Thread: Re: [Audacity-devel] Text of my complaint to eBay
A free multi-track audio editor and recorder
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From: Daniel J. <da...@mo...> - 2003-11-18 11:04:41
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> I can't believe how much positive feedback he's getting! He's shipping Audacity for $14, which is an absolute bargain compared to proprietary software. If that's what his customers think they are getting, no wonder they are impressed. In a perverse way, his feedback is kudos for the Audacity team. Ironically, he's doing test marketing for your own CD distribution at the same time - that doesn't mean I approve of the way he's gone about it though. Cheers Daniel |
From: Daniel J. <da...@mo...> - 2003-11-18 11:14:39
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> A company called Audio Storage Technologies makes recording > hardware and software for PDAs, with the brand "Audacity DVR" I strongly suggest that a representative of the development team writes a polite but firm letter to this company. If you don't stop this now, you could find that they will force you to change the name of the original Audacity at some point in the future. If their product was a toaster, it wouldn't be a big deal - but it is based around audio recording software. Too similar. They are using the name Audacity for several products, not just the 'DVR'. I've been unfortunate enough to have had experience of this issue with LinuxUser magazine - even though we had the first title in the UK with this name, we were still forced to change it. Cheers Daniel |
From: Joshua H. <jo...@re...> - 2003-11-18 16:44:06
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On Tue, 2003-11-18 at 03:16, Daniel James wrote: > > A company called Audio Storage Technologies makes recording > > hardware and software for PDAs, with the brand "Audacity DVR" > > I strongly suggest that a representative of the development team > writes a polite but firm letter to this company. If you don't stop > this now, you could find that they will force you to change the name > of the original Audacity at some point in the future. > > If their product was a toaster, it wouldn't be a big deal - but it is > based around audio recording software. Too similar. They are using > the name Audacity for several products, not just the 'DVR'. > > I've been unfortunate enough to have had experience of this issue with > LinuxUser magazine - even though we had the first title in the UK > with this name, we were still forced to change it. Yikes. Perhaps we should use some of the Audacity fund to get advice and/or a letter from a lawyer. Josh |
From: Matt B. <mbr...@cs...> - 2003-11-18 16:58:34
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Daniel James wrote: > > A company called Audio Storage Technologies makes recording hardware > > and software for PDAs, with the brand "Audacity DVR" > > I strongly suggest that a representative of the development team > writes a polite but firm letter to this company. If you don't stop > this now, you could find that they will force you to change the name > of the original Audacity at some point in the future. Note: I'm not a lawyer, and my opinion is not legal advice. Under US law, we can claim ownership of the "Audacity" trademark even though we have not registered it. But without registering the mark, we can't collect damages or recover legal fees if it's infringed (we can only force the infringer to stop). Registration costs about $300 and may require a trademark attorney. I agree with Daniel that we may need to contact AST to avoid future conflict. Unfortunately we might not have the time or resources to force them to stop using the name if they don't want to. If we can protect our right to the name in a way that avoids conflict (e.g. AST acknowledges our ownership, and we license the mark under terms we both agree to), I think that might be better. Any thoughts? BitLaw and Cornell University have information about US trademark law: http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/ http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/trademark.html As far as I can tell, we have a very good claim to the "Audacity" trademark in the field of computers and electronics. Dominic is probably the trademark owner, since the "Audacity development team" is not a legal entity. |
From: Markus M. <me...@me...> - 2003-11-18 17:10:56
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Am Die, den 18.11.2003 schrieb Matt Brubeck um 17:58: > I agree with Daniel that we may need to contact AST to avoid future > conflict. Unfortunately we might not have the time or resources to > force them to stop using the name if they don't want to. > > If we can protect our right to the name in a way that avoids conflict > (e.g. AST acknowledges our ownership, and we license the mark under > terms we both agree to), I think that might be better. Any thoughts? I'm not an expert within US law, but I strongly believe that if we contact them and they write a response, which basically acknowledges that they don't have a problem with our project being named as it is, this would be a legally binding contract and could be used in court as a document which gave us permission. Markus |
