8051 C Compiler

" In other words, a top-tier vendors  loses little from illegal copies - the users would never have paid the full price anyway. "  This may actually be true but piracy actually hurts the industry over all. Following your example where you explain
correctly that many software tools are expensive and unaffordable to many developers.

" But if he can get hold of a copy of IAR for nothing, it is very tempting - whereas with ImageCraft's prices, he would probably have paid up honestly." The real problem is if he can get a copy of IAR he doesn't buy from Image Craft. The industry loses
its incentive (and resources) to invest in developing and supporting new products. Pirates lose as well, they don't have access to support for new processor family members and product updates and at the development's end don't have access to the very
people that have the product expertise to help them with development questions and experience. This results in  products that take longer to develop and market.

Compiler development is a labour intensive industry by very skilled people providing products that service a small market. We have looked very closely at the issues around piracy and it is rarely an issue of price. We have not found piracy to have a price
threshold. In David's example it is just as likely that ImageCraft's products would have been pirated as well as IAR's by the same individuals.


__
Walter Banks
Byte Craft Limited

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 09:45:14 +0100, Chris Hills <chris@phaedsys.org>
wrote:

>In article <sh3se2higujot2jp1hmvep0sat5hc01jb4@4ax.com>, Jonathan Kirwan
><jkirwan@easystreet.com> writes
>>On Thu, 24 Aug 2006 18:09:56 +0100, Chris Hills <chris@phaedsys.org>
>>wrote:
>>
>>><snip>
>>
>>>If the world was perfect and could be trusted then there would be no
>>>need for copy protection. 
>>
>>Perhaps.  But most copy protection I've experienced seriously impacts
>>well-intentioned, paying customers (me.)  I've discussed some of the
>>issues in fair detail before and I know you've already read them, so
>>I'm under no illusion that anything I'll say will change your mind on
>>this.  But suffice if that I tend to believe that those vendors who
>>choose to injure their customers and place them at risk in order to
>>protect themselves from perceived risks by 3rd parties, who are
>>obviously neither the intended customer nor the vendor, will tend to
>>find themselves with _less_, not _more_, revenue over the long haul.
>>
>>How would you feel about marrying someone who had been burned a dozen
>>times in the past and decided that you need to sign an iron-clad
>>contract because of all that prior "baggage," about which you had no
>>part at all? 
>
>Sadly pre-nuptual agreements are quite common. 

That doesn't mean you'd want to embroil yourself in someone else's own
personal baggage, who is also already planning out how to handle the
eventual irreconcilable incompatibilities.

One faces enough very real, unforeseen problems in life so as to want
to avoid starting out taking a path already beset with other, very
real and visible ones.  Especially if there is any choice in the
matter.

Jon

Frank Bemelman wrote:
> 
... snip ...
> 
> I have a low treshold, my kill file is very large. From time
> to time we see people complaining about top posting, and
> quite frankly I don't understand why they bother to explain
> why. Top posters are all idiots and belong in a kill file.
> There is absolutely nothing to be learned from top posters, they
> have already shown their stupidity by top posting. So, in
> the kill file they go. If my reader had an option to do that
> automatically, I would turn it on.

That is not necessarily so.  Many top-posters do it because a) They
have seen others doing it; b) They are influenced by evil
newsreaders, such as Outhouse Excess, which encourage it; c) They
are uninformed newbies.

Simply plonking them without advising them of the fact does nothing
to correct them.  In many cases they simply will not learn, but
enough come around and learn the basics of netiquette to make
training attempts worthwhile.  IMNSHO, at least.  It is analagous
to teaching children table manners.

However there is at least one thing to be said for your technique:
it certainly reduces the apparent traffic on the newsgroup. :-)

-- 
 Some informative links:
   news:news.announce.newusers
   http://www.geocities.com/nnqweb/
   http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
   http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html
   http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html

steve_schefter@hotmail.com wrote:
>>>>Plonk! (for top posting).
>>>
>>>Plonk! (for being an etiquette nazi).
>>
>>And Plonk! for having a problem with that.
> 
> 
> Public plonking:  The usenet equivalent of a child putting his
> fingers in his ears, stamping his feet, humming and yelling,
> "I can't hear you".
> 

"Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength."

