🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <jms-1203961054390001@ts3-009.jaxnet.com>,
Jack Starmer <jms@hodgkin.mc.duke.edu> wrote:
>In article <4hptl0$5c7@news2.deltanet.com>, fuz@deltanet.com (Scott
>Ellsworth) wrote:
>
>> My own definition, unless other information changes it is that freeware 
>> is not free, merely something that someone else has funded the 
>> development of.  Often, that someone is a federal agency or 
>> grant-supported university spending (conceptually) my tax and pledge dollars.
>> 
>
>I resent that statement.  I have released mutiple freeware offerings for
>FileMaker Pro.  No one "funded" the development.

You funded the development.  In the time you spent on the shareware or 
freeware packages, you could have earned income performing other 
activites, and money you spent on development tools is money you could 
not spend on other things.  Therefore, I wouls say it is pretty clear 
that someone paid for it - YOU.  You just happen to be exceptional, in 
that you used only your own personal resources.

Let me repeat: OFTEN that someone is ...

In many, many cases, freeware is distributed by students, and is often 
written using machines which belong to a university system.  Other cases 
involve professors whose support is through grant or pledge money which 
prevents most forms of financial return.  In essence, these people are 
accepting the money they get in return for free redistribution of the 
fruits of thier labors.  I have no objection to that, but I do protest 
most strongly any attempt by those who have written freeware with outside 
support to denigrate those who would like to get paid for thier labors.

If you wish to write freeware using your own resources, then by all means 
do so.  There are some very good reasons to do it.  In adition, it does 
give you bragging rights.

If you can get support from the outside for doing it, so much the better 
for you.  If a freeware author _does_ get outside support, they do not 
have much room for moral oneupmanship when it comes to distribution of 
the end product.  Remember that this thread began with someone calling 
shareware a blight.

>  I released the software
>for free.  You don't have to pay for it.  I, in no way, purchased my
>computer or my copy of FileMaker Pro for the purpose of developing
>software.  I thought it would be fun to do and I did it.  Everything was
>already paid for.

As I said - you are an exception.  Look at the return addresses for many 
of the people involved with both the FSF and the BSD projects.  A fair 
number of those are paid for out of several pockets.  Some of which are 
public.

>> > Why not be a freeware programmer instead?
>> 
>> Because then you get no return from your investment.
>> 
>
>This is just not true.  I have received a large amount of eMail from
>people who use the software I released.  All of them from people thanking
>me for making the FM Pro template.  Some from people who were surprised it
>was "free".  It makes me feel good to have made a usefull tool for some of
>the folks out there on the internet.  For me that is a tremendous return
>on my investment.

Well enough.  I am glad that you get this return, and that you have 
sufficient income from other sources to cover the cost of needed tools 
and updates.  For some, however, there needs to be a fair amount of 
financial return for a project to make it feasible.  In my own case, I 
cannot afford development tools costing more than ~$100 as a "would be 
fun" expense.  Up until recently, this restricted my Newton development 
severely.  The needed documentation came as part of a $500 development 
system.  Now that the documentation for the Newt is online, it is a much 
smaller issue.  Utilities that I would have released as shareware, hoping 
to get back the %500 for the environment, can now be released as 
freeware, since I do not have that large chunk of capital to recoup.

(Frankly, I would rather spend the $500 on a new 4-track or mixer, for 
which I will likely not get paid anytime soon.  Everything does not have 
to generate revenue, but if certain things do not, they will not be done)

>jack (jms@hodgkin.mc.duke.edu)
>
>Author of CDLite, CDLite Pro, and CDLite Classical for Filemaker Pro.

--
Scott Ellsworth          fuz@deltanet.com
"When a great many people are unable to find work, unemployment 
results" - Calvin Coolidge, (Stanley Walker, City Editor, p. 131 (1934))
"The barbarian is thwarted at the moat." - Scott Adams