🚀 go-pugleaf

badger@phylo.life.uiuc.edu (Jonathan Badger) wrote:

>The real question is *why* people insist on writing
>shareware. 

To cut costs to the end user, increase profit margins to the
developer, and to allow the computing community to "try-before-you
buy".

>Shareware is a blight upon humanity

No, people who misuse shareware or pirate software because they
believe that all software should be "free" are the real "blight" to
the rest of us.

>by definition, shareware authors are amateur programers who program for fun, and not
>to put food on their table.
Gee, I'm a professional programmer by day and a shareware programmer
by night.  Could have something to do with trying to "do your own
thing" outside of what your daytime employeer is working on and earn
some extra income.

> Why not be a freeware programmer instead?
I've done lots of freeware also (mind you, none of this is Newton
stuff yet).  But if I spend a lot of time on something that I find
useful, and you are telling me that the shareware cost is not worth it
and it should be free, either you don't need the program or you should
just write one on your own (so I'll just keep my program to myself).
IOW: No one is forcing you to buy shareware if you don't feel it's not
worth it, but for heven sakes, don't use it.  If you can do better for
free, then go right ahead.

>You have already discovered that shareware isn't very profitable
Oh, tell that to the folks who wrote ProComm, QModem or 4DOS for the
PC (all of which did so well as shareware that they decided to go
commercial) Tell that to id software, the authors of DOOM.  PC-Write!
PKZIP (PKWare), DSZ Zmodem.  Your comments just don't reflect reality.
Any shareware program has the potential to "make it big".

> 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.
One problem with UNIX is a lack of a single platform.  If I were to
write a UNIX program and wanted to make it shareware and make it
available to the UNIX market at large, there would be a couple of
dozen platforms and variations that I would have to compile my program
for!  Given that, I also would just distribute the source code and let
each platform compile there own.  When giving out the source code, I
might just as well make it freeware.

>Why not write freeware yourself? Are you really saying
>that your Mahjongg program was harder to write than emacs?
>If not, why do you demand money for it while no money is required for emacs?

Except for the first version of emacs, which was SOLD by AT&T, are you
under the belief that emacs was the effort of a single individual?  Do
you think it was just written for fun?  You don't think that people
who write most of that stuff are not getting paid while they are doing
it?  I'm sure there are a few cases, sure, where programs are done
just for the fun of it, just like there exists for the Newton.

So, I'll be anxiously awaiting your first piece of Freeware to hit the
networks!




===============================================================
Bryan Nystrom               | Opinions expressed are those of 
After Hours Hackers         | the author and not nessisarily
bnystrom@palindrome.com     | those of Seagate Software [SMG] or
Seagate Software SMG        | Palindrome.
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