delton@pro-carolina.cts.COM (Don Elton) (06/13/88)
I'm Don Elton, the author of the Talk is Cheap (TIC) shareware terminal program for the Apple //e, //c, and IIgs. I've been thinking of changing the way I handle updates for this program and would be interested in hearing from people on the net that have an opinion, positive or negative, on this new change. I would basically be going to a technique used by Scott Watson for his Red Ryder program back when it was selling as shareware. The way it would work would be that I would initially (for the first 30 days) supply updates only to registered users. I'd do this by US mail and by uploading encrypted versions of the software with the encryption key being supplied only to registered users in the docs for the update or via email. The registered users with these updates would be prohibited from giving away copies of the new update for a period of 30 days and I would not upload unencrypted updates until 30 days after initial release. The reason for doing this would obviously be to give people who have gone to the trouble of paying for the software some more tangible advantages over the people who just use the software without paying for it. Older versions of the software would still be available for those potential customers who want to try out the software but only registered owners would be assured of always having the latest version available. I would assume that the registered users would not give away the encryption passwords to folks would be be freeloading off the registered users' registrations and would otherwise honor this arrangement. Anyone having any comment on this, positive or negative, send me a reply in email and I'll post a follow-up later on telling all how this will work out in the future. This comes up now as version 3.00 (formerlly called 2.13) is almost ready to go and I'm in the process of working on the docs.