Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site felix.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!oliveb!felix!bytebug
From: bytebug@felix.UUCP (Roger L. Long)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Cleaning up net.sources.mac
Message-ID: <536@felix.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 21-Oct-85 16:34:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: felix.536
Posted: Mon Oct 21 16:34:49 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 23-Oct-85 04:11:24 EDT
References: <1134@sdcsvax.UUCP> <10674@ucbvax.ARPA>
Reply-To: bytebug@felix.UUCP (Roger L. Long)
Organization: FileNet Corp., Costa Mesa, CA
Lines: 31
Keywords: shareware
Xref: watmath net.news:4110 net.micro.mac:3099

In article <10674@ucbvax.ARPA> shebanow@ucbernie.UUCP (Mike Shebanow) writes:
>As a developer who has posted shareware to net.sources.mac, I feel
>compelled to argue his extremely negative assessment of shareware.
>
>First of all, it is not reasonable to divide all software into two camps:
>public domain and commercial. Shareware came into existence because
>developers felt a need to profit from their labor while avoiding the
>nastier aspects of licensing software to a publisher (like dealing with
>the all-too-common royalty audit). It would be great if we could just give
>our software away, but I for one can not afford to spend several hundred
>hours on a program I am going to give away.

On the other hand, some people's priorities don't put so much importance
on money.  If I were to ever market a program as "Shareware", any money
that came in would be a pleasant surprise.  How many hundreds of hours
do you think has been spent on the various file transfer (XMODEM/MODEM7)
programs in the CP/M arena?  How many hundreds (thousands?) of hours do you
think have been spent on the Usenet news software?  How many hundreds of
hours have been spent on all the public domain software posted to net.sources
in the history of the net?  

I've always thought it might be nice to be rich, but there are other things
that are a *LOT* more important to me.

As far as the disaster of net.sources.* is concerned, I've always supported
getting rid of net.sources in favor of mod.sources.  In support of this, I'd
be willing to volunteer to moderate mod.sources.mac.
-- 
	roger long
	filenet corp
	trwrb!felix!bytebug