News and commentary from the cross-platform scripting community.
RE: WHAT JAVA IS SAYING
Sent: 5/29/96; 1:57:37 PM
From: mdolbec@telematica.com (Michael Dolbec)
I don't think you convinced me that Java applet developers are going to actually make money.
One of the conundrums about applets (that are not free) has been the difficulty in tracking their consumption and charging for it. It is kinda of a problem: Apple nicknamed it the 5 cent part problem, IBM had a different name for it. I am assuming they are too inexpensive to package and sell at retail, and that they will be distributed via the net "on-demand". I suppose you could buy them buy the bushel, like a commodity, and compensate the applet developer on that model.
If applets are free developers, must find another way to profit from their creation. If applets are not always free, then there is an opportunity in figuring out how to charge for them. Now I helped design an architecture for IBM to do this...but that is another story.