tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) (06/04/91)
[Followups to comp.misc, because this is rapidly receding from the subject of Windows] In article <1991Jun3.140451.1651@dayton.saic.com> ake@dayton.saic.com (Earle Ake) writes: >In article <24425112@bfmny0.BFM.COM>, tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes: >>>In business, customers generally include prospective customers. The >>>prospects are EVERY bit as important as the licensed. I hope ALL >>>software developers share this belief. >> >> This is probably one of the ways where shareware has to be a little >> different. In shareware, you have given away your product FIRST and >> must then cultivate actual *customers* after the fact. Everyone is >> important, yes, but your obligation to support non-payers is minimal. >> Otherwise there would be no incentive to pay. > > The obligation to non-payers is minimal but if you expect to get more >shareware fees then at least tell the non-payers that the problems reported >have been fixed and distributed to the 'paying' customers. If I find a >shareware product that works but needs bug fixes and the author has made little >to fix them, what is my incentive to register versus find another product which >might also do the job? As long as a steady stream of corrected and improved versions exists, as indicated by a README or CHANGES file or an appendix in the manual, then the inquiring reader -- paying or non-paying -- ought to have all the evidence he or she needs to decide that the authors pay attention to bug reports. It's difficult to imagine any further, special way to inform NON-payers, specifically, about this. Anyway, the shareware principle is "If you like this program, then pay $X." If you DON'T like it, DON'T pay. The author is under no obligation to jump through hoops for free until you decide the product is good enough to pay for. >> I am sure shareware developers record ideas for improvements from everyone, >> paying and non-paying alike. But *responsiveness*, in the sense of hand >> holding freeloaders who complain, is not a reasonable expectation. > > I tend to put bug fixes and new funtionality in two different categories. >There might be a bug that only a few sites can reproduce due to differences in >environment. What if only the non-payers report the bug. Will it be fixed? One assumes the vendor will fix any reported bug that's likely to affect a significant number of users, regardless of who reports it. But as I said, the vendor's obligation to then render an accounting of his bug fixing activities to unregistered users is slim to none! If you want to be automatically informed of improvements, register. That's common sense. >> If registered WinQVT users get no response either, then there is grounds >> for legitimate complaint; but the above quoted posting gives no evidence >> about this one way or the other. > > If non-registered WinQVT users see no evidence that the author will >support the product after registration then there is no incentive to register >in the first place! Terms of support are usually clearly laid out in the documentation. "Seeing evidence" is a non-issue, unless it's a code word for giving non-payers the same support that payers get, in which case don't hold your breath.