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From: jprad@faatcrl.UUCP (Jack Radigan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Does Shareware hurt professional software development?
Message-ID: <1414@faatcrl.UUCP>
Date: 29 May 90 21:00:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: faatcrl.1414
References: <1990May26.223843.19350@ameristar> <24937@usc.edu> <1410@faatcrl.UUCP> <24952@usc.edu>
Organization: FAA Technical Center, Atlantic City NJ
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papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes:

>Note that I hightlighed "ANY money".  You think you're making some money,
>because you can get some revenues for investment and future equipment, BUT
>take a look at what you are actually paying yourself, before you say that 
>you're not losing money.  I'd bet that if you count the hours you've spent on
>your program vs. the money that came in, your're paying yourself less than
>minimum wage. I.e., you're really not making any profit at all, since you'd
>get more money with ANY other kind of legal job that does not require any
>kind of special knowledge.  It might be sad, BUT shareware is not profitable
>for 99.9% of the programmers that use it.

Granted, I'd probably *not* want to figure out exactly how much per hour I've
been compensated to date.  Optimistically speaking, it *should* change over
the next two years or so.

There are an awful lot of Shareware products that have (or at least the
appearance of having) been successful.  ProComm, PC-Write and PC-Calc are
ones that started as Shareware and have migrated to full-blown commercial
products.  If that is your criteria for success, than yes, Shareware is not
a "good thing".  But, looking at QModem, Telix, PCBoard, PKZIP and a whole
slew of other products are still Shareware, it does seem like a possible
alternative.  Hell, why would ASP (Association of Shareware Professionals)
even exist otherwise?

>That's possible, but unlikely.  It is easier to make a name for yourself
>by commercial "self-publishing" than shareware publishing.  The former one
>does require a larger initial investment in time and money though, and of
>course there are no assurances.  I probably just happened to be lucky.

Well, at the very least, I've had several offers of going commercial from
some lesser known publishers, all of which that I've declined.  So, it would
seem that some people have taken notice already.

  -jack-