>> Mr Watzman did not ask, and I would not have given him permission
>> to sell the material from bitsavers.
>>
>> I have asked him not to mention my URL in any of his future
>> usenet postings.
>>
>> For the record, I DO NOT want the material from my site to be sold
>> in any form.
>
>And likewise, what little information I have contributed to bitsavers
>is not to be sold. It's to be shared on bitsavers, but I do not
>want any money exchanged for anything that I donate.
I have Barry's DVD - I find it very useful, and it's the cheapest way for
me to get the material (in fact, it's the ONLY way for me to get some of
the material).
I also see a fair bit of material that I have scanned on it, and I have no
trouble with that - in fact I have told Barry to go ahead and use any of
my material that he wants. I recently (yesterday) finished all 7 SuperPET
manuals (1500+ pages) and I have already contacted Barry to see if he wanted
me to send them early (I have a lot of material backed up and probably won't
get to a site update for another month) - I expect to see them on the DVD
once he gets them, and I also do not expect the price will increase because
they were added (think about why that might be).
I live in the country where A) there is no high-speed service B) they are not
putting in high-speed service, and C) they aren't planning to put in high-speed
service in the forseeable future (I ask every couple of months).
On a good day, I can get 2k/second download speeds, and I can sometimes
keep that up for 20 mins before the connection goes down.
[Thats why it takes time to update my site - I have to burn it to CD's and
physically take it into the city]
Having access to a DVD with gigs of material, a lot of which I will use
is well worth what Barry is asking ... For that price, he is buying a good
quality DVR-R blank, and spending his own time to burn it and ship it. Not
to mention that he has obviously spent some time downloading and organizing
the material.
If he were charging $100 or $200, I might take offense, however he's charging
$35, and frequently publishes the places where those who have the ability can
get the material for free (except apparently some people don't want him to
let people know where their "free" stuff is - Not sure how that makes sense).
$35 buys about 20 mins of my time - I would spend a lot more than that trying
to get the material via a modem, which would likely be unsuccessful. I've
already extracted several very large files from the DVD that I've been trying
to get for some time but have found to be "impossible" due to the size.
I doubt he's making any substantial profit at it - in fact, given the amount
of material that he himself has scanned and archived, I expect it's cost him
lots in time and money over the years (it sure has me!). If he is able to make
$5 or $10 a DVD, then I think thats good - it *MIGHT* be enough to keep him
doing it, and might even help recover some of his other costs - but as noted
above, I doubt he's making any real money from it.
Are you willing to take the time to burn and mail DVD's of your "free" material
when someone asks? How about if 10 people a week ask?
Your position would prevent me from obtaining the material because I cannot
download it directly from your site.
I am also wondering how you manage restricting your site to only freenet
subscribers? - clearly anyone using an ISP is paying for the delivery of your
material, and that constitutes "money changing hands". In fact, they are
providing delivery of your material strictly as a "for profit" business -
they have absolutely no interest in preserving vintage documentation at all.
A DVD - reasonably priced for the service it represents is no different -
it's just a means of delivery (except in this case it is being done from
someone who is active in collecting and preserving the material).
Clearly he is not charging for the actual material (otherwise why would he
keep telling people where to get it directly - well - at least the sources
he's permitted to give out).
And yes, I have also purchased Walnut Creek and InfoMagic CD collections which
work out to a considerably higher $$ per meg than Barrys offering (and they are
mass produced at far less cost than Barry's offering) - because for some people
(like me), physical media is the best way to get the material.
No: I don't know Barry other than that I have communicated with him a few times
regarding documents that I needed or had available.
Whew!!! --- nuff said.
Regards,
Dave
--
dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Vintage computing equipment collector.
http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html
Received on Tue Sep 07 2004 - 19:14:33 BST