Fernmail is shareware. You're welcome to look it over, and play with it for a reasonable amount of time (say, 2 weeks of active use) without paying. At the end of that time, if you decide that you want to use Fernmail as a regular part of your uucp operating environment, I ask that you send me a shareware payment of $20. In return for this payment, you'll receive a license to use Fernmail (current and future versions) on your Mac, for as long as you wish. The license is for a single machine, but isn't restricted to a single user... you can make multiple copies of Fernmail, and set them up with individual users' configuration files, as long as all of these copies are on a single Mac. If you want a site license for several Macs, talk to me... I'm willing to dicker, haggle, and otherwise negotiate.
You can, of course, decide to use Fernmail indefinitely without paying the shareware fee. There are several advantages to paying up, though. For one thing, I'll send you new versions via email, and will at least listen seriously to any suggestions you may make concerning new features, changes, and so forth. For another thing, the program "knows" whether you've registered or not. In the absence of a registration "key", it reminds you to register each time it starts up, and it also adds a header-line to each message that you send (an X-Mailer header which identifies the program as an unregistered copy for which the shareware fee has not been paid). When I receive your registration and shareware offering, I'll mail you back an acknowledgement, and a "magic cookie" string which will personalize your Fernmail configuration and turn off the begging/pleading/admonishing messages.
How to register
Simply mail a check for $20 (or an equivalent amount of platinum) to me at the address given in the "About..." dialog box. Be sure to include your email address (in either !-path format rooted at a well-known node, or in domain format), and tell me how you want the personalization message to appear in your copy's startup dialog. I'll send you back a magic cookie by email.
How not to register
At the risk of sounding ungrateful, I ask you not to do the following: please do not write me and say "I like (or don't like) Fernmail, and if you add features X, Y, and Z, I'll send in my shareware payment." Perhaps I've grown a bit cynical over the years… but I've come to the tentative conclusion that most people who make this sort of statement don't follow through on their promise. If Fernmail is sufficiently useful to you in its current form, you are welcome to use it; if you're a Good Joe (or Jane) and send in a shareware payment, I'll certainly take seriously any suggestions that you may have for improvements or enhancements or changes. If Fernmail isn't useful to you as it is, or if you feel that I've taken a serious wrong turn in my design and should really have implemented it differently… then I wish you well, and hope that you find another tool that serves your needs better.
Contacting the author
You can reach me via email at the address "dplatt@snulbug.mtview.ca.us", or by snail-mail at:
