Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!caen!uwm.edu!bionet!agate!e260-1g.berkeley.edu!c60b-1eq
From: c60b-1eq@e260-1g.berkeley.edu (Noam Mendelson)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Shareware is junk
Message-ID: <1991May1.060244.6067@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 1 May 91 06:02:44 GMT
References: <1991Apr30.174659.9082@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> <40790008@hpcvra.cv.hp.com.>
Sender: root@agate.berkeley.edu (Charlie Root)
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 31

In article <40790008@hpcvra.cv.hp.com.> everett@hpcvra.cv.hp.com. (Everett Kaser) writes:
>/ rubin@visual1.jhuapl.edu (Don Rubin) writes...
>>FLAME ON
>>My suggestion to budding shareware programmers is give
>>us a MOSTLY fully functional program with no stupid
>>order forms, warning boxes, etc. To insure registration
>>just reduce the functionallity on a few functions
>>(eg. allow it to print only a few pages, limit the 
>>size of the image, etc.).
>>Try to act like a professional programmer before you
>>act like a bean counter and you will end up with a better
>>product and more people will want to pay for it.
>>FLAME OFF
>I agree with your flame (for the most part), but the problem with your
>suggestion is that many other people hate IT, calling that type of product
>"crippleware".

I hate crippleware as well.  Whenever I find one of these I don't ever
bother testing the product, unless it's something extraordinary (which is
rarely the case).
However, I don't mind an occaisonal registration reminder as long as it
isn't obnoxious (such as a timed delay of any sort).  Guiltware is probably
the most effective and least obnoxious form of shareware.
If you as a program developer make a program more obnoxious to use, it
will necessary be less attractive.

-- 
+==========================================================================+
| Noam Mendelson   ..!ucbvax!web!c60b-1eq       | "I haven't lost my mind, |
| c60b-1eq@web.Berkeley.EDU                     |  it's backed up on tape  |
| University of California at Berkeley          |  somewhere."             |