[MacPerl-Forum] Re: [MacPerl] Any shareware advice ?

[Joshua Juran <wanderer@metamage.com>]

At 10:57 AM -0700 1999-06-30, Vicki Brown wrote:
>At 10:15 -0500 6/30/99, w e b s l a v e wrote:
>> The shareware vs. 'freeware' thing... I think it is affected by the
>
>> release it, doesn't the GPL allow for charging money for the software,
>> but still require that the source be open? Wouldn't this mean all the
>> Mac users would pay for it, except the ones that have compilers and feel
>> like building it?
>
>A clarification.
>
>*nix Free Software (e.g. GNU, GPL, and the like) is free as in "Free Speech"
>not as in "Free Beer"
>
>On the Mac, we've got the concept of free software as in free beer, not
>free speech.
>
>So on *nix, yes, it's quite reasonable to charge. But you can't forbid the
>guy you sell it to from giving it away. Nevertheless, the point of the GNU
>Free Software project is "Make the source code available".
>
>People tell Richard Stallman of the Free Software Foundation (and GNU) "My
>boss doesn't believe software is real if he doesn't have to pay for it".
>Richard Stallman replies "How much does he want to pay? I'll take a check".

:-)

I think webslave is talking about something I have also thought about:
Distribute the source for free, and the distribution (compiled executable
plus other files) as shareware.  This is clearly legit if it's your
software -- you can do anything you want with it.  Otherwise, I wonder if
charging a few bucks for preparing the distribution qualifies as a
"reasonable copying fee".  So it's completely open, but you can still make
money off those who don't want the hassle of compiling it themselves.  That
wouldn't go over so well in unixland, but on the Mac we're used to being
asked to pay for shareware.

>At 08:27 -0400 6/30/99, Paul J. Schinder wrote:
>> Partly it's a "what would I do
>> with your source code anyway?" thing from the end user.
>
>True, but some of us end users might want to _look_ at the source even if
>we don't have the tool to recompile it. Oh, sorry, I forgot. That makes me
>a "power user" and perilously close to a developer, not an "end user". I
>forgot the definitions :-)

Sometimes it's a "my version of CodeWarrior can't grok your project file,
and I have no plans to upgrade" thing.  This is why I'm rolling my own
project management in MacPerl for MPW.  Free, of course.

>I agree that it's a cultural thing. It's a culture I'd like to change.

We can start by our own example.  Check out <http://www.jmac.org/macos_oss/>.

Josh

--
Joshua Juran                          Metamage Software Creations
=)                                         Tools for Wizards
wanderer@metamage.com
<http://www.metamage.com/>   * Creation at the highest state of the art *



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