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From: kudla@pawl15.pawl.rpi.edu (Robert J. Kudla)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Shareware? Hah!
Message-ID: <338@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU>
Date: 5 Feb 88 20:37:21 GMT
References: <8055@g.ms.uky.edu> <174@piring.cwi.nl> <39450@sun.uucp> <1348@looking.UUCP> <622@nuchat.UUCP>
Sender: news@imagine.PAWL.RPI.EDU
Reply-To: kudla@pawl15.pawl.rpi.edu (Robert J. Kudla)
Organization: RPI Public Access Workstation Lab - Troy, NY
Lines: 37

In article <622@nuchat.UUCP> peter@nuchat.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
>I wrote one shareware program.
>....tells how wonderful it was...
>I asked $35 to get an update and remove the startup message that read:
>	"Send $35 to stop me printing this obnoxious message and to
>	get an updated version of this program"
>or something like that.
>I got 3 letters from people wanting me to add features before they'd send
>their $35, and one guy claiming he wanted a free copy for a review. Wouldn't
>say what his magazine was.
>
>Shareware, hah!
Well, let me put it this way. The way you worded the message was pretty
poor, in my opinion; that would immediately cause me to (a) hack the
message out of the program myself or (b) simply file the programme in
the Circular File. Further, if this was over about a year ago, the best
terminal emulators on the PC were PD or Shareware anyway- PCTalk comes
to mind, though they've since gone commercial. But for you to bitch
because the shareware system didn't work for you is pretty infantile.
If the programme is good and professionally done, people DO support
it (at least in the PC and Amiga world; it doesn't work on Commodore
8-bit machines and I can't speak for the other markets), assuming
you promote/distribute it properly! Shareware to me is infinitely better
than the commercial market because (1) the programme must sell itself
and (2) only the good programmers make any money.

Just for the record, I *have* released Shareware, and I have made money
off it. Not much, because the programme was a C64 thing, and it was
mediocre to begin with, but a good bit for a week and a half of programming.



   ------------Robert J. Kudla - Pseudo-Freshman Extraordinaire-------------
   Screw the disclaimers- flame at will!!                Itt@RPITSMTS.BITNET
   And you may ask yourself- How do I work this?      FU7Z%mts@itsgw.rpi.edu
             (I sure as hell do...)                       kudla@pawl.rpi.edu
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