!@#% eBay or Why Piracy Makes Sense

[Trev]

I bid on an Amiga software tool on eBay, a tool I would have liked to use to do legitimate (perhaps professional) software development. I was outbid by a collector who will no doubt put the box on a shelf and forget about it. That's one less new project from me in the future.

And so there you go: further evidence that so-called collectors are killing the Amiga for legitimate users.

I just felt like griping, and I know at least a few people here can feel my pain.

[Trev]

@JKD

To be honest, it was probably something I can do without, as there are "free" alternatives available; however, most of the alternatives come with vague disclaimers like "this will probably only work with Exec V37 or later."

I'd love to have a complete and clean copy of SAS/C 6.50 if anyone's got one. (That's not what I was bidding on, but it's on my wish list.)

@ral-clan

I agree with you there. If the only ones with PPC hardware are consumers, there's really nothing for producers to do but move to other platforms.

[Trev]

@davideo

SAS/C is fairly easy to find "in the wild," but I don't recall SAS ever authorizing redistribution....

[Trev]

@motorollin

Deduced from their buying history. (Hey, that's another good reason for doing away with buyer feedback. Do buyers really want anyone and everyone to know what they spend their money on? Probably not.)

Re: your sig, has Apple released the iPhone/Touch SDK yet? Haven't seent it, but I haven't been looking.

@Rabbi

It's network related but separate from the uIP and lwIP projects I have going.

[Trev]

The person that finally won the auction (not the same person that outbid me) also recently purchased a pair of costume bunny ears and a copy of the Xanadu soundtrack on vinyl. That's almost too delicious not to comment, but I happen to like Xanadu, so I'll keep my mouth shut.

[Trev]

@TheMagicM

I have StormC 3 and have been considering buying 4. I'm really doing most of my development with vbcc, but I want to compare output and verify source compatibility with multiple compilers.

@SACC-guy

The piracy comment was a joke, to be sure. Collectors just make it difficult to do legitimate work on an aging plaform, and apart from the profit associated with sales of said collectables, the collectors underscore the fact that the consumer market for new Amiga-based goods is almost dead. I'm not complaining about that, though, since I really don't plan on profiting by anything I do, even if it were a possibility.

It's true I don't know what people do with their loot, but it's much more fun to make light of it than it is to truly get upset over it. ;-)

I didn't start late (around 1988--I was 13 and upgraded to an A500 from a C64), but I did take a long break from around the time I discovered the opposite sex until the time I had enough disposable income to buy expensive toys.

Your offer of a free copy of SAS/C is awesome; however, I already agreed to buy a copy, and I think I should honor that.

Edit: One could make an argument for copyright infringement as a form of civil disobedience, particularly by individual artists under the yoke of an oppressive publisher, but that sort of discourse is discouraged on this forum, unfortunately.

[Trev]

Working with an Amiga is a much better exercise in programming for a constrained system. I do quite a bit of Windows programming at work (mostly administrative tools), and it's really not as rewarding.

[Trev]

I think everyone missed my point. It wasn't about losing an auction--I bid what I was willing to pay, didn't win, end of story. It's about supply and demand, as noted, and the lack of any other determining factors. The point would be moot if companies like SAS would make legacy, largely unprofitable software freely available and distributable. Also note that it doesn't take a genius in deductive reasoning to see that the person that initially outbid me was a collector/hoarder (or possibly a reseller).

On another note, did anyone read the new Amiga Anywhere SDK terms? Sure, they've "waived" the fee (no one would actually pay $400 for it, after all, even if they were given the opportunity), but you have to grant Amiga, Inc. permanent, nonnegotiable, nonrevocable, exclusive distribution rights to your software, without knowing to whom, what, or where your software will be distributed. Ummm, no, thank you. And from what I hear, the SDK lacks supports for any kind of network connectivity, so it's really not good for anything other than yet another Bejeweled clone. (That's a gross generalization, I know. But come on. When you're competing with Apple, RIM, and Microsoft's in house products, lack of network connectivity just isn't going to cut it.)