From: Dominic M. <do...@au...> - 2003-11-18 18:33:58
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Matt Brubeck wrote: > Daniel James wrote: > >>>A company called Audio Storage Technologies makes recording hardware >>>and software for PDAs, with the brand "Audacity DVR" >> >>I strongly suggest that a representative of the development team >>writes a polite but firm letter to this company. If you don't stop >>this now, you could find that they will force you to change the name >>of the original Audacity at some point in the future. > > Note: I'm not a lawyer, and my opinion is not legal advice. > > Under US law, we can claim ownership of the "Audacity" trademark even > though we have not registered it. But without registering the mark, > we can't collect damages or recover legal fees if it's infringed (we > can only force the infringer to stop). Registration costs about $300 > and may require a trademark attorney. > > I agree with Daniel that we may need to contact AST to avoid future > conflict. Unfortunately we might not have the time or resources to > force them to stop using the name if they don't want to. > > If we can protect our right to the name in a way that avoids conflict > (e.g. AST acknowledges our ownership, and we license the mark under > terms we both agree to), I think that might be better. Any thoughts? I agree that it would be best if we amicably settled this by getting a favorable response from them in writing. It might be nice to see if we could register the trademark, though. I wonder if the EFF or some other organization might be willing to provide us with free legal advice? I've been a member of the EFF for a couple of years. Matt, would you like to draft an email to the Audacity DVR folks, or should I? - Dominic > BitLaw and Cornell University have information about US trademark law: > > http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/ > http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/trademark.html > > As far as I can tell, we have a very good claim to the "Audacity" > trademark in the field of computers and electronics. Dominic is > probably the trademark owner, since the "Audacity development team" > is not a legal entity. > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF. Net email is sponsored by: GoToMyPC > GoToMyPC is the fast, easy and secure way to access your computer from > any Web browser or wireless device. Click here to Try it Free! > https://www.gotomypc.com/tr/OSDN/AW/Q4_2003/t/g22lp?Target=mm/g22lp.tmpl > _______________________________________________ > Audacity-devel mailing list > Aud...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/audacity-devel |
From: Dave F. <dav...@co...> - 2003-11-18 12:10:49
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Warning, this is likely to be a bit long. On Tuesday 18 November 2003 10:29 pm, Nick wrote: > Since piracy of proprietary software is virtually a given, what additional > value is there in proprietary software that there isn't in free software > that customers are "impressed" by? I mean, copy software from a friend > illegally/legally - what's the difference? It's just stuff the user uses. > > Been trying to think up free (as in freedom) software buisness plans for a > while now, so this interests me a lot. > > Being able to download Audacity for free hints at the answer to that > question, I think. But as someone else pointed out - people may very well > pay for a convenient CD full of goodies. But how is that better than the > shovelware CDs of the early 90s? The main issue is that you can't build a business that revolves around selling a niche Free Software project like Audacity. You can build a business based on Audacity in many ways, I think, but no matter how much value you add to the package, it will be very difficult (in my opinion, impossible, and I don't say that very often) to build a business that has software sales as its sole source of revenue. So what kind of value-add services can you add? 1. Technical Support & documentation (this is a given) Due to the very supportive nature of the community as it is, however, i'm inclined to think that you would be better off citing the community as a benefit rather than trying to create a commercial entity to handle this aspect of the business, but it is a necessary part of *any* software company. 