Please allow me to say that I agree sufficiently with John Alleyn-Day's
posting that I think it is worth the bandwidth to repeat it in full --
although I am at a loss to imagine what "can be done about the software
pricing structure on the HP3000", which is John's final point:

> In all the discussion of tier pricing, I think a very important point has
>  been missed.
>
>  It is very true that ideally, the free market should produce a reasonable
>  price for any individual piece of software.  However, I think our unspoken
>  concern is not for the competition between software packages, but the
>  competition between the HP3000 and other possible systems, particularly
>  networked PCs.
>
>  I think our concern for the pricing of software is related to the
>  competitiveness of the HP3000, and we perceive that certain members of the
>  HP3000 community are extracting excessive amounts of money without regard
>  for what it may do to the community as a whole.  They are killing the
goose
>  that lays the golden eggs (or sh...ing in their own nest, to mix a
metaphor).
>
>
>  As many of the messages have pointed out, discussions of "fairness" in
>  pricing have no meaning when they are applied to an individual piece of
>  software or a specific transaction.  The "fairness" is determined by the
>  free market.  But when looked at from the point of view of the HP3000
>  community as a whole, the idea of fairness has an entirely different
>  connotation, namely, "what effect does this have on the viablity of the
>  HP3000 and on our jobs and our businesses?".  The "unfairness" is not
>  directed so much at the individual customer as it is at all of us who
>  depend on the HP3000 for our livelihood.
>
>  I don't have any answers for what can be done about it.  But I do feel
>  strongly that this problem needs to be addressed seriously before we see
>  the HP3000 sink, weighted down by excessive software fees.  In many cases,
>  it may be a superior technical solution; but if some other solution is
>  vastly less expensive, that other solution is the one that will succeed.
>  For the well-being of all us, we need to do something about the software
>  pricing structure.
>

Wirt Atmar