"CBFalconer" <cbfalconer@yahoo.com> schreef in bericht 
news:44EF3833.E9158DE@yahoo.com...
> Frank Bemelman wrote:
>>
> ... snip ...
>>
>> I have a low treshold, my kill file is very large. From time
>> to time we see people complaining about top posting, and
>> quite frankly I don't understand why they bother to explain
>> why. Top posters are all idiots and belong in a kill file.
>> There is absolutely nothing to be learned from top posters, they
>> have already shown their stupidity by top posting. So, in
>> the kill file they go. If my reader had an option to do that
>> automatically, I would turn it on.
>
> That is not necessarily so.  Many top-posters do it because a) They
> have seen others doing it; b) They are influenced by evil
> newsreaders, such as Outhouse Excess, which encourage it; c) They
> are uninformed newbies.

You're way too kind. A), B) and C) are all proof of stupidity.

>
> Simply plonking them without advising them of the fact does nothing
> to correct them.  In many cases they simply will not learn, but
> enough come around and learn the basics of netiquette to make
> training attempts worthwhile.  IMNSHO, at least.  It is analagous
> to teaching children table manners.
>
> However there is at least one thing to be said for your technique:
> it certainly reduces the apparent traffic on the newsgroup. :-)

It's a method of traffic management/reducement too, I admit. There's
still enough material left to enjoy.

-- 
Thanks, Frank.
(remove 'q' and '.invalid' when replying by email)

Walter Banks wrote:
> " In other words, a top-tier vendors  loses little from illegal copies - the users would never have paid the full price anyway. "  This may actually be true but piracy actually hurts the industry over all. Following your example where you explain
> correctly that many software tools are expensive and unaffordable to many developers.
> 
> " But if he can get hold of a copy of IAR for nothing, it is very tempting - whereas with ImageCraft's prices, he would probably have paid up honestly." The real problem is if he can get a copy of IAR he doesn't buy from Image Craft. The industry loses
> its incentive (and resources) to invest in developing and supporting new products. Pirates lose as well, they don't have access to support for new processor family members and product updates and at the development's end don't have access to the very
> people that have the product expertise to help them with development questions and experience. This results in  products that take longer to develop and market.
> 
> Compiler development is a labour intensive industry by very skilled people providing products that service a small market. We have looked very closely at the issues around piracy and it is rarely an issue of price. We have not found piracy to have a price
> threshold. In David's example it is just as likely that ImageCraft's products would have been pirated as well as IAR's by the same individuals.
> 

I understand that compiler development is expensive, and to make a 
business you must either sell large numbers, or (if your markets are 
smaller, or your costs higher due to greater development costs) charge 
higher prices.  I'm also aware that lower priced packages are illegally 
copied just as higher priced packages are.  I'm just considering the 
grey area customer, between the entirely honest purchaser and the 
entirely dishonest user who sees an illegal copy as perfectly justified.

I don't really know how this sort of thing (using an illegal copy of 
expensive software rather than legally purchased cheaper alternatives) 
actually occurs in the market of embedded development tools.  I know it 
has occurred in the much larger markets of office tools - so many people 
(especially at home, or in small businesses) have had easy access to 
illegal free copies of MS Office, combined with "justifications" (MS 
have so much money anyway...), that the once-viable market for cheaper 
alternative office suites is virtually non-existent.  The market is 
totally dominated by the one big player (legal or not), and truly free 
alternatives.


My point was not that dongles or other protection systems are 
necessarily bad - merely that they are not necessarily good or helpful 
for development tool companies, and I hope they think clearly through 
the basis of their decisions, and the consequences.  From contact with 
Walter Banks (of Byte Craft) and Richard Mann (of ImageCraft), I know 
that these two companies take such matters seriously, and work with 
their customers to make sure the protection systems have as little 
impact as possible.  I also know of companies which seem to take a 
perverse delight in making life as hard as possible for people to 
actually use their products.  It is a shame indeed that protection 
systems needs to be an issue at all when considering product purchases.

> 
> __
> Walter Banks
> Byte Craft Limited
> 

"David Brown" <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> wrote in message 
news:44f1864b@news.wineasy.se...
...
> My point was not that dongles or other protection systems are necessarily 
> bad - merely that they are not necessarily good or helpful for development 
> tool companies, and I hope they think clearly through the basis of their 
> decisions, and the consequences.  From contact with Walter Banks (of Byte 
> Craft) and Richard Mann (of ImageCraft), I know that these two companies 
> take such matters seriously, and work with their customers to make sure 
> the protection systems have as little impact as possible.  I also know of 
> companies which seem to take a perverse delight in making life as hard as 
> possible for people to actually use their products.  It is a shame indeed 
> that protection systems needs to be an issue at all when considering 
> product purchases.
>

Does the number of people who would pirate a manufacturer's software tools 
if they were not protected outweigh the number of people who are going 
elsewhere because they are?   I don't think anyone can answer that, and 
that's the central issue development tool companies must grapple with.  If 
they thought pirated copies gained them sales, as was the case with the old 
borland products, and is the foundation upon which Microsoft's empire is 
built, I don't think the rest of us would need to factor protection systems 
into the equation of whose development tools to purchase.

