FREE CONTEST! Fill out this form and send it to STAR to be entered in a free drawing. Win the Apogee product of your choice plus a free STAR tee shirt! No purchase required to enter the contest. Name: Address: Address: Phone: If you want to join STAR, answer the following questions: Membership class preferred: [ ] user [ ] developer [ ] distributor Annual membership dues enclosed: (Make checks payable to STAR) [ ] user $30.00 (non-voting membership) [ ] basic $50.00 [ ] contributing $100.00 [ ] supporting $175.00 [ ] Super STAR $250.00+ Joining STAR entitles members to receive future issues of STARgazer (which may or may not be distributed through shareware channels) as well as the benefits and discounts that become available. Comments to STAR: (Use additional paper if necessary) Mail the above form to our treasurer and membership chairman: Roger Arias Membership Coordinator, STAR c/o Contact Plus Corporation P.O. Box 372577 Satellite Beach, FL 32937-0577 If you are having any trouble filling out this form online, try printing the file "orderfrm.txt". About STAR's Officers ŠPresident: Glenn Tippetts Glenn Tippetts was born 35 years ago in Henderson, Nevada and currently lives in Bend, Oregon. His company, OSCS Software Development, Inc., was founded along with Dave Riley in February, 1990. Currently OSCS employs 9 people. Their primary product is QuikMenu, a graphical menu interface for DOS. Shareware and commercial versions of QuikMenu are available. Currently they have registered users in over 30 countries. QuikMenu was voted the Best DOS Graphics Menu Program by both PC Journal and the Institute for Technical Advancement, and was nominated for Best New Product at the 1992 Summer Shareware Seminar. OSCS is planning to release more shareware products in the 4th quarter of 1992. ŠVice President: Gary Alston Gary L. Alston is the owner of Alston Software Labs of Modesto, California. ASL produces a variety of software titles, some of which are available as shareware. By day, Gary is 50% stock holder and Chief Technical Officer of ITP, Inc. (Santa Clara, CA.) a silicon valley equipment manufacturer of measuring and inspection systems. ITP sells $2.5M - $5 M annually and has 18 employees, with branch offices in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Germany and the U.K. ITP sells hardware and software into the semiconductor and biomedical industries. ASL, started in 1991, is an effort by Alston to expand into the consumer software market. Their first effort, Collect!, is a tool for collectors. This VGA based GUI driven program allows collectors to work intelligently with any collection type, and is mor analysis tool than database. Subsequent efforts are Windows-based programs. The latest ASL release, FuzzGen, is an outgrowth of the realtime logic disciplines required by ITP. FuzzGen, a shareware CASE tool, allows modeling and source code generation of Fuzzy Logic Decision making algorithms in Pascal, BASIC, and C. ASL now has six employees and is on pace to produce a minimum of 6-8 shareware and 2-4 retail programs per year. ŠTreasurer and membership coordinator: Roger Arias Roger is the Marketing DIrector for Contact Plus Corporation, producer of Contact Plus contact management systems. Born Roger A. F. Arias on July 11, 1961 in Burlington Vermont, Roger earned a bachelors degree in Business Management from the University of Central Florida in 1986. After serving 4 1/2 years as an active duty Aviation Officer in the U.S. Army flying UH-60 helicopters, Roger elected to pursue a civilian career while continuing to serve in the Army Reserves. In August of 1990 Roger was introduced to Ed Trujillo, the President of E. Trujillo Software, now Contact Plus Corporation, and subsequently joined the company. Present responsibilities include product awareness including reviews, product packaging, marketing materials, introduction of products into marketing channels, sales, and providing input on product development. ŠSecretary: Richard Jolitz Richard is 26 years old. He is originally from Indianapolis Indiana, and is currently living with his mother and grandmother in Winter Springs, Florida. He is a certified Paramedic and works in the Emergency Room of Humana Hospital. Richard is a self-taught Pascal programmer and blossoming shareware author. His first program is called MEDBASE, a home medical database that will allow you to input various bits of medical information along with family information and will print out a report. This report will be ready to take to the new physician, or the ER. Richard's company is called "High Ventures". It is a diversified company that includes some shareware vendor interests. Richard is currently working on a freeware project entitled "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About AIDS But Were Afraid to Ask" and is interested in hearing from Turbo Pascal programmers who want to help. If you want to get involved, write to Richard at P.O. Box 195853, Winter Springs, FL 32719. About STAR Mission Statement STAR is a trade association established to provide the shareware community with a vehicle for networking, resource-sharing, publicity and marketing assistance. STAR promotes the free and open exchange of information, creative expression and quality and ethics in shareware. STAR will heighten the public's awareness of shareware and will advance the state of the shareware industry. Brochure Information Shareware Trade Association and Resources WHAT IS STAR? STAR is a revolutionary idea in the shareware industry: an association embracing all members of the shareware