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What does it mean when I say "successful freeware"?

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Renegade:
In the end, it all comes down to the intent that guides the behavior.
-40hz (February 14, 2011, 11:48 AM)
--- End quote ---


It still seems that the underlying principle in your approach is to be suspicious.

Being "open" as a requirement is very much a burdened concept.

Why would it be a requirement? I can only see suspicion as the motivation.

Where there is no malicious intent, there's no reason to believe in the first place that revealing intent should be a requirement.

I mean that for someone that has no malicious intent, why would they ever even think that blurting out all their motivations is something that they should do or that anyone would care about?

There has to be some kind of motivation/reason to be open.

Now I can see someone being open simply as a matter of fact/interest, but that's a very different thing from what you're suggesting.

Is being open simply a trivial fact or point of interest, or is it a tool to sway suspicion? The former isn't very interesting, but the latter is.

As a tool to sway suspicion, being open has 2 primary cases:

* The author is malicious and needs to convince visitors
* The author lives in a world where much is malicious, and needs to cut through the suspicion caused by malicious authors

Talking about the first there is simply futile, as bad people will be bad, and there's nothing to be done about it.

The second case is interesting though. From what you've said so far, it sounds like you're saying freeware authors should or must adopt that position.

To me it seems like a very pessimistic position.


Draw what conclusions from those two pictures you will.  :) :Thmbsup:
-40hz (February 14, 2011, 11:48 AM)
--- End quote ---

If you write freeware, you'd better arm yourself? :P


But seriously, the conclusions I'm drawing from those are that we have radically different approaches that cannot be reconciled.


I should note that I am not opposed to being open. In fact I think it's a good thing. My concern is for the motivations behind it.

40hz:
I wasn't around at the time though so I might be wrong. My impression was that bulletin boards were so disjointed and small back then that it was easy for a small group of elitists to have their say on what good freeware was but they were mostly the same guys who reject talks regarding usability, regarding design, and it was more of a "at least you are getting something functional for free and how dare you question this developer's hard work" and it was mostly shareware who tried to do more of the quality software.
-Paul Keith (February 14, 2011, 04:02 PM)
--- End quote ---

I don't recall it being like that at all.

For openers, there were no core groups of elitists that had any influence worth mentioning since the BBS world was not as connected as the web is today. So while you may have had some sort of "wonk" status on a local BBS or in a mega-portal discussion group over at Compuserve or Delphi - it was still a far cry from the amount of clout a blogger might garner today.

Most of the "elite" (if that's even the correct term) were paid magazine columnists like John Dvorak, Jerrry Pournelle, Bob Ciarcia and Don Lancaster.

BBS systems were local out of necessity because you accessed them via a dial-up POTS connection. So if you didn't want to go broke paying toll or long-distance charges, you restricted your online presence to boards that could be reached via your local phone exchange.

I know this might be hard to imagine for people who grew up with the Internet. But it really was a very different world back then. So much so that when I look back on it, I'm amazed I'm still walking on the same planet.

As far as software went, most authors were very good at supporting their "product." Those that wanted to make some money usually opted for releasing their work as shareware. Shareware was basically an honor system. If you liked and continued to use something, you were supposed to pay the requested license fee.

Freeware was freeware. Notable examples of quality freeware were: FidoBBS, RBBS-PC, QModem, and (later on) DR-DOS.

Commercial software was usually copy protected so there was no confusion about the fact you were supposed to pay  to use it. The biggies back then were Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, XYWrite, DBaseIII & IV, Clipper, Foxbase, RBase, Borland's TurboPascal, Paradox, and Sidekick, HarvardGraphics, and a host of others.

For the most part, what we'd categorize as "office productivity" apps today, were all commercial software - although PC-Calc and PC-Write were popular shareware alternatives.

Most of the communication software (terminal emulators, modem tools, mail clients, chat tools, etc.) that was worth using was all freeware or shareware. There were commercial offerings out there. But everybody pretty much standardized on QModem for logging onto bulletin boards.

BBS software was mostly free. Fido was the dominant force out there since it had a rudimentary e-mail network routing system that allowed messages to be sent free of charge by doing a sort of bucket brigade store & forward (albeit via dialup) that anticipated some of the technology found in our current messaging protocols. Check out wikipedia if you're interested in the details.

If you want to have a real chuckle, and possibly gain some insight into how things used to be, check out these two historic vids over at YouTube:

Connect: A Look At Bulletin Board Systems

BBS The Documentary

 :Thmbsup:

Paul Keith:
Why would it be a requirement? I can only see suspicion as the motivation.
--- End quote ---

No offense (and sorry for butting in) but perhaps that stems from your own suspicion motivating you to be less transparent?

In that case then being less open would still be motivated by suspicion.

And according to you it's a burdened concept to be motivated by suspicion. So in the end, both spectrums, are burdened concept.

As a tool to sway suspicion, being open has 2 primary cases:

* The author is malicious and needs to convince visitors
* The author lives in a world where much is malicious, and needs to cut through the suspicion caused by malicious authors
--- End quote ---

3rd primary case. People just want to know what they are getting. They want to know if they can become a fan of your product and you wouldn't screw them. They want to know if the developer is willing to disclose say... bugs that may turn people away from their product.

In turn, the more transparent a developer is, the more he gets in touch with the dilemma his users are having with his program be it bugs, confusing interface, self-bias resulting to poorer design. All which in turn leads to a developer being more incentivized to create a product that he is proud to share and show to his users which in turn leads to more transparency as then the developer would be more proud to showcase his hard work. Generically speaking of course.

