M
Martin Seibert
[..]
Seems $29,99 is common now.
Seems $29,99 is common now.
R
Roger Johansson
You are right about that, I forgot that market, which is based on very
young teenagers who want the latest games and have the money to buy it
for.
But I think it is only a matter of time before that market is gone too,
the open source freeware creators are working on it.
When a few hundred millions of game enthusiasts want better and faster
games a few percent of them start learning how to do programming by
themselves, and there goes the market. It is a law of numbers. When
millions of programmers work on a market and they compete for the honor,
the money is gone from the market. There are too many excellent
programmers who release their programs as freeware.
20 years ago there were only a few thousand programmers around, and the
good ones could make some money from their programs. Now there are
millions of programmers around, and they treat programming not as a job
but as their big leisure time interest.
Maybe it is also a question of distribution and marketing today, more
than a question of programming.
Many youngsters do not know how to find freeware games, especially when
they recently have bought a computer and still think you have to buy
everything there.
The only software market that will remain for the next 10 years are the
people who have recently bought their first computer and do not know yet
about all the freeware which is available, and how to get it.
S
Susan Bugher
hmmmmmmmm. . .
so to sum up your philosophy. . .
everything is a "market".
everything *should* be paid for.
other things that don't deserve to exist:
good samaritans of *any* kind (not just freeware authors)
charitable organizations
self-help groups
Did I get that right?
Susan
S
Semolina Pilchard
I can understand why you feel that way, if you want to make a living
from writing software. But the reality is that there are many
splendid freeware programs, well developed, often supported in one way
or another and many of them have been around, in constant development
for a very long time.
www.pricelesswarehome.org lists many of them.
Perhaps good freeware shouldn't exist, for all the reasons you list,
but it does. An aeronautical engineer will tell you why a bumble-bee
can't fly, too.
J
Julian
I am. Why don't you think I'm not entitled to try to make a living?
Of course I don't blame people for using free software if it's available
and does the job for them. I'm not an idiot either, and I'll use free
software too if it's better for my purposes than the commercial
alternatives.
That doesn't alter the fact that freeware only exists because someone else
pays for it. It's nice for the users to get a free lunch, but
unfortunately I don't get a free lunch because food has to be paid for,
and I'm actually trying to make a living from my software business. I
think you'd feel aggrieved too if you were suddenly out of work because
someone started doing whatever it is you do for nothing.
H
Harvey Van Sickle
On 15 Sep 2004, Julian wrote
But you made a claim that it "distorts the market".
Someone who gives away something -- even if it costs them to do so --
is not "distorting the market". They may be impacting upon one
*sector* of the market -- the one which charges money for product --
but their sector has as much right to exist as the traditional "money
selling" market. (They may be taking "payment" in the form ofo future
references for their CV; it's still payment, just not money payment.)
It's like a charity-run old folks' home: it's not *distorting* some
theoretically pure market, it's part of the whole of the market.
But you made a claim that it "distorts the market".
Someone who gives away something -- even if it costs them to do so --
is not "distorting the market". They may be impacting upon one
*sector* of the market -- the one which charges money for product --
but their sector has as much right to exist as the traditional "money
selling" market. (They may be taking "payment" in the form ofo future
references for their CV; it's still payment, just not money payment.)
It's like a charity-run old folks' home: it's not *distorting* some
theoretically pure market, it's part of the whole of the market.
R
Roger Johansson
Julian said:
The problem is that we live in a world were there is more and more
leisure time, and people already have enough food and other material
necessities.
So the people look for something interesting to do with their free time.
They often produce free services and goods for other people, like free
software created by real enthusiasts who program just for the fun of it,
or for some honor.
When hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people, do that, there is
no market for payware left for you to make a living from.
If you want to make a living you simply have to find another market or
another occupation.
In-house programming is for real top quality programmers, writing special
software for insurance companies, universities, commercial companies,
etc..
If you are not that good, find something else to make money on.
J
Julian
No. Where did I mention "everything"?
Your example is not relevant. Charities don't provide a free service, they
provide a service that is paid for by the donors, and delivered to the
recipients.
Are you suggesting that computer users *deserve* free software and that
programmers *should* be charitable organizations?
M
Martin Seibert
[..]
Julian, please... stop that whining. Write software that is good enough
that people WANT to pay for it. If you can't, don't blame other people
who can do a better job for free if they WANT to do that job for free.
Actually I don't know your programming skils, but from the posts you write
you seem to have a serious lack of knowledge - or financial income...
The problem is, HERE is the wrong usegroup to complain about it. Believe
me. ;-)
Julian, please... stop that whining. Write software that is good enough
that people WANT to pay for it. If you can't, don't blame other people
who can do a better job for free if they WANT to do that job for free.
Actually I don't know your programming skils, but from the posts you write
you seem to have a serious lack of knowledge - or financial income...
