🚀 go-pugleaf

On Friday, in article <876376122wnr@chaldea.demon.co.uk>
     finn@chaldea.demon.co.uk "Finn Winter" wrote:

..
FW> 2) A request for help. I have never released shareware before, and
FW>    I wondered if anyone could point me to any information on the
FW>    the subject - for instance, what newsgroups to post to in search
FW>    of beta-testers or to announce the final release, what legal 
FW>    disclaimers I should put in the documentation to protect myself, 
FW>    what ftp sites to upload the program to, the best way to protect 
FW>    unregistered versions of the programs against hackers and so on.

I imagine you'd find beta testers in demon.ip.support.winsock.

For other issues relevant to shareware authors I used to read
alt.comp.shareware.  I say 'used to' because the guy who created
it couldn't be persuaded that it was an extremely ill-chosen
name, and soon enough the group became inundated with enquiries
about where to find particular items of shareware, instead of
the authors' discussions intended.  Perhaps by now there's a
group FAQ.  And a number of people there know about the Assoc
of Shareware Professionals, which is certainly worth you finding
out about, though I never took the plunge and joined.

But what are your reasons for wanting to release shareware?
If you want the income that good shareware (might) generate,
you need to research your target market very carefully.  IMO,
on the Internet there is a tradition of mutual help, publishing
source code, and a project has to be a major product to make
it worth distributing as anything but freeware.

Perhaps others have different views.  I've not put out any
shareware since having a Demon a/c.  Should I switch to
doing shareware?

Good luck with your project, Finn.

--
John Washington

In article <819129630snz@wash.demon.co.uk>
           john@wash.demon.co.uk "John Washington" writes:

>Perhaps others have different views.  I've not put out any
>shareware since having a Demon a/c.  Should I switch to
>doing shareware?

Well, it all depends...  make_get makes me sod all income, because
there's no real incentive to register.  SmofList, on the other hand,
roughly pays for the running costs of smof.demon.co.uk, with income
of about UKL40 per month. It puts (Unregistered Evaluation Copy) in
the header of all outgoing mail unless it's registered, which seems
to be enough of an incentive.

You aren't going to get rich (except by being in the right place at
the right time) but every little helps.

All the Best,

Tim

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Illingworth    tim@smof.demon.co.uk     Go not to Usenet for advice, for
Chessington,    timill@cix.compulink.co.uk  they will say both 'No' and 'Yes'
Surrey, UK      100144.3343@compuserve.com     and 'Try Another Newsgroup'
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

In article <819129630snz@wash.demon.co.uk>
           john@wash.demon.co.uk "John Washington" writes:

> On Friday, in article <876376122wnr@chaldea.demon.co.uk>
>      finn@chaldea.demon.co.uk "Finn Winter" wrote:
>
> Perhaps others have different views.  I've not put out any
> shareware since having a Demon a/c.  Should I switch to
> doing shareware?

Please, don't!  I'd hate to have to pay for your wonderful textwin ;=)

-- 
/ Philip McNab // philip@siberia.demon.co.uk /

In article <819129630snz@wash.demon.co.uk>
   John Washington <john@wash.demon.co.uk> writes:
> 
> Perhaps others have different views.  I've not put out any
> shareware since having a Demon a/c.  Should I switch to
> doing shareware?

The odd things I've released have been free, although generally with the 
requirement that the user drops me an email to say they're using it. Even 
so, I've had very few "registrations", and generally they tend to come 
when the user needs help (it's often fairly obvious they've been using it 
for a while before that point). So I doubt very much whether I could make 
any money out of it.

That said, a lot depends on your target audience. If the audience is the 
"end user" then I would say that without significant incentive to 
register you won't get anything. If your target audience is developers, 
then you stand a much better chance; such people perhaps value the work 
put into a product more highly (or maybe they're just more honest?). This 
view would tie in quite well with Tim's SmofList paying far more than 
make_get - I don't think many people would doubt that SmofList has far 
fewer users. Given that make_get generally has a significant impact on 
phone bills where it is used I find this "human nature" a little 
disappointing. However, speaking realistically, it does indicate that 
attempting to make money is probably an optimistic venture.

With all that in mind, why bother at all? I sometimes wonder myself :-) 
However, I know I have gained far more out of the "Net" than I have put 
back, so I don't see that I have lost anything. There are people who just 
take - there always are. I feel better in myself having put something 
back. Then there's that knowledge that when you die there'll be some 
people around who you've never met whose lives have been changed for the 
better because of something you did. You see, I'm just a romantic at 
heart :-)

Mark.
-- 
int MeaningOfLife (void) { return 42; }   // mcr@holly.demon.co.uk
function MeaningOfLife :integer; begin MeaningOfLife := 6 * 9 end;