Path: ...!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Simon Clubley Newsgroups: comp.os.vms Subject: Re: VMS Pascal article Date: Thu, 9 Jan 2025 18:19:19 -0000 (UTC) Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 32 Message-ID: References: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Thu, 09 Jan 2025 19:19:19 +0100 (CET) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; posting-host="53efcbc88172c6d1e894f4de6b422a0a"; logging-data="3661231"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1/EcekxjaH2dmw1tfr1/QxksQu4qNth4uE=" User-Agent: slrn/0.9.8.1 (VMS/Multinet) Cancel-Lock: sha1:w7vtHYpdI5LQZDFsZqFAsgK3cGM= Bytes: 2332 On 2025-01-08, Dan Cross wrote: > In article , > Arne Vajhøj wrote: > >>The problem will likely be that even if it would financially >>be positive, then the amount would be very small. If the copyright >>owner is an individual, then a plus of a few hundred or thousand >>dollars will be OK. But if the copyright owner is >>Big Mega Publishing Inc, then they will not do anything >>with an expected profit under hundreds of thousands of dollars. > > Many technical books that previously cost rather tidy sums are > now available for free, as authors and publishers realized that > the audience had dwindled to negligible and there was no longer > a financial incentive to holding on to the IP. > > It's kind of weirdly fascinating how thing that used to cost > staggering sums are now available just for free. > Indeed. About 20 years ago I found the VMS device drivers in C book in a local large bookshop (either York or Leeds, I don't remember). Such a thing would be utterly unheard of these days. Simon. -- Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.