2. Consulting This is a complex topic. I'll talk about it by business/target market, rather than try to make a catch-all explanation that isn't really worthwhile. Recording Studios Consult with recording studios to install, support, and train their technicians to use Audacity for digital recording, mixing, and post-production. You would provide them some sort of warranty service along with this that says "We stand behind the software". Also, build complete systems using hardware that is known-to-work with Audacity (using Linux, of course :) ) and sell them outright to recording studios, so the studios only have to worry about putting a person on the equipment who knows what they're doing. Home Users The average home user won't have any trouble at all recording. The main difficulty is in post-production, which is a highly skilled profession and not something you can quickly and easily pick up with a few how-to books. Recording costs, however, are the highest costs generally associated with recording a song (although not necessarily distributing the song), so providing an inexpensive, value-add audacity distribution gives the home user the chance to DIY their way to very low costs. Then you tack on a post-production service where they send you their finished project file and you do your final mix-down and all the post-production stuff for the song and send them back a .wav file in the format of their choosing. Professional Musicians (or wanna-be pro musicians) Professional musicians actually require a variety of services. They need an accountant and a lawyer, and you can see about establishing partnerships with these types of businesses in order to provide a complete package to your musicians. (The main problem is that many professional musicians want to make money but don't accept that they are a commercial entity) You would offer them services with Audacity similar to what you'd offer a recording studio, but with some value-add stuff. A partnership with a booking agency would be good. Also offering some live support, so when they want to make a live recording, for a price (of course!), you put your own guy at the concert who will work with the band's sound technician to capture the band onto a computer running Audacity. You might also rent them a sound technician. You can also rent them recording equipment so they can get some of the benefits of DIY recording without the overhead costs associated with it. Your own recording studio 'nuff said, right? Radio stations Same services you'd associate with a recording studio, just a different market TV stations Same as radio, but you also have to deal with video issues, I suspect. Audacity should also support common surround-sound standards for TV, and may also be helpful for radio. 3. Embedding audacity Since audacity runs under Linux, it is theoretically possible to make a distribution of Audacity that will compile and run on the Familiar Linux distribution. Using the Ipaq hardware, a company such as Roland should be able to build a hard drive recorder using Audacity for the UI. I figure you can use X scancodes to read the mixer itself and map them to keyboard shortcuts in audacity, but nobody really knows until you sit down and do it. Offering an embedded distribution, support services, and engineering associated with the distribution (custom-coding for proprietary hardware interfaces) might well be a way to generate revenue from larger corporations that need a good embedded sound processing/recording package while reducing their own R&D costs and offering a competitive HD recorder. (several assumptions are made here, namely that Compaq will sell the Ipaq hardware to be embedded like this, which is likely, and that someone like Roland would be interested in building a decent UI for their HD recorders) Some value-add that hardware like this would create for you is the ability to add value to your base audacity distribution through interoperability with an embedded audacity. There's probably plenty of stuff besides these, this is what I've come up with myself. The trick is to answer the question "What can I do for someone using audacity?". If you try to answer the question "How can I make money off this software?" you will likely fail. For example, when Gregg whats-his-face showed up on the list previously, he basically said "How am I supposed to make money off this software when people can just download it for free?". Well, you're not. Sorry. You asked the wrong question. The right question for him is "How can I add value to this software so that people will buy it from me rather than download it for free?". To answer that, you usually have to answer "How are people going to use this software, and what tools will help them to accomplish what they've set out to accomplish with the software?". Note, also, that proprietary software companies have to answer these same qeustions, due to your point about piracy. You're much more likely to win users over if you just tell them "Feel free to copy this stuff for your friends" then if you tell them "If you copy this for your firends, we're gonna sue you into oblivion". Now, for a million dollar investment, I'll be happy to implement this business. ;) Dave > Nick > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF. Net email is sponsored by: GoToMyPC > GoToMyPC is the fast, easy and secure way to access your computer from > any Web browser or wireless device. Click here to Try it Free! > https://www.gotomypc.com/tr/OSDN/AW/Q4_2003/t/g22lp?Target=mm/g22lp.tmpl > _______________________________________________ > Audacity-devel mailing list > Aud...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/audacity-devel -- "Refuse to be denied, refuse to compromise "Your ideology always a lie "Imperialistic, colonialistic "Bandwagon patriot wake up to this" -Anthrax, "Refuse to be denied" |
From: Volker T. <vol...@wy...> - 2003-11-18 21:28:07
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Greetings! On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 04:06:48 -0500 Dave Fancella <dav...@co...> wrote: > > Been trying to think up free (as in freedom) software buisness plans > > for a while now, so this interests me a lot. > Home Users > The average home user won't have any trouble at all recording. The > main difficulty is in post-production, And production i.e. while recording (anyone believing in "microphone selection and positioning in 5 minutes"?). But if you can offer to use Audacity for pre-production i.e. the average joe (not Cocker) can twiddle and try around with audacity to give a rough sketch or even some working basics of his intended song - before and after production as well as during ost-production. > I figure you can use X scancodes to read the mixer itself and map > them to keyboard shortcuts in audacity, but nobody really knows until > you sit down and do it. Something I already thought of: an input controller for audacity (and other programs) similar to XXXXX Should be relatively easy to do (from an electronical/logical PoV) - you just need to dissect a keyboard and joystick(s) (maybe USB to keep the standard keyboard functional) and put that into a special casing. Done. Output is just done on vanilla CRT/LCD display. Or simply offer the control as add-on. > (custom-coding for proprietary hardware interfaces) See above. A standard Joystick can support a number of potis and buttons. Let's see for just a simple vanilla joystick (3 potis, 8 buttons): potis: - volume - pan - track position (time) buttons: - play - rec - stop - pause - beginning - end - new track - (whatever) ...and you've got a good part (a quarter to a third) of a Tascam US-224 or US-428 (sans A/D, that is) with just the $5 worth of electronics (those of a plain joystick). Combine two or three... With about $20 of electronics and bit of creative wireing, combining and drivers it should be possible to provide a control console similar to Mackie's MUC or Steinberg's Houston with quite a number (>30) of channels without exotic electronic controllers. Anyone interested in joining and/or doing development? If so, contact me. Bye Volker -- Volker Tanger vol...@wy... -===================================- Research & Development Division, WYAE |
From: Dave F. <dav...@co...> - 2003-11-19 06:17:19
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On Tuesday 18 November 2003 04:28 pm, Volker Tanger wrote: > And production i.e. while recording (anyone believing in "microphone > selection and positioning in 5 minutes"?). But if you can offer to use > Audacity for pre-production i.e. the average joe (not Cocker) can > twiddle and try around with audacity to give a rough sketch or even some > working basics of his intended song - before and after production as > well as during ost-production. FOr home users you might have recording classes or something like that. The point being that renting the studio is expensive, and a home musician can get reasonable sound (although maybe not perfect) doing it themselves, but lacks the expertise during post-production. Of course, any service that helps a home user to make better recordings certainly qualifies as a way to make money with Audacity as a base. > ...and you've got a good part (a quarter to a third) of a Tascam US-224 > or US-428 (sans A/D, that is) with just the $5 worth of electronics > (those of a plain joystick). Combine two or three... > > With about $20 of electronics and bit of creative wireing, combining > and drivers it should be possible to provide a control console similar > to Mackie's MUC or Steinberg's Houston with quite a number (>30) of > channels without exotic electronic controllers. > > Anyone interested in joining and/or doing development? If so, contact > me. Add an ITX form factor motherboard and the cheap stuff needed to fill it out.... Anyway, this occurred to me late last night. My only deal with it is that manufacturing is expensive, and even if you hand-make the first 1000 or so models to raise money to manufacture, you're still talking about a LOT of work before you have the money to automate it (or hire people to do it). Materials, inventory, and shipping being the more expensive aspects here. I was thinking it might be better to design and patent the device and then try to license the patented stuff. If you don't manage to license it, you might hit up VCs or somebody for the capital to start manufacturing yourself. Dave > Bye > Volker -- "Refuse to be denied, refuse to compromise "Your ideology always a lie "Imperialistic, colonialistic "Bandwagon patriot wake up to this" -Anthrax, "Refuse to be denied" |
From: <xip...@xi...> - 2003-11-19 18:09:57
