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Unrestricted vs. Limited Shareware, In Dollars
Posted by
timothy
on Thu Aug 17, 2006 09:21 AM
from the more-evil-or-less-in-your-coffee? dept.
from the more-evil-or-less-in-your-coffee? dept.
mklopez writes "There is a belief in the online world that people will be more willing to compensate an author for a downloaded program that has full functionality, versus paying to unlock features in a shareware version. Someone actually put this idea to a test with surprising results."
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Paying for crippled software (Score:2, Informative)
1) I need the software
2) No Free/Open Source alternative is available (I'd happily pay for free software before proprietary stuff)
3) I don't feel like/for some reason can't write my own version.
It hasn't happened yet. I've purchased proprietary software after using the trials, but so far crippled versions have always ticked me off just enough to go look for ano
Re:Paying for crippled software (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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Anyway, who pays ? I pay. I'm a developer so I gladly pay because I know what's behind the development of a software. But I guess I'm the exception rather than the norm. ( yes, I have license for everything on my computer. If I cannot pay (or I don't think the price is right, like DVD) I don't use it. )
But I look in my family and friends that are not in contact with development world.
There are 2 categories:
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"I think soup is good." "I like trees." "I won't buy a tire that doesn't have white letters on the side." "I don't buy shareware that is crippled."
Congratulations on thinki
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"3) I don't feel like/for some reason can't write my own version."
Did you then write and release it as FOSS?
Surprising? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't find the result surprising at all. In the real world, there are more people who will pay up if it's directly in their interests than will pay up simply out of respect/gratitude/charity/whatever, not least because one set is likely to be almost entirely contained within the other.
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What's really suprising... (Score:4, Interesting)
Now, granted, he has an established company, so he probably has some good connections with download sites and magazines to get his program included, but that's a tidy sum for "a couple of days" of work.
Link to experiment program (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
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I love the retro look and feel.
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The real question is, how valid is this data now? Its probably still very valid but the types of people using computers have grown by large numbers sence then. Of course the % of people who would pay for such a simple program has probably reduced as well.
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Test? What test? (Score:5, Informative)
The actual test is here [hackvan.com]
Parent Contains Useful Information (Score:5, Informative)
Slashdotters will almost certainly find the original article at http://hackvan.com/pub/stig/articles/why-do-peopl
(I would have modded the parent up but I get 2 points for free and modding only gives the AC 1. Sorry, AC.)
Parent
welcome to yesterday (Score:2)
because it was on Digg yesterday.
The Blog (Score:3, Interesting)
That's right, it's
You know, the FOSS/GPL competitor to Moveable Type, which gained popularity in no small part because of the exodus of users from Moveable Type circa version 3.0, when they tried to cripple the free personal version. (I won't say that WP was created in response to that, because it wasn't and has existed as f
I prefere timed limits over feature limits... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think we can all admit that we have, at one time or another, used a less-than-legal copy of software. Many times, it's a one-shot "need", but in many cases, it's to evaluate a program that's otherwise crippled. And for me, there are many, MANY times when the ability to have unrestricted use led to purchases.
-Jim
http://jimstips.com/ [jimstips.com]
Re:I prefere timed limits over feature limits... (Score:5, Insightful)
Simply shutting down the program at the end of the trial period, for me at least, means I will stop running the program and thinking about it. I'll probably check to see if there is another way to do what I need, without using your program. If you want me to pay, you need to keep me using it, but disable enough that I think paying is worth it.
Parent
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Re:I prefere timed limits over feature limits... (Score:4, Insightful)
I prefer time limits that actually time how long you use the program, rather than how long it's been since you first ran it.
If I install something with a 30 day trial, have a quick fiddle, and then get distracted by Real Life[tm], those 30 days could have run out by the time I find the program in /Applications and remember that I hadn't finished trying it out. Now what?
