8-bit Software (c) Duncan Webster 1991
Issue 12 Magazine May 1991
MEMBERS ARTICLES.
Well I invited the comments of members and PD libraries alike to comment
and bring forth their opinions in respect to my charging article last
month. So far no PD libraries have aired their views, but one member has
written in with his opinion. As promised, his letter appears below.
Anyone else who would like to have their views known ESPECIALLY IF YOU RUN
A PD LIBRARY, then please write in.
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PD Charges Comments.
User ID:- 8CT
I will start with ROBIN PIKE who must be in it for the money as You supply
the discs and he charges you 95p copying charge PER SIDE. Therefore it is
#1.90 for 1 double sided disc. Postage is also charged on top of the rest.
Alan Blundell's BBC PD used to allow you to supply Disc's and Postage and
Packaging and he only charged 50p copying fee per disc. Whan I sent off to
him I foramated the discs (some ADFS some DFS), labeled them all with what
format they were and what I required on each disc and sent return postage
and sent it all in a Jiffy bag. (You can normally reuse Jiffy Bags so that
was the return packing.) I guess some people wern't doing this so now you
have to get every thing from him at a cost of:- 50p per disc (I pay less
than 30p for mine and am sure he can get them cheaper as he would buy
more), 50p postage per disc (this seams rather high as it only cost me 78p
to post 17 discs by first class, he would charge #8.50 and packaging does
not cost #7.72), and a copying fee of 50p that I will accept is okay. The
charge I am realy appauled with is the postage charge I mention above. How
can you charge 50p postage per disc when it only costs 22p to send one and
as mentioned above 78p to send 17. Alan also runs an EPROM programing
service that is grossly over charged as you can get eproms for about #3.00
but he charges a lot more than that.
It's a shame that people not formatting discs or not sending return
postage are spoiling it for the people who do. I think that what you
should do if you're a PD company and someone sends unformatted discs to
you is to just send them back with a note, or if they send no postage keep
the discs until they send some.
It is a shame that it is now costing so much to get software that people
have written and donated for free and the programmer doesn't get any the
money made from these companies.
Cotswold PD is a good one as he only charges #1.00 per disc and this
includes disc, postage and copying.
J.G.Harston charges #1.00 if you include disc and #2.00 if you want him to
supply the disc. These also seam rather high charges.
There are a lot that charge the #1.50 per disc fee and I can't quite see
how they justify it fully.