“Software is big business. Every year, consumers spend over a hundred billion dollars purchasing shrink-wrap software. For you as a developer, shareware is a cheap, effective means of marketing and distributing your software. Shareware lets the public redistribute your software for free, then pay a registration fee if they like it. Today, nearly all software companies provide some form of free trial version of their software.” Read the article at MacDevCenter.
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Eugenia Loli
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When you view real time google search requests (other peoples searches), once you filter through the adult and pop culture stuff, a lot of queries are for serial numbers, cracks and hacks. There are so many hacks for PowerDVD that it isn’t funny. