Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Commercial software in comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Message-ID: <2967@looking.UUCP>
Date: 17 Mar 89 23:34:38 GMT
References: <6191@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 27

I disagree with Rahul.  If a shareware program is useful to lots of
readers, then I think it is OK to post, even if it's a must-pay program.

Remember, if people register a program, it's because *they* are getting
something good out of it, something they feel is worth more than the money
they handed over for it.

If you post something and only 5 people want it, then you haven't really
given the author great advertising, unless the fee is $1,000.  But
in general (here's the tough part) you shouldn't post things that only
5 people want.

Whether the payment is compulsory or not is not relevant -- it's whether
the readers want it and the net payers want to pay for it that counts.

All that the payment does is subtract from the balance.  If a program
is worth $100 and it registers for $50, then that's +50.  This is
no different from a program worth $50 that is free.   Of course, you
have to make an estimate over the whole net.

Thus if MKS-vi, a high demand net program, were available shareware
with a compulsory payment of $100 if the user wants to keep using it,
I would say post it.   "Joe's Rolodex" for $30 I would say don't post,
and a northern Saskatchewan Holstein management package for free I would
say don't post to.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd.  --  Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473