Re: the best justice money can buy --Lessig (fwd)

[Jim Choate <ravage@ssz.com>]

Forwarded message:

> Date: Mon, 09 Feb 1998 14:22:40 -0800
> From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart@pobox.com>
> Subject: Re: the best justice money can buy --Lessig (fwd)

> Gates got rich not by selling good software, but by selling software
> very well.

His original money was made by being the first company to sell a CP/M
compliant BASIC. It was very heavily pirated and Microsoft became a de facto
standard for S-100 using CP/M. Then because of Digital Research's failure to
treat IBM with respect he was selected as the supplier for their basic OS.
This decision was made because of his reputation with CP/M software. Because
of this connection Microsoft was in a position such that Gates couldn't help
but make money as long as IBM was selling pc's. And considering nobody ever
lost their job buying IBM it was a shoe in that IBM was going to sell
machines. His first versions of Windows didn't sell. He looked at what was
selling which was a GUI with more features and better looks. He hired the
right people to impliment those changes and wallah he had a winner. All
those pc's running his old os no longer had to go to Desqview and DR to get
a GUI that was acceptable to their users. From their they have used various
marketing and licensing tricks to increase his market share.

> Copyright is part of the process, but it's possible to
> sell your product to computer manufacturers with any customization
> they need using contracts instead of copyright to make your money.

But a company doesn't make money from selling software to computer
manufacturers, they make money by having their software on pc's that the
users use.

> It's also possible to do copy protection in your software;
> games makers do this because they're widely pirated by non-point-source
> attacks (kids, mostly) who are hard to track down and sue,
> unlike major computer manufacturers who are easier to find,
> both to sue if needed or to provide support for.
> Copy protection was one of the things people hated about Lotus 123;
> I don't remember Excel or MS-DOS ever having it.

And in the long run non-copyrighted software has a significant market
advantage. It's smaller, it is more stable, and people don't get as pissed
off when they want to make their backups.


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