Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!unisoft!gethen!farren
From: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Posting shareware to the Usenet
Message-ID: <488@gethen.UUCP>
Date: 29 Dec 87 05:58:46 GMT
References: <417@ddsw1.UUCP> <262@papaya.bbn.com> <4309@bellcore.bellcore.com> <233@academ.UUCP> <3669@hoptoad.uucp> <470@gethen.UUCP> <2377@dasys1.UUCP>
Reply-To: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Organization: There's Unix there in Oakland
Lines: 33

In article <2377@dasys1.UUCP> samperi@dasys1.UUCP (Dominick Samperi) writes:
>Perhaps the original developer of the shareware/freeware concept made a
>killing because he did it at the right time. I do not think that it works
>anymore. 

Perhaps.  I tend to believe that it could work, even now, but have no
way of proving this (short of doing it and making a killing, of course :-)

>Question: What motivates a programmer to develop a large complex software
>system, perhaps requiring many weeks (or even years) of development effort,
>which is then posted for the world to use, for free?

Because of philisophical disagreement with the way our economic system
operates. 

Because of a desire to see one's name spread as far and wide as possible.

Because of a lack of funding to support a 'commercial' release.

Because of a desire to avoid the compromises and interference that a
  marketing department might force.

Because of a desire to see something one thinks of as useful and neat
  available to as many others as possible.

These are examples.  I'm sure you can think of others.  There seem to
be as many reasons for shareware distribution as there are people
doing it.

-- 
Michael J. Farren             | "INVESTIGATE your point of view, don't just 
{ucbvax, uunet, hoptoad}!     | dogmatize it!  Reflect on it and re-evaluate
        unisoft!gethen!farren | it.  You may want to change your mind someday."
gethen!farren@lll-winken.arpa |     Tom Reingold, from alt.flame