The problem is, HERE is the wrong usegroup to complain about it. Believe
me. ;-)
J
Julian
I can't argue with the fact of that. The only ones left making money will
be companies developing products that need a whole team of people. I'm not
convinced that open source collaborations will make much impact on the
major software companies, for the simple reason that people who write
software in their own time want to write what they want, not what someone
else wants them to. So it's really the archetypal shareware "one man
bands" who will be hurt most by this free competition.
That may be true as well. That doesn't make it any more palatable, though,
to have chosen a profession where you're having to compete against people
who will do your job for nothing.
When you're over 50, not many people want to employ you, and it's not easy
to learn new skills, either...
S
steve
In my case it's because I bought WinZip in 1996 and have never had a
need to look at anything else. All the upgrades are free.
Steve
A
Andrew Gibson
This thread is cross posted. I was wondering why all these freeware freaks
were appearing in alt.comp.shareware.authors!
However, while I'm at it, haven't any of you freeware evangelists noticed
that the general trend is that successful freeware soon stops being freeware
and adopts the shareware marketing model?
Regards
Andrew
S
Susan Bugher
Julian said:
Of course it's relevant. All good deeds are done at some cost in time or
money.
Donations to charities are contributions to society. Churches, charities
etc. usually have volunteer workers who donate their time and pay their
own out-of-pocket expenses.
I'm suggesting that Freeware is part of a broad spectrum of voluntary
contributions to society. Calling Freeware an "aberration" is nonsense.
Susan
M
Martin Seibert
[..]
Silly me, didn't realize it. Thanks for pointing that out.
But it's common to make a note about x-posts, I'm sure this was not done.
Silly me, didn't realize it. Thanks for pointing that out.
But it's common to make a note about x-posts, I'm sure this was not done.
J
Julian
But the point is, you can't compete with something that's free. Go to
somewhere like www.snapfiles.com and compare the download counts of free
products and their shareware equivalents. If your product has a free
competitor, a hell of a lot of potential customers will never even
download it.
Well, my website URL is at the foot of every post: you could see for
yourself if you were actually interested.
Well, I'm seeing them in alt.shareware.authors.
P
*ProteanThread*
Andrew Gibson said:
I have no problems with shareware as long as its honest shareware (meaning
no malware, spyware, sponsored ads, etc.) but then again, I have no problem
being called a "freeware freak"
--
Woodzy
http://www.rtdos.com (alt OS for games based on the classics)
http://rtdos.com/chat
Live chats scheduled every Thursday @ 7PM MDT (0100 GMT) and
every Sunday @ 1PM MDT (1900 GMT)
J
John Hung
I agree, the failed shareware authors have invaded this NG. Heeelp!
A
Andrew Gibson
I have no problems with shareware as long as its honest shareware (meaning
That's good, as it wasn't intended in a pejorative sense! I don't have a
problem with freeware either and use several freeware video editing tools. I
think both systems can co-exists without either being a threat to the other.
Bad shareware gets dragged down by quality freeware. Top quality freeware
becomes shareware.
Kind Regards
Andrew
http://www.jellypie.co.uk
no malware, spyware, sponsored ads, etc.) but then again, I have no problem
being called a "freeware freak"
That's good, as it wasn't intended in a pejorative sense! I don't have a
problem with freeware either and use several freeware video editing tools. I
think both systems can co-exists without either being a threat to the other.
Bad shareware gets dragged down by quality freeware. Top quality freeware
becomes shareware.
Kind Regards
Andrew
http://www.jellypie.co.uk
J
Julian
Okay. Now I understand where you're coming from.
I'm not going to waste any more time arguing with you, since I guess we're
never going to agree, but with the possible exceptions of things like
anti-virus and anti-spyware software, I don't think society is actually
helped in any way by the contribution of free software. (Okay, the Linux
guys are helping, though not too successfully, to stave off total
Microsoft domination, but as I'm a Windows developer I'm looking at this
from a Windows perspective.)
If programmers want to contribute something to society then most of the
time it would be far more effective if they employed their valuable skills
writing payware and donated the proceeds to a good cause. In fact, I did
something similar a few years ago. Seeing the ridiculous sums being
charged for Millenium Bug fixes by unscrupulous developers who were
exploiting the ignorant, I wrote my owm, released it as freeware but asked
users to make a voluntary donation to a local charity.
J
Julian
I have no problems with shareware as long as its honest shareware (meaning
no malware, spyware, sponsored ads, etc.) but then again, I have no
problem being called a "freeware freak"
I have never come across dishonest shareware. I have encountered so-called
freeware (often on tech support customers' machines) that contains adware,
spyware and so on. Of course, this is kind of dishonesty wouldn't occur if
the widespread availability of freeware hadn't changed a lot of people's
expectations so that they are reluctant to pay for software.