🚀 go-pugleaf

Jonathan Badger wrote (excerpted):
> ... by definition, shareware authors are amateur programers who
program for fun, and not
> to put food on their table.... In the UNIX world shareware is basically non-existant and
> freeware is plentiful -- gcc, emacs, TeX, the X Window System, hell,
> even whole UNIX-compatible operating systems such as Linux and FreeBSD
> are freeware.

    Oh, come on.  I've never written software (except for diddling 
with HyperCard for my own uses) but I am a full-time writer of fiction 
and book reviews and that sort of thing, and I can attest that there 
are many valid reasons to write, to want to get your work distributed, 
and to hope to get a bit of money out of it.  True, some of the 
writing I do -- such as this newsgroup post -- it totally for fun and 
for free.  Other stuff is strictly professional.  But there's a 
sizeable category in the middle:  things that I want to write, that 
will consume a good bit of time and talent, and that I am not prepared 
to do without some sort of compensation, however modest.  After all, 
everyone's time is worth *something*, and the talent to do certain 
kinds of work (such as write decent shareware apps) is pretty rare.
    BTW, my understanding of the situation is that the reason the UNIX 
world is so full of freeware is that most of it was written by 
computer professionals who were (and are) being paid by academic 
institutions or other employers.  Their remuneration does not come in 
the form of teeny little shareware fees, but they aren't giving their 
talent away, either.  As to whether they're having fun, who knows?  We 
can hope.

-- 
               "Did you ever hear such a Windfucker, as this?"
             (Ben Jonson, 1609)  This material is knowingly made
            available to minors in the Oxford English Dictionary.
                    http://www.midcoast.com/~treehaus