Community / Amateurs / Professionals

Ascended (15187)

17-09-2003, 20:15

OKay, I have stumbled upon this one quite some times before and saw it mentioned in another thread just now.

Theoretically spoken.. developers of great MSX products like Pumpkin Adventure 3, the MODplayer for turboR, Meridian etc. etc. etc. were all amateurs.

However, the word 'amateur' has quite a negative edge. Like amateur products are always inferiour to commercial products. Like they are not even worth looking at (putting it as negative as possible). In the past, the MSX community have clearly shown this is not the truth at all.

In newsposts and forumposts I often say 'amateur' (with quotes)... but... isn't there a better word we could use for this?

By Low_Profile

Champion (425)

17-09-2003, 20:17

Non-Commercial

That way it doesn't sound as negative

or Non-Profit, or Non-Professional

*note: some do actually sell their products, but it's usually not to make a living

By snout

Ascended (15187)

17-09-2003, 20:19

Hmmm but you can be an 'amateur', you can't be a 'non profit'

By Low_Profile

Champion (425)

17-09-2003, 20:21

there's a difference between 'amature' and 'amaturistic'

IMHO the latter word sounds worse than the first one

By anonymous

incognito ergo sum (116)

18-09-2003, 01:50

pseudo-professional would be a good word, or quasi-professional.

By sjoerd

Hero (602)

18-09-2003, 12:26

Amateur sounds good to me. No need to invent a new word just because one or two amateur-projects are good enough to be called professional. Most amateur projects are what they are: amateur projects. And one can see that from great distance.
I'm not saying here I don't like these amateur projects or that they are bad. (But most of them are, of course.) Just like professional projects over 90% sucks.

By snout

Ascended (15187)

18-09-2003, 12:36

Sjoerd, somehow I have the feeling you missed a large part of the 90's MSX software developed by the MSX Community

By Thom

Paladin (691)

18-09-2003, 12:44

<Frank H. D.>Pah, the literal meaning of amateur is enthousiast</Frank H. D.>

By wolf_

Ambassador_ (9956)

18-09-2003, 13:04

If you take a professional photoshop artist and an amateur photoshop artist (take for example the demoscene), you'll notice that there's usualy not much difference.

However, when recording music, there's usually more difference between an amateur and a professional project. Amateurs won't hire a 300$/hour studio to do their mixing there, and professionals might hire instrumentplayers or have better equipment than amateurs. Usually, these things cause a slight difference between amateur and professional projects, where *real costs* are required.

But without any costs related, there's no reason an an amteur would do less quality than a professional. Both can have the same attitude.

By sjoerd

Hero (602)

18-09-2003, 13:50

Sjoerd, somehow I have the feeling you missed a large part of the 90's MSX software developed by the MSX Community Me too. Just like I missed a large part of the 80's MSX software. I 'discovered' most 80's software in 1995. (Internet! ).
I think I missed about 10% of the MSX software of the 90's.

By SjaaQ

Champion (267)

18-09-2003, 19:46

What about Semi-Professional?