What is shareware? What was shareware?

[jo]

At last poll, almost everyone in ACF is "quite mature." I was the
"kid" at 45.

What on earth are you doing up at this time of night?

 

[Bill Leary]

I quoted directly from their software Spybot Search and Destroy in the Info
and Destroy page.
How come you you don't know what you are talking about?

I'm running 1.3 with the current updates.

When I hit "Help" and "Donations" I get the same quote Susan mentions.

If I hit "Donations" on the left I also get the same thing.

When I do "Help" and "About" I see an "Info" thing on the top. When I hit that
I end up at the home page of their web site. When I click "Donations" there I
get the same blurb again.

Perhaps you'd tell us exactly how you reached the "the best way to remove the
advertisement is pay the shareware fee" quote?

For that matter, what advertisement? I didn't pay any fee, and I'm not seeing
any advertisements.

- Bill

 

[Ryan Ginstrom]

When hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people, do that, there is
no market for payware left for you to make a living from.

If you want to make a living you simply have to find another market or
another occupation.

I have never seen a real freeware equivalent to my software. I have seen an
open-source implementation of the core engine, but it is written in Perl,
there is no GUI, and it lacks the most basic functionality. IOW a "toy"
program. (I made my core engine public as well -- that's the "simple" part
of the program and I don't mind if people use it for their own purposes. All
the algorithms are public domain anyway.)

About 2 years ago I was considering releasing my application (which I had
been working on for about 4 years before that) as freeware. Looking back
now, it was in a pretty sorry state. It lacked an installer, a nice GUI,
support for cases that I didn't use in my own work but many others used in
theirs, documentation, and a host of other stuff. These features either
weren't "interesting" enough to take care of, or I couldn't justify taking
away from my paying work as a contractor to implement them. Unfortunately, I
am not in a profession where I can get paid to write free software, and I
have to pay my mortgage, put a kid through school, etc.

I also didn't fancy the support that I anticipated the software would need
(it was so hard to use that it probably would have required a lot).

So I was thinking about releasing it as freeware, but a company I contract
for occasionally offered to sell it for me, if I would get it up to snuff as
a commercial program. I agreed, and after about a year it was released for
sale.

The application is now 100 times better than when I was considering
releasing it as freeware, and lots more functionality is planned. I haven't
exactly made enough off of it to retire, but the money that does come in
helps me justify the work I put into it to myself (and my wife!). I am
convinced that 95% of the added functionality would never have been added if
I was not selling the software.

I do offer some freeware, not as "loss leaders" but because I know it will
help some people. But these are uniformly simple little tools that took a
few days at most to code up. I am just too "time poor" to do more than that.

 

[Newsgroups]

The only real exception to this would be games.

You are right about that, I forgot that market, which is based on very
young teenagers who want the latest games and have the money to buy it
for.

But I think it is only a matter of time before that market is gone too,
the open source freeware creators are working on it.

When a few hundred millions of game enthusiasts want better and faster
games a few percent of them start learning how to do programming by
themselves, and there goes the market. It is a law of numbers. When
millions of programmers work on a market and they compete for the honor,
the money is gone from the market. There are too many excellent
programmers who release their programs as freeware.

I don't think so.

I do not really understand the facination of "open source solutions", and in
many cases I beleive it is those that are anti-Microsoft trying to make a
point.

Basically, I just dont see people spending the countless hours on a product
(game, suite, etc) just to give it away. Fact is, with few exceptions,
people need to be compensated for thier efforts in order to continue to
develop updates and to produce other products. Especially games, where
engines, graphics, etc. requires a lot of up front development just to get
the game off the ground.

There are a lot of great freeware and open source programs around out there,
and I do use some (Inno for example). Without getting into a very long
post, there are some advantages, and some disadvantages (like everything in
this world, I guess), but I do not see freeware/open source as the end-all
of computing in the future..

 

[John Hung]

Yeap, I need to give more details.
On release 1.2, on the Info & License page under the heading: Warning.
Let me know if you still did not find it, I will try to be more clear.

