Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!sun!concertina!fiddler From: fiddler%concertina@Sun.COM (Steve Hix) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple Subject: Re: Shareware - does it really work? Message-ID: <126538@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> Date: 20 Oct 89 00:01:10 GMT References: <8910191002.aa11463@SMOKE.BRL.MIL> Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM Lines: 42 In article <8910191002.aa11463@SMOKE.BRL.MIL>, ART100@PSUVM.PSU.EDU ("Andy Tefft 862-6728", 814) writes: > > > >I agree. > >It has always amazed me that some people in the MS-DOS world can actually make > >a comfortable living writing shareware. Maybe it's the general maturity level > >of the type of user. The only shareware author I know of in the Apple world is > >the author of Red Ryder. >II) made that possible> And I believe he finally went commercial. > > This makes a lot of sense when you consider the user bases of Apple > vs IBM & clones & mac. > > The Apple II has long been considered a hacker's machine. The mac > has NEVER been that and the IBM very rarely. You must be running around in different neighborhoods than me. Lots of hackers in just about every camp. Almost no shareware at all in the Commodore camp (the theft rate is astronomical). And as they graduate to the Amiga, you find the rate climbing there, too. But still lots of hackers around the Amiga. (An interesting, if flawed, machine. I think it's the real spiritual heir to the Apple //.) The Mac, btw, has gotten lots of people writing their own applications in HyperCard. A *real* equivalent on the //gs would be very interesting. PC's and PS's are too boring (to me) to even investigate. > Anyway the point is just that it's hard to teach people with the general > hacker mentality to buy software, just like it's hard to teach people > with the general Mac mentality to write it! But not impossible. And when you do, the overall quality of the applications tend to be very good. It just takes an enormous effort to get to a useful state of ability. ------------ "...I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing: and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralization." - Petronius Arbiter, 210 B.C.