On February 2, 2001 09:32 am, Cliff Sarginson wrote:
Let us get this straight about shareware. How many of you have every actually paid for it ?
I have. The problem with some shareware is the seller is trying to charge full retail prices for something that lacks the costs of full retail. The idea behind shareware was to cut down those costs. No need to burn disks. To print manuals. Or anything else.
It is an open invitation to criminal acts, as soon as there is shareware, there is a cracker.
No need to crack shareware. By defination you can freely download and copy it. You are supposed to stop using it if you don't want to pay but that was more of a moral issue.
Most of the Windows shareware (not all of it) that I have tried has been appalling, or so crippled as to be worthless.
If it's crippled it's crippleware. Real shareware will let you use the product 100%. At worst it comes with a delay screen holding you up 10 seconds at most.
And guess what. It was totally freeware, no licenses, no shareware, no crippledom.
Most of Linux comes with a license. How much of Linux is really public domain?
Ok freeware is not open-source necessarily. But shareware is often someone who has knocked something noddy together and wants to get some bucks, without any responsibility for it.
Shareware used to be a way for small programmers to get product out without paying for ads. Without trying to find shelf space. All the other things that commerical software must have but which do little good to the consumer. I'd argue that currently the Linux distributions are pretty close to the orginal idea behind shareware. You can download it or borrow a copy from a friend. Eventually if you like it you might buy a copy. You don't need to buy a copy but many people like to support a quality product and will. That was what drove most successfull shareware. Nick