Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!dewey.soe.berkeley.edu!oster
From: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: Posting shareware to the Usenet
Message-ID: <22352@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 31 Dec 87 07:23:07 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> <202@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (David Phillip Oster)
Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley
Lines: 65

I am responsible for two pieces of shareware: Menu Clock (the current
version is 3.1) and Calendar (the current version version is 2.0) both
for the Macintosh. 

I gross an average of $5.00 a day from my shareware, and for each check
I receive I mail the user a disk with the current versions of the
shareware.  My costs for materials, labor, and post box rental mean
that my profit is quite small, not to mention the inconvenience to me
in the form of early morning phone calls, from customers who want to
praise me, or get my help.

Unfortunately, I picked a price too low to include the cost of selling, so
no retailer can afford to carry it.  The price is also too low to include
the cost of an employee, so I must do all the work myself.

I used to offer complete source, on request, on condition that all changes
be reported back to me for incorporation into the "official" version.
Since not a single person returned any changes to me, I don't offer source
anymore. My reputation rests on the quality of my work. Inferior
imitations based on my work make me furious, particularly if they confuse
ordinary people, making them believe I did a shoddy job.

I have also written a few clever hacks, which are pretty to look at, but
not strictly _useful_ to anybody. Since I believe in value for money, I
don't ask for anything for these.

Why do I do it?

0.) It has much less stigma in the Macintosh end of the net. People there
seem to feel that an author asking for money is just part of his freedom
of speech.

1.) I have expenses. I am not rich. I can't afford to give my work away.

2.) I wanted to learn about running a small business without going many
tens of thousands of dollars into debt raising working capital.

3.) if you hire a publisher to publish your work (obviously publishers
have a different perspective on this relationship: they think they are
hiring you.) You'll pay about $0.80 out of every dollar your software
makes the publisher for the priviledge. The publisher's expenses in turn
mean that there is a lot of good, small software, that no-one can afford
to conventionally publish.

but mostly:

4.) a check in the mail is a _very_ sincere form of fan mail. I'm glad
that people like my stuff enough to pay for it, and I like to hear what
they'd like to see in the future. (It is particularly a kick to get a fan
letter from someone I respect.)

If you don't like my stuff, if you don't like me, or if you don't like my
requesting money, you won't pay me.  But, I like living in a world where
people send me fan mail with money in it.

My most recent posting is public domain: it animates a ball bouncing
around an endlessly rising staircase, with accompanying endlessly rising
music.  It requires the host computer have a 4 voice sound system (the
Macinotosh does.)  I know they taught us in class that all computers are
Turing-equivalent, but I have yet to see a Turing machine with a 4 voice
sound system.


--- David Phillip Oster            --A Sun 3/60 makes a poor Macintosh II.
Arpa: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu --A Macintosh II makes a poor Sun 3/60.
Uucp: {uwvax,decvax,ihnp4}!ucbvax!oster%dewey.soe.berkeley.edu