The Academy of Freeware Arts and Sciences - Lifetime Achievement Award

[Spoon2001]

A few ruminations from a mere participant.

The problem (or strength) of alt.comp.freeware has been ... there are no
real "members" of alt.comp.freeware, just participants of varying degrees of
involvement. There is no organization, no procedure for determining
authority within such organization, no persons with any authority over
anything (except the authority of the assent occasionally given by a loose
consensus).

The procedure for determining what software will be honored with the term
"Pricelessware" is plagued by many of the same underlying flaws. The
procedure has been rather ingenious, but let's face it, the number of people
participating has not been all that high. The selections in any given
category are somewhat suspect ... I bet a lot of us have "voted" for a
program when we didn't really have a clue how it stacked up against the
"competition". Who's got the time to try them all out?

Anyway ... I haven't had the time to really follow the long-running
controversy. But I say congrats to Susan for the great job on the site and
I hope she comes up with a suitable domain to host her website. I liked the
idea of "Bughertime" - reminds me of many happy hours on my old
Intellivision.

Now, with my tongue a little bit in cheek, I've been thinking that what we
need is something like the Oscars. That means there would have to be an
Academy of Freeware Arts and Sciences. What would the Freeware equivalent
of an "Oscar" be? A Freebie? Nah... got to be something better than that.
Maybe an "Irfan" in honor of Irfanview (see below). Or maybe a Flugelman,
after Andrew Flugelman, who wrote PC TALK some many years agao, and who had
such a sad ending.

This would raise some interesting possibilities.

For example, they always give out a "Lifetime Achievement" award. Somebody
who's had a great career, but hasn't done anything spectacular lately. My
nominee for the Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award for 2004 -- Irfan
Skiljan for IRFANVIEW.

Any other nominees for the Lifetime Achievement award?

 

[R. L.]

"Spoon2001" <[email protected]> says in

Hi there, good to see you!

A few ruminations from a mere participant.

The problem (or strength) of alt.comp.freeware has been ...
there are no real "members" of alt.comp.freeware, just
participants of varying degrees of involvement. There is
no organization, no procedure for determining authority
within such organization, no persons with any authority
over anything (except the authority of the assent
occasionally given by a loose consensus).

Yes, and polls of course

The procedure for determining what software will be honored
with the term "Pricelessware" is plagued by many of the
same underlying flaws. The procedure has been rather
ingenious, but let's face it, the number of people
participating has not been all that high. The selections
in any given category are somewhat suspect ... I bet a lot
of us have "voted" for a program when we didn't really have
a clue how it stacked up against the "competition". Who's
got the time to try them all out?

Well, it happened all in good faith, we did the best we could
(although I was in lurk mode, I did *vote*, or more precisely,
participed in the "poll" )

Anyway ... I haven't had the time to really follow the
long-running controversy. But I say congrats to Susan for
the great job on the site and I hope she comes up with a

Totally agree!

Now, with my tongue a little bit in cheek, I've been
thinking that what we need is something like the Oscars.
That means there would have to be an Academy of Freeware
Arts and Sciences. What would the Freeware equivalent of
an "Oscar" be? A Freebie? Nah... got to be something
better than that. Maybe an "Irfan" in honor of Irfanview
(see below). Or maybe a Flugelman, after Andrew Flugelman,
who wrote PC TALK some many years agao, and who had such a
sad ending.

You mean the "ultimate winner"? But there are so many...

This would raise some interesting possibilities.

For example, they always give out a "Lifetime Achievement"
award. Somebody who's had a great career, but hasn't done
anything spectacular lately. My nominee for the Academy's
Lifetime Achievement Award for 2004 -- Irfan Skiljan for
IRFANVIEW.

That is fun. Beside the list of Pricelessware, we can have
"the best this", "the best that", plus the Lifetime
Achievement award. It would be really fun

Any other nominees for the Lifetime Achievement award?

Does Keynote count? OR is it still under active development?




--
RL
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Uptime Quickie; Lefty Animated Cursors;
http://home.earthlink.net/~ringomei/page2.html
*******************************************

 

[Roger Johansson]

Now, with my tongue a little bit in cheek, I've been thinking that what we
need is something like the Oscars. That means there would have to be an
Academy of Freeware Arts and Sciences. What would the Freeware equivalent
of an "Oscar" be? A Freebie? Nah... got to be something better than that.
Maybe an "Irfan" in honor of Irfanview (see below). Or maybe a Flugelman,
after Andrew Flugelman, who wrote PC TALK some many years agao, and who had
such a sad ending.

This would raise some interesting possibilities.

For example, they always give out a "Lifetime Achievement" award. Somebody
who's had a great career, but hasn't done anything spectacular lately. My
nominee for the Academy's Lifetime Achievement Award for 2004 -- Irfan
Skiljan for IRFANVIEW.

You are here talking about honoring the best freeware authors.
We have discussed earlier if the pricelessware list is created mainly
for the sake of software authors or for the sake of software users.

We have come to the view that the pricelessware list is aimed at the
users, and is created for the users as a means to find the best
freeware.

I have nothing against honoring some great authors, but that is a
different goal than serving the software user community.

So I suggest that any such "Oscar" award of freeware should be kept
separate from the pricelessware list voting and web presentations.

 

[Bob Adkins]

Any other nominees for the Lifetime Achievement award?

Well, Irfan can be a jerk at times, but he's OK.

Shouldn't the lifetime achievement award go to someone that's been creating
Freeware for a long time? Irfan doesn't really go back that far, and is a 1
trick pony. Not that he isn't deserving, he is. But there must be others.

Some that come to mind are H. Oda, Pablo Van Der Meer, and Pat Kolla, but
they don't go back that far either.

