ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi LASK) (06/22/90)
In article <M1TDG00.90Jun21085217@fsrcs1.fed.frb.gov> m1tdg00@fsrcs1.fed.frb.gov (Taegan D. Goddard) writes: >I'm interested in hearing from people who have published their programs - >by yourself, through a publisher or through shareware. I've used InterNet ftp, FidoNet bulletin boards, and the PC-SIG library. >What tips can you share with me? Which route has worked for you? Consider it just a passtime and don't expect any pecuniary rewards. You'll be exceptionally lucky, or good at it, if you make one single dime. ................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi (Moderating at anon. ftp site 128.214.12.3) School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun
lulu@ucrmath.ucr.edu (david lu) (06/30/90)
In article <1990Jun24.214227.5186@xrtll.uucp> silver@xrtll.UUCP (Hi Ho Silver) writes: > > By and large, distributing your program as shareware doesn't work. >I've tried sending my programs to the shareware/public domain places > I totally agree. It's a bum deal for programmers. Just think about it. If people are willing to pirate *commercial* programs, how are you going to convince them to pay for share- ware, which to most people is the same as public domain? > So if you decide to go the shareware route, I hope you do well. But - David -- ---==lulu@ucrmath==--- just another bewildered college undergraduate. David T Lu, Amateur Thinker: lulu@ucrmath.ucr.edu, {ucsd, uci}!ucrmath!lulu "After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." - Geoffrey James, _The Tao of Programming_
poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger) (07/03/90)
In article <7357@ucrmath.ucr.edu> lulu@ucrmath.ucr.edu (david lu) writes: >In article <1990Jun24.214227.5186@xrtll.uucp> silver@xrtll.UUCP (Hi Ho Silver) writes: >> >> By and large, distributing your program as shareware doesn't work. >>I've tried sending my programs to the shareware/public domain places >> > I totally agree. It's a bum deal for programmers. Just >think about it. If people are willing to pirate *commercial* >programs, how are you going to convince them to pay for share- >ware, which to most people is the same as public domain? > >> So if you decide to go the shareware route, I hope you do well. But > - David > Before you read this, make sure you understand these are not necessarily my opinions. No flames please. Reprinted WITHOUT permission, excerpts from the GNU manifesto. The GNU project is a non-profit organization responsible for bringing to the world such things as emacs, gcc, and many other Unix like utilities. "I am Richard Stallman, inventor of the original much-imitated EMACS editor, formerly at the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT. I have worked extensively on compilers, editors, debuggers, command interpreters, the Incompatible Timesharing System and the Lisp Machine operating system. I pioneered terminal-independent display support in ITS. Since then I have implemented one crashproof file system and two window systems for Lisp machines, and designed a third window system now being implemented; this one will be ported to many systems including use in GNU. [Historical note: The window system project was not completed; GNU now plans to use the X window system.]" "Why I Must Write GNU I consider that the golden rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way. I cannot in good conscience sign a nondisclosure agreement or a software license agreement. For years I worked within the Artificial Intelligence Lab to resist such tendencies and other inhospitalities, but eventually they had gone too far: I could not remain in an institution where such things are done for me against my will." "So that I can continue to use computers without dishonor, I have decided to put together a sufficient body of free software so that I will be able to get along without any software that is not free. I have resigned from the AI lab to deny MIT any legal excuse to prevent me from giving GNU away." "How GNU Will Be Available GNU is not in the public domain. Everyone will be permitted to modify and redistribute GNU, but no distributor will be allowed to restrict its further redistribution. That is to say, proprietary modifications will not be allowed. I want to make sure that all versions of GNU remain free." "Why Many Other Programmers Want to Help I have found many other programmers who are excited about GNU and want to help. Many programmers are unhappy about the commercialization of system software. It may enable them to make more money, but it requires them to feel in conflict with other programmers in general rather than feel as comrades. The fundamental act of friendship among programmers is the sharing of programs; marketing arrangements now typically used essentially forbid programmers to treat others as friends. The purchaser of software must choose between friendship and obeying the law. Naturally, many decide that friendship is more important. But those who believe in law often do not feel at ease with either choice. They become cynical and think that programming is just a way of making money." "Some Easily Rebutted Objections to GNU's Goals "Nobody will use it if it is free, because that means they can't rely on any support." "You have to charge for the program to pay for providing the support." If people would rather pay for GNU plus service than get GNU free without service, a company to provide just service to people who have obtained GNU free ought to be profitable." "We must distinguish between support in the form of real programming work and mere handholding. The former is something one cannot rely on from a software vendor. If your problem is not shared by enough people, the vendor will tell you to get lost." " "You cannot reach many people without advertising, and you must charge for the program to support that." "It's no use advertising a program people can get free." There are various forms of free or very cheap publicity that can be used to inform numbers of computer users about something like GNU. But it may be true that one can reach more microcomputer users with advertising. If this is really so, a business which advertises the service of copying and mailing GNU for a fee ought to be successful enough to pay for its advertising and more. This way, only the users who benefit from the advertising pay for it." "On the other hand, if many people get GNU from their friends, and such companies don't succeed, this will show that advertising was not really necessary to spread GNU. Why is it that free market advocates don't want to let the free market decide this?" " "Don't programmers deserve a reward for their creativity?" If anything deserves a reward, it is social contribution. Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs." " "Shouldn't a programmer be able to ask for a reward for his creativity?" There is nothing wrong with wanting pay for work, or seeking to maximize one's income, as long as one does not use means that are destructive. But the means customary in the field of software today are based on destruction." "Extracting money from users of a program by restricting their use of it is destructive because the restrictions reduce the amount and the ways that the program can be used. This reduces the amount of wealth that humanity derives from the program. When there is a deliberate choice to restrict, the harmful consequences are deliberate destruction." "The reason a good citizen does not use such destructive means to become wealthier is that, if everyone did so, we would all become poorer from the mutual destructiveness. This is Kantian ethics; or, the Golden Rule. Since I do not like the consequences that result if everyone hoards information, I am required to consider it wrong for one to do so. Specifically, the desire to be rewarded for one's creativity does not justify depriving the world in general of all or part of that creativity." " "Won't programmers starve?" I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives standing on the street making faces, and starving. We do something else." " "Don't people have a right to control how their creativity is used?" "Control over the use of one's ideas" really constitutes control over other people's lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more difficult." "People who have studied the issue of intellectual property rights carefully (such as lawyers) say that there is no intrinsic right to intellectual property. The kinds of supposed intellectual property rights that the government recognizes were created by specific acts of legislation for specific purposes. For example, the patent system was established to encourage inventors to disclose the details of their inventions. Its purpose was to help society rather than to help inventors. At the time, the life span of 17 years for a patent was short compared with the rate of advance of the state of the art. Since patents are an issue only among manufacturers, for whom the cost and effort of a license agreement are small compared with setting up production, the patents often do not do much harm. They do not obstruct most individuals who use patented products." " "Won't everyone stop programming without a monetary incentive?" Actually, many people will program with absolutely no monetary incentive. Programming has an irresistible fascination for some people, usually the people who are best at it. There is no shortage of professional musicians who keep at it even though they have no hope of making a living that way." "But really this question, though commonly asked, is not appropriate to the situation. Pay for programmers will not disappear, only become less. So the right question is, will anyone program with a reduced monetary incentive? My experience shows that they will." "For more than ten years, many of the world's best programmers worked at the Artificial Intelligence Lab for far less money than they could have had anywhere else. They got many kinds of non-monetary rewards: fame and appreciation, for example. And creativity is also fun, a reward in itself. Then most of them left when offered a chance to do the same interesting work for a lot of money." "What the facts show is that people will program for reasons other than riches; but if given a chance to make a lot of money as well, they will come to expect and demand it. Low-paying organizations do poorly in competition with high-paying ones, but they do not have to do badly if the high-paying ones are banned." " "Programmers need to make a living somehow." In the short run, this is true. However, there are plenty of ways that programmers could make a living without selling the right to use a program. This way is customary now because it brings programmers and businessmen the most money, not because it is the only way to make a living. It is easy to find other ways if you want to find them. Here are a number of examples." "A manufacturer introducing a new computer will pay for the porting of operating systems onto the new hardware. The sale of teaching, hand-holding and maintenance services could also employ programmers. People with new ideas could distribute programs as freeware, asking for donations from satisfied users, or selling hand-holding services. I have met people who are already working this way successfully. Users with related needs can form users' groups, and pay dues. A group would contract with programming companies to write programs that the group's members would like to use." " The consequences: * the computer-using community supports software development. * this community decides what level of support is needed. * users who care which projects their share is spent on can choose this for themselves. In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the post-scarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling, robot repair and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be able to make a living from programming." Copyright (C) 1985 Richard M. Stallman
lulu@ucr.edu (david lu) (07/03/90)
In article <1990Jul2.222212.3202@sj.ate.slb.com> poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger) writes: >Before you read this, make sure you understand these are not necessarily my >opinions. No flames please. > >[text by Richard Stallman about his ideas of free software deleted.] No flames here, either. First, I like to say that what Richard Stallman is doing is very noble. I would like to agree with him very much. However, it is a good idea in theory only, much like that Communism is a good idea in theory. (Free sharing and comradship, after all, is what Communism is supposed to be all about). I think that without compensating the programmers, we will lose a lot of bright people as programmers not because the current programmers will to chose another career with a better pay, but because we'll never attract any more young people into the field to make them "fall in love" with programming. After all, I would conjecture that the rise in the number of computer science majors across the US in the last few years is mostly due to the expected high demand (and pay) for computer programmers. After all, computer programmers are not what our society conceives as a "glamorous" job, unlike, as Stallman used as an example in his paper, musicians. (At least to the average young person). Of course, I could be wrong --- just like Communism may still prevail over Captalism. But that's not likely to happen within the next few decades. This is going to sound pessimistic, but admit it, us humans (especially the Western culture) are just too selfish. BTW, what is your opinion on the appropriateness of this subject in comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer? It's not really a programming topic, yet it applies to programmers in general. Is there a more appropriate newsgroup for this kinds of dicussion? (C) Copyright 1990 by David Lu (:-) -- ---==lulu@ucrmath==--- just another bewildered college undergraduate. David T Lu, Amateur Thinker: lulu@ucrmath.ucr.edu, {ucsd, uci}!ucrmath!lulu "After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." - Geoffrey James, _The Tao of Programming_