 

[John Hung]

On release 1.2. I have not upgraded.

 

[Franklin]

On release 1.2. I have not upgraded.

If you are on 1.2 then you will not get further online updates.

 

[Martin Seibert]

But the point is, you can't compete with something that's free.

Sorry, but in my opinion that's plain wrong. You CAN compete, with a
BETTER product. It's quite that simple. I'm getting more and more the
impression that you are somehow unflexible. But flexibility is a key
attribute to be successful. If you can't react according to the market
'flow', you will fall behind.

Go to
somewhere like www.snapfiles.com and compare the download counts of free
products and their shareware equivalents. If your product has a free
competitor, a hell of a lot of potential customers will never even
download it.

I don't want to tell you what users want and what not, _I_ for myself
take the product that does best what I want. And yes, I actually do pay
real money for software, if thats necessary.

Well, my website URL is at the foot of every post: you could see for
yourself if you were actually interested.

Well, if all the programs there are from you... (didn't check that)...
this zip-program (don't know if it costs something) has IMO not much chance
to get very successful. Just because it does ONLY what it should without
bonus features, doesn't make it a better product than a well written
(fast, not bloated) full featured zip-program.

But I din't browse much through your site. First I thought it's a site
for geeks, but I think I somehow missed the geek part... And just because
it's called tech-pro, it doesn't neccessarily mean it's for 'real'
tech people. That's my first impression from your site. If there is more
'under the hood', that's fine with me. ;-)

Well, I'm seeing them in alt.shareware.authors.

Just got that straight, and because I'm posting from a.c.f., I'm removing
the the x-post (and please, next time inform the readers of your x-post).
That's common behavior and reduces unwanted x-posts. At least where I'm
from.

 

[Martin Seibert]

But the point is, you can't compete with something that's free.

Sorry, but in my opinion that's plain wrong. You CAN compete, with a
BETTER product. It's quite that simple. I'm getting more and more the
impression that you are somehow unflexible. But flexibility is a key
attribute to be successful. If you can't react according to the market
'flow', you will fall behind.

Go to
somewhere like www.snapfiles.com and compare the download counts of free
products and their shareware equivalents. If your product has a free
competitor, a hell of a lot of potential customers will never even
download it.

I don't want to tell you what users want and what not, _I_ for myself
take the product that does best what I want. And yes, I actually do pay
real money for software, if thats necessary.

Well, my website URL is at the foot of every post: you could see for
yourself if you were actually interested.

Well, if all the programs there are from you... (didn't check that)...
this zip-program (don't know if it costs something) has IMO not much chance
to get very successful. Just because it does ONLY what it should without
bonus features, doesn't make it a better product than a well written
(fast, not bloated) full featured zip-program.

But I din't browse much through your site. First I thought it's a site
for geeks, but I think I somehow missed the geek part... And just because
it's called tech-pro, it doesn't neccessarily mean it's for 'real'
tech people. That's my first impression from your site. If there is more
'under the hood', that's fine with me. ;-)

Well, I'm seeing them in alt.shareware.authors.

Just got that straight, and because I'm posting from a.c.f., I'm removing
the the x-post (and please, next time inform the readers of your x-post).
That's common behavior and reduces unwanted x-posts. At least where I'm
from.

 

[Martin Seibert]

Some are!

Ok, some ARE ;-)

 

[Conor]

The only real exception to this would be games.

Return To Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory anyone?

 

[Conor]

How does this definition of shareware differ from commercial software?

Nowadays it doesn't anymore but up to the mid 90's there was a huge
difference.

Once upon a time the only way to find out if commercial software was
any good was to buy it then find out. Commercial software companies
cottoned onto the idea of "trialware" which operated along the lines of
shareware and thus the lines between the shareware scene and commercial
trialware started to become blurred until people could no longer see
the difference.

 

[Bill Leary]

On release 1.2. I have not upgraded.

Thanks.

I've never used anything older than 1.3.
I'd have never had any chance to have seen any of that.

