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In ANY job there are three things that influence cost (OK probably more!):
1 You want to make money in proportion to the effort involved.
2 You want to make as much as the market will stand
3 You want a 'fair' amount for the work done
All these are perfectly valid views.
>From the plumber's perspective, fitting a new bathroom (or whatever) is a fairly simple job. He'll have done it hundreds of times before. He knows what to, what he'll need for the job and how long it will take. Based on that knowledge he'll charge $x. Now, if the bathroom is, for example, a funny shape/hard to get at etc or the bath itself isn't standard then he'll adjust his price accordingly. If he needs to put in 3 extra days of work then it'll cost more. More input (generally means higher cost). The cost will also depend on (2) - if he's the only plumber in 100 miles then he can get away with charging more. (if you get (3) you're lucky!).
>From a TWer point of view, it's no different. If your documenting a bog standard user manual, you estimate size and quote. If it's a bit more complicated than that then you charge more (point 1). If you have specialised knowledge (e.g. programming experience/API experience etc) then, again, you can charge more (point 2).
>From a software point of view it's just the same. The fact is that a company has spent 18 months and $$ developing the software. This is the effort that they put in and they want, reasonably, to be rewarded for that. Now they could simply sell the software for huge $ (only really happens if the company is bought) but it's not really feasible so they sell it cheaper (taking into account (2) - if they are the only company in the market with this type of software they can charge more) and make their money on volume sales. If you copy that software then you are effectively stealing their effort - like unplumbing pipes at night so that the plumber has to put more effort in and loses money on the quoted price (poor analogy I know). Over a period of time the company makes money on the development effort expended. They then move to V2 - upgrades are usually cheaper than new so the existing users aren't being stung (and they're less likely to swap software) - having gold taps fitted :)
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A landmark hotel, one of America's most beautiful cities, and
three and a half days of immersion in the state of the art:
IPCC 01, Oct. 24-27 in Santa Fe. http://ieeepcs.org/2001/
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