Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ncis.llnl.gov!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!labrea!rutgers!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!sun.soe.clarkson.edu!nelson From: nelson@sun.soe.clarkson.edu (Russ Nelson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Painter's Apprentice (paint program for EGA) Message-ID: Date: 21 Jan 89 06:13:51 GMT References: <2027@sunrise.ece.clarkson.edu> <101000034@hpcvlx.HP.COM> Sender: news@sun.soe.clarkson.edu Reply-To: nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu Organization: Clarkson University, Postdam NY Lines: 44 In-reply-to: everett@hpcvlx.HP.COM's message of 20 Jan 89 17:41:53 GMT In article <101000034@hpcvlx.HP.COM> everett@hpcvlx.HP.COM (Everett Kaser) writes: First off, I congratulate you on the work you've done and your willingness to share it at a reasonable price. [ He then goes on to take exception to my use of Beggarware and Crippleware as pejoratives, and to suggest out that PA is little removed from Crippleware. ] Perhaps the documentation doesn't reflect the fact, but I genuinely feel that Painter's Apprentice is free, i.e. available for use at no cost and no guilt. Pay for it if you wish, don't pay if you don't wish. However, IF you pay, then you will get some extra parts that you might find useful (but which are not necessary), and you have some assurance that PA will continue to be improved (there is MUCH room for improvement). I don't use Painter's Apprentice myself. I only wrote it initially (for the Zenith Z-100) to prove to myself that the Macintosh is a generic box with some nice software. My boss showed it to Zenith and they wanted it as a product, so after extended hacking it became a product. About a year ago I realized that it would port easily to the EGA, so in one easy weekend I ported it. I then added a few features and have spent most of the last year trying to figure out how to distribute it. I came to the conclusion that commercial distribution put too much of the customer's money in other people's pockets. I used the pejorative terms Beggarware and Crippleware to show my distaste for these marketing schemes. Beggarware gives the purchaser nothing in return for their money. Crippleware usually involves crippling the program. My method, for which I have no name, essentially gives away the full, uncrippled program as an advertisement for support and extra data to use with the program. I am in no way married to this scheme (actually I am married to Heather Nelson :-) and am trying it as an experiment. Feel free to apply cogent argumentation to change my mind. If I were to give away source and the extra data then I would be politically correct, i.e. a Free Software person. In any case, support costs, because I won't improve PA unless my wallet is convinced that people are using it, AND I will be obligated to improve it if I take money to do so. -- --russ (nelson@clutx [.bitnet | .clarkson.edu]) "I saved the whales!" - Rebecca L. Nelson, 3.5 years old, on receiving her Christmas present of a whale "adoption" certificate. Bless her liberal heart.