A program that lets you run it on 10 separate occasions would have been much more useful, because I'd still have 9 shots left at evaluating it. Even better would be changing the 30 day limit to a 10 day limit, but only counting days that you run the program - that way, if you accidentally hit Quit and immediately restart, you don't get dinged for it.
Parent
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So then, the question is tis: If you had additional CD's to rip now that you are passed the tria
Is crippling wrong? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think figuring out the way to profit is a difficult problem. Not because it's hard to pick between trial periods and crippling. But because we want to feel good about the software we write and at the same time make a living from it.
Crippleware vs Nagware/Timebombware (Score:2)
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Free Agent [forteinc.com] is the free version, a good basic USENET and email client. Agent is the advanced version with all the buttons and whistles. I used Free Agent for 1 year, paid for Agent, and years later paid for an upgrade to version 2.0, all while using it on Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 2k, XP, fully supported.
Their "crippled" version just has much less features (uuencode/decode/mime on the f
I'm not *allowed* to donate! (Score:5, Interesting)
I work in the public sector, and I have a sizable budget for IT expenses. I can justify expenditure on just about anything simply by saying I need it. However, the purchasing department wouldn't let me give money to a project if I can get the same software free of charge. We're very carefully audited to make sure our software is licensed, but if the license permits usage at no cost then there is no way we can justify giving a donation. We would be in big trouble if we were found to be `wasting' taxpayers' money in this way.
Even in the private sector, a corporation has a legal responsibility to its shareholders to reduce costs, and runs the risk of being sued by them if it donates money unnecessarily.
Neither public nor private organizations are allowed to be charitable with their patrons' money.
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In addition, designers should be aware that even if their software is GPL, they can still sell support contracts!
--jeffk++
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I'm not really sure what the best solution is, aside from offering the software under some sort of a less-than-Free license that requires a fee for commercial or government use. Obviously, that's GPL-incompatible.
Maybe the solution is to offer support contracts that sort of correspond to various levels of the software, or sell "retail box" editions which on paper seem superior to whatever you're giving away for free. This could be as easy as making the free version use a different name
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That is incompatible with the GPL, and much of the really good Free (as in speech or beer) softare is GPL. If you are building on a GPL program, or using many GPL libraries, you legally can not do that as an author because you are taking away the user's rights.
My rant (feel free to mod down) (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's a link to my F/OSS Competitor (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
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Teachers don't exactly have expense accounts, and don't get paid well-enough to be expected to pay out of pocket...
Teachers don't make bad money where I live. In fact, I'd say their wages are in the same ballpark as general IT staff at my university and the IT staff works year round. $25 is not
Re:My rant (feel free to mod down)GW-BASIC is out (Score:2)
You can't ride on the shoulders of giants that way (Score:3, Insightful)
Not too far down the line, it will become completely impossible for any fully independent developer to compete against the collosal pyramid of software resources being constructed by the FOSS movement. And that includes the Redmonds and IBMs of this world, not a chance. A thousand fully paid developers beavering away without the benefit of standing on the shoulders of a thousand times that many unpaid giants will get absolutely nowhere, comparatively speaking.
This is just a simple matter of geometric growth of FOSS capability, and the trend is absolutely unstoppable (except possibly by patents, hence the worry there). To stay on the leading edge, your application will have to ride that collosal resource, because to not do so will mean spending an extreme amount of time and money reinventing the wheel and probably failing anyway. And that precludes shareware, because of licensing.
While some people don't like the intentionally viral nature of the GPL, it is instrumental in making sure that this stunningly huge resource continues to grow and to be ever more beneficial to the community that uses it. While that doesn't make its use compulsary, and non-dependent developers like in TFA will probably always exist for small projects, the general trend is clear: if you want to write something beyond your ability for total reinvention, you won't be able to make it shareware.
Re:You can't ride on the shoulders of giants that (Score:3, Insightful)
Except one thing: Usability. I've encountered few pieces of FOSS software that I would consider truly usable. Firefox is a delightful exception, as well as Adium (IM client for OSX), but for the most part it's just a dreadery of buttons and panels that only a coder could grok.
