is better than all free software. And > the > immediate corollary is that the more expensive the software, the > better it > is. > Commercial software has to work better or else customers will not pay for it. If something is free and has a use, people will use it without complaining much and those impoverished folk who cannot afford better will continually claim that the free stuff is even better than the pay for stuff, but it rings hollow. OSSers are quick to say that people using Windows and commercial apps are stupid and/or being forced to use Windows and the commercial apps by some nefarious but unexplainable mechanism operated in secret by Bill Gates to control minds. I think that people will use a better product once they are exposed to it and see it as better. They will gladly pay some percentage of what they think they gain from the degree that the new product is better than the old or better than the free one.
Consider the first class airline seat that is priced at several times the coach seat and at best offers better food and free drink worth only a few dollars. All of the performance parameters of the first class seat are the same in major respects, i.e. safety, distance, speed, time saved, etc., but people will fight over the chance to get the first class seat at a bargain, say $75 each way. The same is true of the commercial software. It doesn't have to be much better to be preferred, but it does have to be a little better and, at the end of the day, successful commercial software is easily seen to be better. _______________________________________________ Gnu-misc-discuss mailing list Gnu-misc-discuss@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnu-misc-discuss