Path: utzoo!yunexus!maccs!cs4g6ag
From: cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Stephen M. Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: shareware and public domain software
Keywords: pd, shareware, safe?
Message-ID: <25466021.16138@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca>
Date: 26 Oct 89 01:38:41 GMT
Article-I.D.: maccs.25466021.16138
References: <2038@leah.Albany.Edu> <1851@convex.UUCP>
Reply-To: cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Stephen M. Dunn)
Organization: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario
Lines: 41

In article <1851@convex.UUCP> harper@rigel.UUCP (David Harper) writes:
$[...]  For the most part when you buy software like this
$you are buying 'blind' and take what you get, however, it has been my
$experience that about a third of the programs I get are real gems - as good
$or better as any you could by commercially. [...]

   There are a couple of problems with buying from shareware/PD distri-
bution places:

1.  The two-thirds of the programs that seem to have been written by
    morons tend to get discouraging (of course, if you don't like the
    program, stop using it and don't register it!)

2.  Many people who receive a shareware program from one of these
    places figure that they've already paid for it and don't bother
    registering it.  PLEASE, PEOPLE, remember that any money you
    send to the distribution company goes to them and them alone.
    The author gets none of it!  So please send your registrations
    along.  If you don't, do you really expect shareware authors
    to continue devoting hundreds of hours to writing programs for
    which they receive a grand total of $47 in contributions?

(Sorry if it sounds like I'm preaching, but I have two such programs
 out there, and they are amongst the higher-quality programs, and for
 one of them I have received $20 Canadian, and for the other $20 U.S.,
 which doesn't do much more than covering the cost of mailing the
 things out!)

   Other than the above, I really do recommend these places.  As David
said, from time to time you _do_ find a real gem (and of those that
aren't fantastic, there are still many very solid, quality programs
that glow rather than shining).  Just remember that to buy one of the
gems if it was distributed as a non-shareware program, you would likely
pay something in the $100 and up range ... so when you contribute
$20 or $40 or whatever, you're really saving money.

-- 
Stephen M. Dunn                             cs4g6ag@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca
         <std_disclaimer.h> = "\nI'm only an undergraduate!!!\n";
**************************************************************************
              ... but I'm too full to swallow my pride ...