How about the guys that run the giant software archives, such as WinSite
Etc.? They have done as much for the Freeware community as any single
author.

Bob

 

[Spoon2001]

Any other nominees for the Lifetime Achievement award?

Does Keynote count? OR is it still under active development?

Sure, Keynote would qualify. I guess the Lifetime Achievement award would
go to the single best example of a Freeware program ever made. And one that
was continuously improved over a long time. Irfanview has been such a
program. Keynote too, but I'm still waiting on that long-promised Version
2.0!!!

 

[Spoon2001]

Any other nominees for the Lifetime Achievement award?

Well, Irfan can be a jerk at times, but he's OK.

Shouldn't the lifetime achievement award go to someone that's been creating
Freeware for a long time? Irfan doesn't really go back that far, and is a 1
trick pony. Not that he isn't deserving, he is. But there must be others.

Some that come to mind are H. Oda, Pablo Van Der Meer, and Pat Kolla, but
they don't go back that far either.

How about the guys that run the giant software archives, such as WinSite
Etc.? They have done as much for the Freeware community as any single
author.

Bob

Yeah that would be good too. But a different category. "Best Freeware
Archive". And *that* would have to be divided up too, because there are
different philosophies used. You have the slick commerical sites - like
snapfiles, download.com - to me the criteria, what's the best site for
finding freeware? Good features are the ability to limit searches to
freeware only, user reviews, etc. Then you have a site like Son of Spy's.
And there are also sites that are simply lists of the best program in each
category. All are very useful, but in different ways.

 

[Spoon2001]

You are here talking about honoring the best freeware authors.

We have discussed earlier if the pricelessware list is created mainly
for the sake of software authors or for the sake of software users.

We have come to the view that the pricelessware list is aimed at the
users, and is created for the users as a means to find the best
freeware.

I have nothing against honoring some great authors, but that is a
different goal than serving the software user community.

So I suggest that any such "Oscar" award of freeware should be kept
separate from the pricelessware list voting and web presentations.

Absolutely ... but remember I said I was speaking tongue in cheek!

Still, I think a Lifetime Achievement award would be useful. But I was
thinking more about the best program than the best author. Perhaps
"Lifetime Achievement" is not the best name for a program. I was using that
name because the Academy Awards always have that.

Criteria I was thinking about:

(1) a very useful program that almost every Freeware user would use on a
regular basis; one that every Freeware user knows about.
(2) a program kept under continuous development as Freeware over a long
period of time.

Now, what's the first program that comes to name when you think about
Freeware?

 

[jo]

Now, what's the first program that comes to name when you think about
Freeware?

The Wonderful Icon

 

[R. L.]

Well, Irfan can be a jerk at times, but he's OK.

Shouldn't the lifetime achievement award go to someone
that's been creating Freeware for a long time? Irfan
doesn't really go back that far, and is a 1 trick pony. Not
that he isn't deserving, he is. But there must be others.

Some that come to mind are H. Oda, Pablo Van Der Meer, and
Pat Kolla, but they don't go back that far either.

How about the guys that run the giant software archives,
such as WinSite Etc.? They have done as much for the
Freeware community as any single author.

Bob

These are all good suggestion.

Besides the Life-time award, how about one that give to the
most devoted freeware author: make a lot of freeware both in
terms of quantity and quality?

Another one I thought of is the best "feature to size" ratio
freeware (yet, that can be hard to determine, though).


--
RL
*******************************************
Unofficial Adaware Updater:
http://home.earthlink.net/
~ringomei/Unofficial_adaware_updater.html

Little (File) Backer Upper:
http://home.earthlink.net/
~ringomei/Backup_tool_Backer_Upper.html

Uptime Quickie; Lefty Animated Cursors;
http://home.earthlink.net/~ringomei/page2.html
*******************************************

 

[B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson]

Absolutely ... but remember I said I was speaking tongue in cheek!

I really hoped so. Your suggested life time award would be nothing less
than a kick in the ass, saying: "You haven't done anything useful for
quiet some time..." - Most software developers of the last decenniums
are not that old to be an old age pensioner, yet. So they either lack
time or the fun out of it (or whatever) to continue. But there's no
need to offend them out of this.

Still, I think a Lifetime Achievement award would be useful.

I don't. As you will know by now... ;-)

But I was thinking more about the best program than the best author.
Perhaps "Lifetime Achievement" is not the best name for a program. I
was using that name because the Academy Awards always have that.

I think we had such discussions before. It is hard to compare programs
within a certain category. But it's nearly impossible to agree upon a
best-of-best. In this regard I was full-heartily laughing when reading
jo's proposal 'The Wonderful Icon'. It is a program I _never_ heard
about! Icon related software is nothing I am looking for.

The suggested rating for freeware sites is okay with me, OTOH. The same
goes with a contest for the smallest and/or fastest utility fulfilling
*a special task*. (The suggestion of R. L. - a bit changed.)

Now, what's the first program that comes to name when you think about
Freeware?

<OT warning>
It is *always* a certain non-freeware one, which assists nearly every
kind of file management I need within Win. That reminds me it is okay
for people to live on software development - especially if they write
excellent programs and sell them for reasonable prices...
<\OT warning>

BeAr

 

[Bob Adkins]

A few ruminations from a mere participant.

One must be careful about committees and academies. What tends to happen is
the academy becomes biased, self-important, and political in nature. For
example, in the last 15 years, the Nobel Peace Prize is not about who
promoted peace, but who shares the political ideology of the Nobel
Committee.

I think honors should be bestowed by software users by using the software
and voicing appreciation, not by a committee.

Bob