lawrence@encore.UUCP (Scott Lawrence) (10/19/85)
It has been suggested that people not post shareware to the net because
doing so is using the net to make a profit, and that the net as whole should
not pay the distribution costs for the shareware producers. I think that
this misses a fundamental point about shareware, or at least shareware as I
think of it. What a developer is really doing when distributing a program
as shareware is giving it's current form away free - and asking users who
want support and/or upgrades to pay some amount for them ( often the
developer doesn't phrase the request that way, but that is what it amounts
to ). It seems to me that a request of that type is not actually a problem
at all so long as first, the developer doesn't use usenet as the primary
distribution channel for the upgrades and support ( since those are profit
oriented ), and second, that the developer is responsible for the postings.
For example, the popular communications package Red Ryder for the Mac has
been posted several times - the last few with statements like " this is the
last time I will post this so send in your money ". This is a good example
of over use of the net - the package is by now a well established commercial
product and the recent postings probably should not have been made ( I don't
believe that any were from the authors ). On the other hand, posting it the
first couple of times provided a valuable service to a great many users of
the net, and did not represent a large volume in itself. I suggest that so
long as postings of software ( by whatever pseudonym ) are understood to be
_free_, there is no problem - and that the issue of selling support is a
seperate one. Please do not post any software to the net without the express
understanding _of_its_author_ that this is Giving_it_away_free.
--
Scott Lawrence
UUCP: {decvax,allegra,linus,ihnp4}!encore!lawrence