community. Membership in STAR is open to all authors, sysops, vendors, publishers, distributors and users of shareware. All members of the shareware community are invited to join in the discussion of shareware issues and enjoy the benefits of the information and services provided by STAR. PURPOSES 1. Education Educate the software buying public as to what shareware is: licensed, copyright protected software, with few restrictions on distribution, and a limited payment-free trial period. Endeavor to increase public awareness and understanding of shareware as an attractive software alternative. Educate shareware authors and vendors about what their respective rights and responsibilities are. 2. Foster Open Communication Provide vehicles for discussing issues relating to shareware. Reasonable efforts will be made to discuss shareware issues publicly so that all may benefit from the information. Vehicles for communication will include such things as public forums and conferences on bulletin boards, echo-mail conferences, and electronic information services, with the understanding that as technology changes, efforts will be made to expand communication channels. Provide a newsletter for members and nonmembers (in electronic or other format) to present information as well as opposing viewpoints, and strive for a balanced presentation of shareware issues. 3. Marketing Assistance Provide information for shareware developers and distributors about what kinds of development and marketing strategies are most effective. Understand that shareware exists in the larger software community, and discuss methods and advantages of marketing shareware through retail channels and retail software through shareware channels. PHILOSOPHY STAR will promote standards of shareware ethics and quality. All elements of the shareware community are welcomed. Members shall not be excluded from STAR because of the size of their company, the popularity of their products, or the quality of their product or marketing effort. Successful members are encouraged to help other members improve products and marketing strategies. Members shall not be excluded from STAR based on race, creed, religion, sex, health, sexual preference, physical appearance or mental fitness, or any other physical or cultural basis. STAR will not interfere with the business practices of its members other than to make suggestions and provide information. Important policy decisions shall be based on democratic principles, with developers and distributors both having the right to vote on policy. A system of checks and balances will prevent one subset of the membership from imposing policy on another subset. Issues will be discussed openly with the understanding that opposing points of view exist and are beneficial to discussions. Issues shall be considered separate from club policy, and regulations based on issues shall be kept to a minimum. Whenever possible STAR will collect data to facilitate the discussion of issues. We will keep current with changing technology and the changing marketplace and make information available so members can adjust their programming and marketing strategies accordingly. Members who violate commonly-accepted standards of ethics and morality, or who break laws of any community, may have their business practices subjected to public scrutiny and debate, and possible censure by the membership. BENEFITS FOR MEMBERS (subject to change) -- Networking with authors, vendors, publishers, sysops and users -- Access to current information about shareware technology, issues, events and marketing -- Forums for discussing concerns about shareware issues on CompuServe, Genie, and Ilink. -- Mailings to distribute disks to vendors, sysops, user groups, etc. -- Mailings to distribute information about programs and shareware developments to the media -- Discount on Jim Hood's $hareware Marketing $ystem newsletter and mailing list -- Discount on hardware, magnetic media and services -- Discount on advertising in Shareware Update magazine -- Much more! DEFINITIONS Developer: Anybody who has ever developed software and given permission for that software to be copied freely under any limited or unlimited circumstances, or is in the process of creating such software. Distributor: Anybody who provides evaluation copies of shareware to the public for free or the price of the media and the service, including vendors who sell shareware through catalogs and sysops who distribute shareware on bulletin board. User: Anybody who has evaluated and registered one or more shareware programs. (Note: a publisher is anybody who markets and supports software written by somebody else. A publisher will be considered a developer if actively involved in the development of the software he or she is marketing, otherwise the publisher will be considered a distributor.) VOTING Initially there will be two voting classes, and one nonvoting class: * Developers (voting) * Distributors (voting) * Associate members, including users (non-voting) Members choose which class they belong to. They can only belong to one membership class. Both voting and nonvoting members may fully participate in discussions of issues. Discussions will be held in public. While the entire membership may participate in discussions, all voting will be conducted within each voting class. For example, authors will vote with the developer class while vendors and sysops will vote with the distributor class. Policy decisions require a majority vote within both voting classes. A class may not establish policy under its own name or that of STAR by itself.