On Monday, October 14, 2002, at 04:12 PM, Sherm Pendley wrote: > Time to jump in here with my own two cents. I don't think Gregory is > referring to folks like Unsanity or Stick, whose products represent a > serious amount of work at a rock-bottom price. That's shareware done > well. > > There is another side to shareware, though. I'm referring to authors > who take advantage of the fact that many Mac users won't touch > Terminal.app with a ten-foot pole. They spend fifteen minutes with > Apple's dev tools knocking together a half-assed GUI interface that > does nothing but sit on top of a command-line tool and/or fiddle with > the defaults database. Then, they release their "work" while implying > that their program offers some great new capabilities that OS X didn't > have, and they have the gall to demand $10, $20, or even $50 for it.
Don't forget -- the prime issue behind shareware is "try it before you buy it." If you think it's crap, you don't have to pay for it. Unlike shrink wrapped software where you are stuck with a hole in your wallet. As Spider Robinson once said -- "99% of everything is crap." Personally, in my 30 years on the net, I've had far too much "freeware" that clearly was NOT worth the price I paid for it -- a LOT of time and agony installing, hacking, and un-installing at it trying to get it to work. The so called "open source" community does NOT generate software that "works" every time or is "better" than commercial alternatives. A lot of the code generated by the Open Source community is just as much crap as the Shareware or Commercial alternatives. It is NOT alternative in anything but cost. Today, it is better than it was, but not much. One still has to sweat bullets because some IDIOT did the port to your platform and OS. And as for the folks who wrap a GUI around something like say traceroute ... so what. Personally, "whatroute" is a LOT easier to use for most Personal Computer users than any command line application. The vast majority of the motoring public not only is incapable of cranking a car to get it started, but can't shift gears on one either. And as to the list of first rate Shareware, don't forget Avernum and its fellows! Some of us don't like "twitch," first-person-shooter games. T.T.F.N. William H. Magill [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
