Parser and pricing policy and other software issues

[lojbab (Bob LeChevalier)]

John Cowan has reported substantial progress on his Lojban parser, which
may be in Beta test by the end of the month.  Written in C, it is likely
to be available for PC, UNIX, and MacIntosh, perhaps by summer (the
primary qualification for Beta testers is that you have made some
significant efforts at writing Lojban without the parser - we want
people who have learned enough of the language to really hammer on the
parser for the next couple of months, since bugs in the parser and the
grammar are going to be in obscure corners of the language).

I am seeking input on an important question now, though:  how much do we
charge for the parser.  Recognizing that software is one of the few
areas we can make a little profit to support our activities that don't
generate enough self-supporting revenue (i.e. most of them), we want to
get a good income.  But we don't want to price the program so high that
people are reluctant to buy it - the parser is a fantastic tool when you
are learning the language, since you can see right away whether a
sentence or paragraph is grammatical and what is wrong with it if it
isn't.

I also understand that the plethora of U**X machines sometimes requires
source recompilation, so we need to set a price for source independent
of the run-time version.  From what I've seen in various price lists,
source tends to rate a premium price, and U**X versions of software tend
to be twice the price of MS-DOS versions.  There is also the question of
eventual distribution in the manner of the Free Software Foundation,
though our finances may not allow this at this point.  Whether you will
buy the program or not, your opinions on these questions are important,
and will affect the decisions that we'll probably make at LogFest in
June.  Note that we are not especially concerned with keeping the parser
source secret, but at this stage we want to keep version control pretty
tight until the final grammar baseline.

We intend to give a discount to people with positive voluntary balances
with LLG, but the amount is undecided.  Give the full price you are
willing to pay in the following answers.

So here are the questions.  We don't want formal orders, and no
commitments are implied in responding.

1. Will you be interested in buying the parser as soon as it is
available, will you wait for the textbook before buying it, or are you
unlikely to buy it even then?

2. Which of the following would you be interested in, and how much would
you pay for them (a range or maximum price is fine in response)?

a. MS-DOS 8086            run-time                     source
b. MS-DOS 80286-optimized run-time                     source
c. MS-DOS 80386-optimized run-time                     source
d. U**X (specify version) run-time                     source

3. For U**X, apparently some vendors distinguish in price or
availability between human-readable-source, and encoded-but-compilable-
source which isn't very readable but is only intended to make the
program portable to systems other than the vendor's standard version.
If you specified U**X source in #2, indicate interest and price for
either or both versions.  Note that because of version control, we may
be slower to releasing an open- source version.

4. Nora expects to complete the revision of our LogFlash flash card
management software by LogFest.  The new version is compatible with a
revised gismu list with much more completely defined place structures
(100 characters vs. 40) that should also be done later this year.  Lots
of bells and whistles have been added to support people who have found
our tuned algorithm not suited to their learning style (e.g. if you skip
several days due to illness or other distraction, you tend to miss a lot
of words.  The new version allows you to set a maximum word count on
lessons or to skip adding new words to the word ladder.  It also allows
you to choose to allow yourself a second try on errors in case you made
a typo, change the number of times you have to practice error words, and
display or print words for review outside of the lesson.

Again, are you interested in this software (MS DOS only for the near
future), and how much are you willing to pay for it?  Also indicate
whether you are upgrading from an old (registered or not) version.  This
existing, much simpler, version has been priced at $30 for combined
LogFlash 1 and LogFlash 2, which teaches the rafsi.  Program size and
recoding effort, and low interest in the rafsi version will mean that it
will be left out of the new package for now.  A LogFlash version
teaching cmavo should be available soon after the gismu program, but may
be sold separately.  Would you prefer a bundled product at a lower price
than buying the two separately, but higher than the individual program
price?

(Note:  the existing LogFlash program will probably continue to be
available via Shareware, but at least for the short term, the enhanced
version will be available on purchase from us only)

5. For MS-DOS users, we are working on translating the original
adventure game 'Collosal Cave' into Lojban, such that it will have
Lojban commands and text (and Lojban-correct magic words), as well as
slightly more powerful syntax processing to support grammatical Lojban
commands.  It is intended to be a bit more fun way to learn the
language, though there is a lot of text to translate.  The version we
are working on is in Turbo-Pascal, but there are C versions of the
program for the U**X environment that can be similarly modified once we
have the Lojban command structure defined.

Are you interested in this product when it is available (probably this
summer, but it depends on the text translation effort)?  Provide machine
and price ranges for this product per the above - in this case, the
MS-DOS version will presumably be available much sooner than any other
version.

Thanx for your input on these questions.  You can provide your answers
on prices and machines to me directly or on lojban-list.  I encourage
any open debate on this software, our pricing policy, etc. on the list.
We exist to serve the community and this is one of the few ways we can
find out how.
----
lojbab = Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
         2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA
         703-385-0273
         lojbab@snark.thyrsus.com