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On Tue, Nov 18, 2003 at 10:13:19PM -0500, Dave Fancella wrote: > On Tuesday 18 November 2003 04:28 pm, Volker Tanger wrote: > > And production i.e. while recording (anyone believing in "microphone > > selection and positioning in 5 minutes"?). But if you can offer to use > > Audacity for pre-production i.e. the average joe (not Cocker) can > > twiddle and try around with audacity to give a rough sketch or even some > > working basics of his intended song - before and after production as > > well as during ost-production. > > FOr home users you might have recording classes or something like that. The > point being that renting the studio is expensive, and a home musician can get > reasonable sound (although maybe not perfect) doing it themselves, but lacks > the expertise during post-production. Of course, any service that helps a > home user to make better recordings certainly qualifies as a way to make > money with Audacity as a base. I'll note that I'm running a 'home' shop here with very good results using two emagic boxen, a powerbook, a nice big mixer, and three software packages (Audacity, Postfish and Beaverphonic). I also have a bigger desktop for actual postprod. Add in the microphones and a few incidentals like direct boxen, and you have a very complete home or portable studio these days that isn't all that expensive sitting next to a new high-end PC. So the home studio that competes with anything pro from ten years ago is thoroughly a reality for well under $10k with excellent equipment, probably under $2-4k if you spend time looking for used pieces. I don't use Audacity because I can't afford 'better'. I use it because I have the source :-) (The reason for the mixer is that I do, in fact, love analog control surfaces. I don't think manufacturing is practical, really, mainly because big manufacturers are already building general control surfaces on lower margins than we'd be able to compete with. Still, I'm all for the idea of as many exposed knobs and as much immediately available information in an inteface as possible, and nothing captures that like a 3'x4' control surface or mixer :-) Monty |
From: Joshua H. <jo...@re...> - 2003-11-18 21:11:03
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On Tue, 2003-11-18 at 08:58, Matt Brubeck wrote: > Daniel James wrote: > > > > A company called Audio Storage Technologies makes recording hardware > > > and software for PDAs, with the brand "Audacity DVR" > > > > I strongly suggest that a representative of the development team > > writes a polite but firm letter to this company. If you don't stop > > this now, you could find that they will force you to change the name > > of the original Audacity at some point in the future. > > Note: I'm not a lawyer, and my opinion is not legal advice. > > Under US law, we can claim ownership of the "Audacity" trademark even > though we have not registered it. But without registering the mark, > we can't collect damages or recover legal fees if it's infringed (we > can only force the infringer to stop). Registration costs about $300 > and may require a trademark attorney. > > I agree with Daniel that we may need to contact AST to avoid future > conflict. Unfortunately we might not have the time or resources to > force them to stop using the name if they don't want to. > > If we can protect our right to the name in a way that avoids conflict > (e.g. AST acknowledges our ownership, and we license the mark under > terms we both agree to), I think that might be better. Any thoughts? As I see it, there are two issues at stake: 1. securing permanent rights to use the name Audacity 2. deciding whether we object to other entities using that name I am wondering to what degree they are really independent, though. Does protecting our right to use the name require having a trademark? Lacking a trademark, could we be forced to stop using the name in the future by an entity that *did* acquire a trademark for "Audacity?" Even if we secured an agreement with AST, what stops another company from coming along and registering "Audacity?" Suppose that acquiring a trademark is required as an affirmative defense. Having a trademark would require that we defend it, from the little I know about trademark law. Wouldn't we be required to demand that AST stop using the name "Audacity?" I'm hesitant to enter into any kind of agreement, or really even to contact this company, until we really understand the ramifications of our situation. Josh |
From: Dominic M. <do...@au...> - 2003-11-19 05:45:51
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Joshua Haberman wrote: > On Tue, 2003-11-18 at 08:58, Matt Brubeck wrote: > >>Daniel James wrote: >> >> >>>>A company called Audio Storage Technologies makes recording hardware >>>>and software for PDAs, with the brand "Audacity DVR" >>> >>>I strongly suggest that a representative of the development team >>>writes a polite but firm letter to this company. If you don't stop >>>this now, you could find that they will force you to change the name >>>of the original Audacity at some point in the future. >> >>Note: I'm not a lawyer, and my opinion is not legal advice. >> >>Under US law, we can claim ownership of the "Audacity" trademark even >>though we have not registered it. But without registering the mark, >>we can't collect damages or recover legal fees if it's infringed (we >>can