@BEGIN_FILE_ID.DIZARE YOU PRO- OR CONTRA-BUSTS ? DO YOU THINK YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF AS A FAIR "MODEM"SCENE KINDA GUY, OR ARE YOU THE "LAMER" WE THINK YOU ARE? READ ALL ABOUT IT, RESPONDS AS YOU WISH! WE WOULD BE GLAD TO SEE SOME REACTIONS ............................................ THE COMMERCIAL SOFTWARE PROGRAMMERS SPEAK !! ............................................ ............................................ ............................................ @END_FILE_ID.DIZ This is only for AMIGA guys out there... Some facts about being PRO or ANTI-BUST in the scene... ------------------------------------------------------- 1. Why ? -------- Why are there all of a sudden so many busts going on in different parts of the globe ? Let's wonder how and why this started some time ago, and will continue in the future. (If you don't read this now!) Untill now, 1994, we had a quiet scene, with a lot of cool guys and a lot of good demos, cracks and most of all, Public Domain wares. Yes you read it correctly..PUBLIC DOMAIN WAREZ ! 2. Mad or what ? ---------------- Am i mad are you thinking ? No I am not....if all you sysops out there would check your upload dirs, then most of the time you will find shareware proggies, Bulletin board system utilities to enhance your board (and for some brain damaged coders with some backdoors in them ): , and then from time to time you will see a commercial product being cracked. Now let's keep our eyes on this "commercial product". When a software house takes on people to work for them, making games or professional software, they let their creative minds work, and along with their ideas are those of CODERS IN THE SCENE! Huh ? I hear you thinking ? Let me explain. If I outta code a program wich does this and that, but honestly i don't have a clue were to start, then most likely I will start looking at similar programs to have an idea. Playing around with them, see what I like and what I would do different and then start of to code my version that I have to program for the software house(s). But basicly I more or less copied the ideas of other people's work. And even sometimes when source files are included, I check out those sources to get some rou- tines I might use in the program that I will finally assemble. So in a way I benefit from other people's work. But let's face it, nobody knows it all! Know I can hear you saying (as a PRO-BUST dude), yes it is all true what you are saying but that stuff can be found on PD boards or INTERNET and systems like that, we don't need pirate boards for that kinda stuff. That is not completly true, and I will explain you why. First of all, let's skip INTERNET as this system is only available for students and people who have a lot of money. Not all "big" companies like to pay thousands of ame- rican dollars just to have access to INTERNET. So let us go over to those "PUBLIC DOMAIN" bulletin boards. (The so called "GOOD-GUYS-SYSOPS-WHO-DON'T WANT-PIRATE-STUFF-AS-IT-IS-AGAINST-WHAT-THEIR-GRANDMOTHER-TOLD-THEM", and of course they fear the police giving them a spanking. I personally know a lot of those "GOOD" guys and they would be hypocrite to say that they don't have pirated stuff sitting on their harddisks. And even more, they ask their users to UPLOAD it for them! Now where is the PD-SPIRIT gone to at that mo- ment? You tell me! Enough about those hypocrites now. Let us stay on the issue wetter a pirate board is bad for the software companies. 3. Is is so bad ? ----------------- As a programmer for a "BIG" software house myself (yes I write games for people like you out there, and hope you have been enjoying them) I want to let you in on some "public relations" facts. They aren't hard to understand, just let you plain common sence do the job for you (: If a software house develops a game or a professional package/program, they need some advertising for selling it and so they can profit and pay our royalties. (that is the most important part so i can buy a new house), but what is the cheapest way of having a WORLDWIDE publicity on a game? Yes, correct answer mister Bean, the pirate bulletin boards! The "stuff" get's spreaded in about 20 minutes worldwide, and so sysops have fun looking at it or most of the time don't even bother playing it...(well maybe somethimes, if they are fortunate enough to have a second computer at their disposal to play it on, so the board keeps getting those calls... So what is it that really SUCKS for US you ask ? I'll tell you. If all those boards with all the people in the "data communication" scene, would stick to it, and i mean stick to their own kinda people, the modem traders, chatters, crackers, etc..well then we would be a lot happier! Yes that's correct, we WOULD! I'll explain again..