Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!csn!stan!imp
From: imp@Solbourne.COM (Warner Losh)
Subject: Re: Cracking games
Message-ID: <1991Mar19.172138.4340@Solbourne.COM>
Organization: Solbourne Computer, Inc., Longmont, CO
References: <27442@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> <31600014@hpcvra.cv.hp.com.> <1991Mar18.223533.646@welch.jhu.edu>
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1991 17:21:38 GMT


>It's attitudes like these that cause me, "just" a shareware author,
>irritation at pirates like you.  "Unregistered shareware", when used
>beyond the test period

*** SOAP BOX ON ***

By distributing your software via shareware, you are accepting the
risk that people will not pay you for programs they really use.  You
of all people should know that.  Could it be that this shareware that
he has isn't worth registering?  I have several programs that I have
used a couple of times that weren't even worth the disk space to keep
them, much less send in the "fee" that the license agreement (very one
sided) stated that I must send in before I used the program.

Face it.  With shareware, you will get maybe 1 in 50 people that are
really using your program to send you money for it.  It is the risk
you take for "giving it away" in the user's eyes.  I know that you
aren't really giving it away, but when a person downloads something
for free, they tend to assume, rightly or wrongly, that the program
itself is free.

So lighten up on this guy.  All shareware writer's know this risk when
they release their products.  They all know that there will be lots of
people out there who don't register their copies of the program.  They
also know that some people will, and that is how they make their
money.

Anybody have any idea how many unregistered, heavily used PKZIP copies
are floating around?????

*** SOAP BOX OFF ***

None of this says that using shareware w/o registering it is Right, or
Moral, or anything like that.  It happens.  It shouldn't.  Everybody
should always pay for everything they use.  But in reality, if you
don't get the money up front from some people, you don't get the money
from them at all.

Warner

P.S.  As a shareware author, I don't want lots of people to copy my
program and not pay me for it.  However, that's a risk I knew I was
taking when I desided that my program wasn't worth selling in more
"traditional" channels.
-- 
Warner Losh		imp@Solbourne.COM
We sing about Beauty and we sing about Truth at $10,000 a show.
