The OSD and commercial use

[John Cowan]

David Johnson scripsit:

> Now imagine if the rates for company groups were higher. When my work group 
> goes out next month to see LOTR:TT, we would not go as a group, but would buy 
> our tickets individually. We would even stagger our arrival times if 
> necessary to make sure the theater didn't know that we were a group.

Right, that's because a theater customer is fundamentally anonymous to
the theater.

> But this particular analogy dealt with hammers. I do not now of any common 
> sales strategy that requires royalties on the use of tools.

That's because they too are sold anonymously (that is, the buyer is anonymous
to the seller) and because their use is impossible to track.  Software
tools, the expensive kind, usually don't have the first property and
may well not have the second (that is, the buyer is known to the seller
and contract-breaching use is trackable).

-- 
John Cowan  jcowan at reutershealth.com  www.reutershealth.com  www.ccil.org/~cowan
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