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- Newsgroups: comp.sys.newton.misc,comp.sys.amiga.applications
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- From: benjamin@ritz.mordor.com (Joseph Thomas)
- Subject: Re: Users are selfish Was Re: crippled software
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- In-Reply-To: sanj@athena.mit.edu's message of 7 Mar 1996 15:36:39 GMT
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- Date: Thu, 7 Mar 1996 23:44:12 GMT
-
- >>>>> "Sanjay" == Sanjay S Vakil <sanj@athena.mit.edu> writes:
-
- Sanjay> I don't understand why people feel that
- Sanjay> crippleware/timeoutware is such a crime. Sure, it's less
- Sanjay> ideal than 'true' shareware, but the market has expanded way
- Sanjay> beyond people you can 'trust' to send in shareware fees. For
- Sanjay> example, I'm *sure* that there are more than 24 people out
- Sanjay> there enjoying Mahjongg, but the registrations have pretty
- Sanjay> much halted. This is a powerful push towards crippling my
- Sanjay> next release.
- Sanjay> sanj
-
- I know this thread is starting to go out of context for this group,
- but I felt a strong need participate.
-
- I couldn't agree with Sanjay more; the overwhelming majority of users
- just can't be trusted to pay their fair share for uncrippled software
- they use. I've been in a similar situation as a shareware author. I
- spent hundreds and hundreds of hours, over the course of 2 years,
- developing what I thought was useful and practical software (if anyone
- happened to be curious, it's called Fitter for the Amiga). I tried to
- make it a solid application, complete with online context sensitive
- help, and loads of options and information to change on the fly.
-
- Because at the time, *I* hated the concept of crippled/timed out
- software, right up until the last version, I distributed it as "on
- your honor" shareware. I think I gave a much better than average try
- to support and accomodate users who had requests for enhancements and
- changes; I never ignored an email, and even in the latest cases,
- responded in under three days, despite my busy agenda.
-
- With the exception of two that were major undertakings, I made every
- enhancement/change that was requested, and fixed every bug reported
- that I (or more than one user) could reproduce.
-
- Despite the meagre $7 (US) fee I asked for this full featured
- application, I received only ONE registration over the past 3 years.
-
- Unfortunately, it seems that the average user is just not honest
- ....unless they're forced to be because a package is crippled. I
- deeply regret not doing it.
-
- It seems that everyone has some lame justification:
-
- "Well, I like it, but I want it to have <xxx> feature so I'm not
- registering it until the author puts it in.."
-
- "I found a bug, and therefore, it doesn't deserve to be registered"
-
- "Joe Blow didn't register it, and he's using it, so I won't register
- either."
-
- .
- .
- you get the point.
-
- It's a shame; I had always hoped shareware would be the wave of the
- 90s for home used software. It's the very users that complain about
- crippled software that contribute to that problem of crippled software
- the most (and notice that I've acknowledged cripped software *is* a
- problem; I don't like it either)
-
- Actually, I did get something from my experience, and that's just it-
- experience, in large application C projects, which is making me lots
- of money now :)
-
- BTW Sanjay, my fee's on it's way
-
- -Joe
-
-
-