For openers, there were no core groups of elitists that had any influence worth mentioning since the BBS world was not as connected as the web is today. So while you may have had some sort of "wonk" status on a local BBS or in a mega-portal discussion group over at Compuserve or Delphi - it was still a far cry from the amount of clout a blogger might garner today.
--- End quote ---

As you said, it was not as connected so I had assumed elitists need not require core groups. Even today one or two bloggers can be good enough to start a twitter trend of discussions.

BBS systems were local out of necessity because you accessed them via a dial-up POTS connection. So if you didn't want to go broke paying toll or long-distance charges, you restricted your online presence to boards that could be reached via your local phone exchange.
--- End quote ---

From the few tidbits I read, this didn't stop cultures from developing. The proverbial internet tough guy moniker for example started out being a local issue of a guy going to another guy's house to fight with him.

P.S. Thanks for the links.

Target:
Still man...from freeware to Miyamoto...this thread has indeed gone a long way
-Paul Keith (February 14, 2011, 05:37 PM)
--- End quote ---

indeed, it seems to have gone from being in danger of veering off topic to jumping the fence and running screaming into the trees ;D

While the discussions on the various definitions of freeware may be passingly interesting I've got to say I don't understand the logic at all (this is what happens when marketing professionals or accountants get involved in things).

The definition is right there in the title - free ware.

A reasonable definition would say that any functional software freely made available without the requirement for a monetary exchange would certainly qualify (the inclusion of ad's or malware or whatever notwithstanding). 

Provided the software isn't crippled to the point that it can't be used for it's intended function then the user is getting free software.  The amount of value the user gets out of it is another issue (and depending on your respective measures/intent, a measure of success)

Going back to the OP, it would seem contradictary to promote your software as freeware then expect it to generate any sort of compensation.  There's nothing wrong with generating freeware to promote yourself as a consultant, but that would be quite separate to the freeware side of your activities

And donations, while welcome, are not guaranteed.  They're an indication of value relative to that particular user (only) and as such are usually once off's, so even less likely to generate any sort of reliable income.

Similarly it doesn't seem to gel that you as a freeware developer are under any sort of obligation to provide support or regular 'upgrades' for your freeware. 

These activities are by their very nature resource intensive and unless


* you are sufficiently wealthy that you don't need to work for a living, and
* you don't mind spending all your time answering inane requests to include irrelevant functionality, or
* you have access to a team of people that can share the load
then it's unlikely that you are going to be able to maintain them for very long (at the very least you're probably going to end up losing all interest in the project).  Of course this presupposes a substantial user base...

That's not to say that you shouldn't do it, just that you should recognise the cost/benefit value of your support activities and treat them accordingly

With respect to transparency and honesty, I suspect this is more an expectation for consumers than it is for developers, ie I want to know if your application is going to include XYZ toolbar, a search engine, or some other unrelated piece of software.  I'm not really interested in your motivation for developing a given application (though it may be a good story).  I am interested in whether or not you might be trustworthy/ethical (I may want to employ you)

40hz:
It still seems that the underlying principle in your approach is to be suspicious. -Renegade (February 14, 2011, 07:23 PM)
--- End quote ---

That is not at all what I'm saying. Suspicion has no place anywhere in this schema.

Being "open" as a requirement is very much a burdened concept.

Why would it be a requirement?

--- End quote ---

It's not a requirement at all. It's a suggested stance or process. Think in terms of it being an outlook or perspective rather than a rule. As such, it's liberating. It basically says "I have nothing to be afraid of because, come what may, I know I can deal with it."

Which is a good thing. Because even if we can't "deal" with something, we end up dealing with it anyway.

Simple truth: we each play the hand we're dealt - as it's dealt us.


I can only see suspicion as the motivation.

--- End quote ---

I think we all, to a greater or lesser extent, see what we allow ourselves to see.

If we're intrinsically suspicious, we see suspicion everywhere. If we're intrinsically open and non-judgmental, we allow ourselves to see many more possibilities.

There has to be some kind of motivation/reason to be open.
--- End quote ---

There is. My motivation for being open is that I've learned it works far better than its alternative. Your mileage may vary.

Now I can see someone being open simply as a matter of fact/interest, but that's a very different thing from what you're suggesting.
--- End quote ---

Um...yeah. What I'm suggesting is to do it for real. 8)

As a tool to sway suspicion, being open has 2 primary cases:

* The author is malicious and needs to convince visitors
* The author lives in a world where much is malicious, and needs to cut through the suspicion caused by malicious authors
--- End quote ---

I'm not sure where you're getting that. How would I (or you for that matter) know what this hypothetical software author is up to? Or how he sees the world. FWIW, I don't think most people are all that suspicious most of the time. Nor do they perceive their world as being that way. They wouldn't be able to function or interact socially if they were walking around in a constant state of Defcon-2.

Talking about the first there is simply futile, as bad people will be bad, and there's nothing to be done about it.
--- End quote ---


Disagree.

There's actually quite a bit you can do about bad behavior. You can:


* Ignore
* Educate
* Admonish
* Correct
* Minimize
* Neutralize
* Preempt
* Prevent
* Stop
* Eliminate
* Eradicate
That's a pretty broad range of possible responses. The only time you can't do something about it is if you choose not to do something about it. And the simple decision not to act also represents a choice made.

It always comes down to personal choice and motivation. There's just no getting around it.  :)

I should note that I am not opposed to being open. In fact I think it's a good thing. My concern is for the motivations behind it.
--- End quote ---

The motivation for being "open on all sides" is simply to be open on all sides.

My personal take is that it's fancy a Zen-sounding way of saying "I don't have to be afraid all the time."  :) ;D

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