CompuServe Messages

Someone has to have a lot of love to do a disk collection for free. If Fred were creative and/or inspired enough to turn the disks into a business, then they might last longer. He has a real job, and I doubt he'd be foolish enough to risk a full-time business making and selling public domain disks. People feel he is obligated to give away these disks for next to nothing… and that's even tougher when someone else adds value to what you've given away, and makes a profit again, ala HyperMedia's CDs. As the one-time manager of the old AMICUS disks, I think I have a special perspective on this. Amazing Computing was paying me a royalty for a while, per disk they sold through the magazine, while I worked there. (They stopped paying after I left, although our handshake agreement said nothing about that… the scums, they've been making money on those disks for years…) If it wasn't for the money, it wouldn't have been worth it. And I was pleased that the disks served a double duty by helping many Amiga user groups get off the ground. By selling disks, they had a no-brainer fund raiser. I hope Fred turns over official control to someone like Hypermedia, and that in the future, the disks are only released on CD-ROM – virus-free, pristine, and easily distributed and duped to floppies only as needed.