only force the infringer to stop). Registration costs about $300 >>and may require a trademark attorney. >> >>I agree with Daniel that we may need to contact AST to avoid future >>conflict. Unfortunately we might not have the time or resources to >>force them to stop using the name if they don't want to. >> >>If we can protect our right to the name in a way that avoids conflict >>(e.g. AST acknowledges our ownership, and we license the mark under >>terms we both agree to), I think that might be better. Any thoughts? > > As I see it, there are two issues at stake: > > 1. securing permanent rights to use the name Audacity > 2. deciding whether we object to other entities using that name > > I am wondering to what degree they are really independent, though. Does > protecting our right to use the name require having a trademark? > Lacking a trademark, could we be forced to stop using the name in the > future by an entity that *did* acquire a trademark for "Audacity?" Even > if we secured an agreement with AST, what stops another company from > coming along and registering "Audacity?" > > Suppose that acquiring a trademark is required as an affirmative > defense. Having a trademark would require that we defend it, from the > little I know about trademark law. Wouldn't we be required to demand > that AST stop using the name "Audacity?" > > I'm hesitant to enter into any kind of agreement, or really even to > contact this company, until we really understand the ramifications of > our situation. That's a good point; trademarks need to be defended. Part of the confusion is that we aren't "marketing" a product, in the traditional sense. I think we do need a lawyer. - Dominic > Josh > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. > Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it > help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help > YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ > _______________________________________________ > Audacity-devel mailing list > Aud...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/audacity-devel |
From: Dave F. <dav...@co...> - 2003-11-19 05:50:09
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On Wednesday 19 November 2003 12:45 am, Dominic Mazzoni wrote: > That's a good point; trademarks need to be defended. > > Part of the confusion is that we aren't "marketing" a product, in > the traditional sense. > > I think we do need a lawyer. I can recommend the one we work with in my company. He's cheap, as lawyers go, and he's a real good guy. (Second honest lawyer I've ever met, actually) $150/hour (maybe it's $185?). He doesn't turn on the clock as soon as he picks up the phone, either, because that makes clients less likely to call him when they need him and more likely to do something stupid. :) Anyway, he's not a copyright lawyer and hasn't done a lot of work with intellectual property law in general. He's based in Seattle, which might be bad, since maybe you'd like to meet him yourself? Dave > - Dominic > > > Josh > > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------- > > This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. > > Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it > > help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help > > YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ > > _______________________________________________ > > Audacity-devel mailing list > > Aud...@li... > > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/audacity-devel > > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by: SF.net Giveback Program. > Does SourceForge.net help you be more productive? Does it > help you create better code? SHARE THE LOVE, and help us help > YOU! Click Here: http://sourceforge.net/donate/ > _______________________________________________ > Audacity-devel mailing list > Aud...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/audacity-devel -- "Refuse to be denied, refuse to compromise "Your ideology always a lie "Imperialistic, colonialistic "Bandwagon patriot wake up to this" -Anthrax, "Refuse to be denied" |
From: Nick <ni...@sa...> - 2003-11-18 11:27:50
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Hi, (Not a developer, but a user who had a wierd bug on some occasions and likes reading the list) > He's shipping Audacity for $14, which is an absolute bargain compared > to proprietary software. If that's what his customers think they are > getting, no wonder they are impressed. Since piracy of proprietary software is virtually a given, what additional value is there in proprietary software that there isn't in free software that customers are "impressed" by? I mean, copy software from a friend illegally/legally - what's the difference? It's just stuff the user uses. Been trying to think up free (as in freedom) software buisness plans for a while now, so this interests me a lot. Being able to download Audacity for free hints at the answer to that question, I think. But as someone else pointed out - people may very well pay for a convenient CD full of goodies. But how is that better than the shovelware CDs of the early 90s? Nick |