Other Software > Developer's Corner

How long should a software time trial be?

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mouser:
Glad you asked the last question, I wanted to say something about that.

My comments about "DC Software" was only meant to refer to software that we consider *OFFICIAL* site software, and it is not in any way meant to say that we would impose any requirements on the individual programmers who hang out here.

There are plenty of pure traditional shareware/freelance/commercial software developers who frequent DC and I don't in any way meant to be criticizing or trying to influence their policies.  Different things work for different people, who have different aims, and we welcome everyone who isn't being evil.

Now you'll probably notice on this site that we tend to go an extra mile in terms of bringing attention to freeware/donationware we find on the web.  I think that matches our general approach here which is much more focused on bringing attention to the donationware approach and trying to help donationware authors get attention and help, since it's an unusual approach and much harder to succeed at it.

My standard advice to anyone who wants to make money on software to forget about donationware.  You just cannot (yet?) make good money on this approach in today's society.  Read my article for a lengthier discussion about why it might still be the right approach for you, if maximizing revenue is not your primary goal.

But to get back to your question: All developers are welcome on this site, and we have no intention of trying to influence anyone's decision about selling, pricing, etc.  We will have rules for any software that is part of the *official* DonationCoder software collection, because our policy is that when someone donates to DC they are currently guarunteed a lifetime license to all future versions of this *official* software collection.  But this has no bearing on any of the software written by individual users on this forum, even if the program was written as part of a request or discussion here.

We have no interest in any rights or controls over any code that people here write, we just want to be a fun place to hang out and talk about shareware - and we'd love to see you as a developer succeed, in whatever particular path of business you choose (though you can bet that most of us here will be rooting for you to choose an ethical and moral approach to your business, which takes into consideration some of the principles we think are important in terms of being good internet citizens).

CodeTRUCKER:
Does that include any s/w that is coded by any DC member and posted on DC will be under the DC policy?

mouser:
any s/w that is coded by any DC member and posted on DC will be under the DC policy?
--- End quote ---
No.

Unless you have talked to me and we've explicitly agreed that your software is now part of official DonationCoder software collection which must be guaranteed to be free for any supporting member of DC for life, then you are under no obligations of any sort wrt to DC and DC policies.

Just because someone on the DC forum writes software and posts it here or uploads it doesn't mean DC has any rights to it - we don't.  It's your software.  You wrote it, you decide how it's distributed etc.

We want coders to feel at home here and free to talk and play and share there work - we don't want to own it or restrict it.  Obviously many of us here have strong feelings about donationware and freeware and stuff like that, so you're not going to find a very receptive audience if your main interest here is about how you can milk the most amount of money out of your "customers".  Although we occasionally talk about the business end of software, it's certainly not the main focus of this site, and it never will be - there are other sites better suited for that.

Now when we have something like a NANY challenge we ask people to post software that is free.  If you want to charge for it later or future versions, thats up to you.  When we do a programming contest, the programs you submit are going to be free for anyone to download and use.  Whatever you do with it beyond that is up to you.  It's your software we just ask that the free copy you made for the contest be made available to everyone for free.  We promise not to ever try to charge for it or restrict its use.  We're happy to take care of bandwidth and hosting etc.

Lastly,
We frequenly offer some free web space for freeware/donationware coders, just as a thank you for their contribution to software scene.  It's not an amazing thing - it's just a site at like USERNAME.dcmembers.com.  And the condition is that you not abuse the space and not use it to SELL shareware, but only for freeware and donationware.  But other than that, the space is yours.  That also is *NOT* official donationcoder software - it's your software and web space to handle as you wish.  You have no obligations to use other than to not abuse the offer of space.

[ We occasionally have someone like Anderson (Mobysaurus) who works on something of very high quality and who is so close in spirit to the site that we both agree to make it part of the official DonationCoder software collection, and use the DC license key system, etc.  Youll see those programs on the official DC Software page:  https://www.donationcoder.com/Software/index.html ]

To summarize all that:
Your software is your own to do whatever you want with it.  We're happy to help you with any hosting and web space you need, until it becomes a commercial product at which point we will be very happy for you but expect you to find your own hosting.

CodeTRUCKER:
Thank you for the clarification.

Lashiec:
Thanks for the link, mouser!

A quick look at all your opinions give me lots of ideas that I don't have time to summarize here right now. I'll post an elaborated post tomorrow, including a new look on the refund question (providing the rampant piracy we have here in Spain...)

Now, the question is: why I'm saying all of this? :D

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