Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!pepper!cmcmanis
From: cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: enforcement of Shareware
Message-ID: <42629@sun.uucp>
Date: 20 Feb 88 06:43:36 GMT
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Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 27

This whole bit about shareware has gotten out of hand. Basically, I think
everyone agrees, what is/was at issue here are two concepts :

a) Shareware in lieu of commercialware. Basically, this was what the original
   discussion was about. The question being "As an alternative to going the
   commercial route, with marketing and shrink wrap, etc, has anyone made
   money off shareware?" And the answer is "Very few." Generally, you are
   better off trying the commercial route first, because you can always go
   shareware later. It is a lot tougher to make it work the other way. 

b) Money out of the blue for a neat hack. This is what Robert apparently
   was talking about. Basically, you write something because you wanted to
   and someone sends you some money because they liked it. There is no one
   living off this sort of project but it does give a lot of good strokes 
   to the author, and maybe they go out and have a steak dinner or something.

They are separate things, the latter I think of the freely distributable
software category. One of the concepts that was bandied about on BIX was
sort of a free software, commercial help thing. Where the binaries for a 
program were 'free' to be copied but the manual cost $40 and telephone 
help was charged at some fixed rate per hour. This can work on somethings
and the 'experienced' users like it because they don't have to pay 'support'
costs when they don't need any support. 

--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.