Cheers,
Alf

On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 11:15:46 -0400, Walter Banks
<walter@bytecraft.com> wrote:

>Compiler development is a labour intensive industry by very skilled people providing
>products that service a small market. We have looked very closely at the issues
>around piracy and it is rarely an issue of price. We have not found piracy to have
>a price threshold.

Having provided Forth compilers for 25 years, I make two observations
1) You'll always get ripped off,
2) According to some people, the "best" price is half that of the
   lowest cost product on the market.

Now that gcc and friends have reduced the acquisition cost of C
compilers to zero, you will always bleed.

Stephen

-- 
Stephen Pelc, stephenXXX@mpeforth.com
MicroProcessor Engineering Ltd - More Real, Less Time
133 Hill Lane, Southampton SO15 5AF, England
tel: +44 (0)23 8063 1441, fax: +44 (0)23 8033 9691
web: http://www.mpeforth.com - free VFX Forth downloads

Alf Katz wrote:
> "David Brown" <david@westcontrol.removethisbit.com> wrote in message 
> news:44f1864b@news.wineasy.se...
> ...
>> My point was not that dongles or other protection systems are necessarily 
>> bad - merely that they are not necessarily good or helpful for development 
>> tool companies, and I hope they think clearly through the basis of their 
>> decisions, and the consequences.  From contact with Walter Banks (of Byte 
>> Craft) and Richard Mann (of ImageCraft), I know that these two companies 
>> take such matters seriously, and work with their customers to make sure 
>> the protection systems have as little impact as possible.  I also know of 
>> companies which seem to take a perverse delight in making life as hard as 
>> possible for people to actually use their products.  It is a shame indeed 
>> that protection systems needs to be an issue at all when considering 
>> product purchases.
>>
> 
> Does the number of people who would pirate a manufacturer's software tools 

The number of people who illegally copy a software tool is irrelevant, 
at least in the short term (it is important if your aim is to damage 
other manufacturers as much as to increase your own income - I don't 
think that applies in the embedded tools market).  What is relevant is 
the number of people who use an illegal copy who would otherwise have 
paid for it.  That's a very different number - and I believe in many 
cases, the number is so low as to be hardly worth considering.  But 
then, my opinions are based on personal use, people I've talked to, and 
sources like this newsgroup - people who sell these tools presumably 
investigate the issues more scientifically.

> if they were not protected outweigh the number of people who are going 
> elsewhere because they are?   I don't think anyone can answer that, and 
> that's the central issue development tool companies must grapple with.  If 
> they thought pirated copies gained them sales, as was the case with the old 
> borland products, and is the foundation upon which Microsoft's empire is 
> built, I don't think the rest of us would need to factor protection systems 
> into the equation of whose development tools to purchase.
> 
> Cheers,
> Alf
> 
> 
> 

Stephen Pelc wrote:
> On Fri, 25 Aug 2006 11:15:46 -0400, Walter Banks
> <walter@bytecraft.com> wrote:
>
> >Compiler development is a labour intensive industry by very skilled people providing
> >products that service a small market. We have looked very closely at the issues
> >around piracy and it is rarely an issue of price. We have not found piracy to have
> >a price threshold.
>
> Having provided Forth compilers for 25 years, I make two observations
> 1) You'll always get ripped off,
> 2) According to some people, the "best" price is half that of the
>    lowest cost product on the market.
>
> Now that gcc and friends have reduced the acquisition cost of C
> compilers to zero, you will always bleed.

It's always been a mystery to me why C compilers aren't free anyway. If
youv'e spent millions producing a chip why make it hard for people to
use it? Same arguement applies to the FPGA market. Some companies do
give them away free of nearly free, a trend I expect will become the
norm eventually. Compiler writers can easily protect their product with
a dongle, no excuse now we have usb sticks. The real downside with that
is when the customer recieves crappy software he can send it back and
get his money back, which I guess is why they don't use them.