That's all fine and dandy for the "background" type of FOSS, things like Apache, MySQL, PHP and whatnot, where your target audience are of the technical inclination.
That is also why I have serious doubts about the ability for FOSS
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At least with GNOME, many new computer users I've tried find it easier than Windows. Naturally people who are used to Windows have some switching difficulties though (button order, menu names etc.). There are always improvements that could be made, but they are very nice to use (at least the core apps). Also, I am a programmer and use GNOME, and I've never had issues with not being able to do something. If there's no GUI for some advanced task
Re:You can't ride on the shoulders of giants that (Score:2)
We're mighty and powerful, and you can't compete with us....oh, bingo card creator? no we don't have a good one of those.
Another downfall of FOSS is thier inability to conduct expensive usability research studies. A thousand times that many unpaid giants will get absolutely nowhere towards making usable software without standing on th
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"it will become completely impossible for any fully independent developer to compete against the collosal pyramid of software resources being constructed by the FOSS movement"
there are literally thousands of niche areas that are completely ignored by FOSS, and many more that are not ignored but not well done either. I never said they COULDN'T create a good bingo program. Just that they HAVEN'T. And I bet new niches pop up just as fast as the FOSS movement could fill
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No doubt there will be niches, but I doubt most of them can be filled by shareware.
As I see it...
Pure proprietary software will be pushed into "hard and specialized" niches, mostly math intensive stuff that only so many people can do well, FOSS in this domain is and will continue to be mostly unpolished university research. As the problems get better understood FOSS will move in and big players on to other grounds. This could go on for a long time.
Bussiness applications will be mostly a thinlayer of p
Re:You can't ride on the shoulders of giants that (Score:2)
Most of the open source libraries I use are bsd licensed or lgpl or something comparable. On the other hand, I use plenty of gpl applications. I suspect this is the natural order of things. If you gpl an application, you don't cripple/restrict people who want to use the application. If you gpl a library, you do, and it can be ev
Re:You can't ride on the shoulders of giants that (Score:3, Insightful)
There are thousands of niche apps created by small vendors that have no open source equivalent, and never will. Give your head a shake, and stop dreaming.
Realise that there will always be a place - a very large place - for proprietary, paid-for software. Usability, strange niches (like bingo cards), custom p
There is "enough" management in FOSS (Score:2)
They don't need to be organized. All they need to do is to add to the volume of FOSS resources, and they are doing that admirably and in collosal amounts. The size of the FOSS mountain is just mind-boggling already, and always increasing.
However, there is another way of looking at this which perhaps will suit you better:
They *ARE* being organized, not by
Not that surprising, but when was this? (Score:2)
Then again, maybe not....
4/94 through 2/95 (Score:2)
Its all about the marginal utility of the software (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Fully functional software that is pre-installed on their computer
2) Use a light, but fully functional version, that is pre-installed on their computer
3) Buy the full version of software needed at a store. Or, buy the pro version of 2), that has more features.
4) Do internet research and find a list of shareware and freeware and try to find the best of the bunch for the lowest cost
5) Get a list of FOSS/freeware from a knowlegable guru to install on their computer.
Once someone gets software on their computer, they are usually very hesitant to get rid of it, especially if they like how it works. For example, I currently use CamFrog, which is slightly crippled. It only allows you view one camera at a time in a small window. Otherwise, it is fully functional. Now, as I become more addicted to using the software, I want to watch more than one webcam at a time, and in bigger windows. The marginal utility for the $50 pro version is huge!
If the software is so crippled that I can't try it out, or have a chance to become reliant upon it, paying $ to use it might not be worth it.
On the other hand, if its not crippled at all, and its fully functional, I have no incentive to give money at all, except altruisticly.
Findings relate to music... (Score:2)
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Definitely about as simple as it gets.