- Bill

 

[Art Rooney]

You are right about that, I forgot that market, which is based on very
young teenagers who want the latest games and have the money to buy it
for.

But I think it is only a matter of time before that market is gone too,
the open source freeware creators are working on it.

When a few hundred millions of game enthusiasts want better and faster
games a few percent of them start learning how to do programming by
themselves, and there goes the market. It is a law of numbers. When
millions of programmers work on a market and they compete for the honor,
the money is gone from the market. There are too many excellent
programmers who release their programs as freeware.

Do you have any idea what it takes to make a quality game? The
implication that a few kids can create a professional quality game in
their spare time in the garage is absurd on its face. Games require
skilled artists, level designers, music and sound composers,
animators, and programmers. And if the concept sucks from the
beginning, the aforementioned won't matter.

 

[Art Rooney]

I'm curious, just what are demographics of freeware developers? My
uneducated guess is that most are probably students who have yet to
enter the workforce (real world?), and that there are a few who have
well-paying day jobs and do this as a hobby that they don't want to
spend a lot of time supporting.

Chime in, "freeware freaks" . Identify yourselves!

 

[REM]

(e-mail address removed) (Art Rooney) wrote:

Do you have any idea what it takes to make a quality game? The
implication that a few kids can create a professional quality game in
their spare time in the garage is absurd on its face. Games require
skilled artists, level designers, music and sound composers,
animators, and programmers. And if the concept sucks from the
beginning, the aforementioned won't matter.

This is true regardless of age. One of the brightest people I've ever
met was a 16 year old who was home schooled, evidently by parents
skilled in mathematics and programming. He aced everything and I
"think" placed out of the 4 year university within 2 years. The first
I saw of him was in an entry level course. He was in upper level
courses the last I saw of him.

Had he wanted to "throw" a game together in his spare time I think it
would be one of the best ever produced, from the foundation up.

This is an exception of course. Professional skills are a huge asset
to anyone writing a game or application.

 

[Martin Seibert]

I'm curious, just what are demographics of freeware developers? My
uneducated guess is that most are probably students who have yet to
enter the workforce (real world?), and that there are a few who have
well-paying day jobs and do this as a hobby that they don't want to
spend a lot of time supporting.

Chime in, "freeware freaks" . Identify yourselves!

I can give you ONE reason:

Writing a freeware App is the best way to learn a programming language.
And it's something you can put in your portfolio.

 

[Julian]

I can give you ONE reason:

Writing a freeware App is the best way to learn a programming language.
And it's something you can put in your portfolio.

Writing an app is a good way to learn a programming language. Whether you
sell it or give it away is immaterial as far as that goes. But I would
have thought students more than most other people could do with any money
they make by selling the app as shareware.

 

[Julian]

Do you have any idea what it takes to make a quality game? The implication
that a few kids can create a professional quality game in their spare time
in the garage is absurd on its face. Games require skilled artists, level
designers, music and sound composers, animators, and programmers. And if
the concept sucks from the beginning, the aforementioned won't matter.

This is becoming true to an extent of many types of applications. Even
simple utilities these days sport fancy graphical skins that have
obviously been professionally designed. Since few programmers are also
skilled artists this suggests that more and more products will have to be
team efforts, or else the developer will have to spend money to hire
somebody.

Times have changed since the early days of home computing when many kids
*did* create games in their spare time and make a lot of money. Hell, Bill
Gates was a kid when he started Microsoft...

 

[Martin Seibert]

Writing an app is a good way to learn a programming language. Whether you
sell it or give it away is immaterial as far as that goes. But I would
have thought students more than most other people could do with any money
they make by selling the app as shareware.

I don't see this from the money point, I see it from the point that QUALITY
sells... a fresh programmer without skill is not in the position to write
software that can be sold. I think you see software as something you can
make money with, just because it's software. That doesn't work. Quality is
one of the key features that sells software. And to deliver quality it
takes experience. Nothing a noobie has.