(hope I ain't boring you already) The so called "modem scene" is approxematly 10% of ALL THE AMIGA USERS in the ENTIRE world. No more, no less. So they are really no pain in the ass, on the contrary, they are a lot of fun, (execpt those with morbid minds then) and in fact they don't do us no harm. It is the little bastard SELLING our material that SCREWS US! Yes, the "LAMER" as you put it in the "modem" scene, who downloads the commercial products and then starts selling it off to BOB, CHRIS, AND JOHN DOE, living five blocks away from him. The so called "abo's" for getting a number of disks per month, paying xx amount of money. Those are the guys who should be put away. Not the boards, as they are most of the time just places were you can have decent chats and a lot of programs that you wouldn't get if they wouldn't exists. Let's face it, the developpers on the Amiga computer world, aren't all as fortunate as other people, and so they can't afford to buy everthing just to let their creative mind a free go at it. (Imagine EVERYBODY who seriously programs, or just programs for the heck of it, had to buy a DEVPAC, SaSC, LATTICE/C, or whatever he is using, just to try out somethings...(As a PRO-BUST guy i hear you thinking, "well then those software houses would make a lot of money!) WRONG, WRONG WRONG...in fact what would happen is that a lot of people, less FORTUNATE, woud SELL their AMIGA, and run off to a MAC/PC/XX were they would be able to get the software anyway, or even worse, they would SELL the whole LOT of it, and never re- consider buying something in the future. NOW WHO IS GETTING SCREWED THIS WAY? YES, WE !! Because WE woulnd't have a public anymore who would buy our soft- ware ,even better, being interested in anything, as things aren't really cheap these days, and the economic crisis is everywhere! 4. Conclusion. -------------- Now what do we learn about this? I would suggest to people who are selling those "abo's" to stop it right away. We would be a lot more motivated to program games, professional software, etc... And the "modem" scene would be a lot prettier without those "lamers". Bulletin boards, pirate or not, are a way of letting other people know about your ideas, or programs you made, (imagine that all those boards would dissapear, where are you going to get a copy of VirusZ, VirusChecker, etc..or a directory opus, diskmaster, dms, etc..) nowhere that is. And certainly not on some PD bbs where you can only connect 2400 most of the time, and find 20 programs who are outdated for several years. (Sorry for those PD boards, but for me (and the crew here) you are just all a bunch of hypocrites pretending you don't have "pirated" software laying around! And to get back in a jiffy on that dms thing, well look at the improvement to that program the diskmasher (v2.x), it is nice to see that people can continue the work of others, although we do not agree in any way that you should have to pay for it! Why? Very simple, as it is still a commercial product that you enhanced, but the copyright is still at the original authors (even if they have gone bankrupt). It is like tomorow I would resource directoryopus and bring out a clone with the same name, working twice as fast as the original one and ask MONEY for it! The part that we don't agree on, is the MONEY part, and I hope you understand now that we like your improvements, but please, stop that shit about registering a pre-hacked commercial product! If you would have written a new standard, like DMK from scratch, that would be something different now, wouldn't it? but it isn't like that. In a way you are one of those "SELLING-SOFTWARE" guys to us, as it is still a "crack" of a commercial product. I say it once more, "STOP SELLING CRACKED SOFTWARE IN YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD!" and if you are aware of such a guy, then convince him to stop it. It would make this passion for the AMIGA a whole lot funnier, for you and for me. And last but not least, ONLY AMIGA MAKES IT POSSIBLE ! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- PS: If we (the entire crew here) would pay for all the programs we use our- selfs, at home or at the job, then we would triple the price of our royalties at once, as nobody with a common sense would buy every program he thinks he might use one day. Let's face it, are you going to buy IMAGINE to start of rendering, then buy REAL 3D (wich we think is over- rated in price, but we guess that those dutch people have smoked too much grass when they decided to put the label on the program), and finally decide you are better of with another program! Well meanwhile your pockets have grown pretty empty, buying all that software, and we only talked about one issue (rendering) on your Amiga, and believe us, it can do a lot more then that, but you already knew, otherwise you woulnd't have bought an Amiga (: