Rick Ditmars writes:
>... The EnvStats module is why I use
>S-PLUS.... The EnvStats developer, Dr. Steve Millard, certainly deserves
>compensation for his efforts. The price of the module for someone (or
>corporation) in this industry is a fair one, in my opinion.
Before this gets out of hand, I didn't mean -- and I imagine Bert Gunters
didn't mean -- to imply that creative workers shouldn't be rewarded for
their efforts.
The question we pondered was why, when EnvStats contains so many features
widely useful outside the environmental field, those features aren't
included in the main product.
This is about Insightful's marketing and pricing policies, not whether Dr
Millard should be rewarded for creating the features in question.
After all, Insightful could licence his code and incorporate it in the base
product, with or without an accompanying change in price -- in the latter
case, banking on increased sales revenue to outweigh their payments to the
author).
Julian Wells
OU Business School
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
United Kingdom
+44 1908 654658
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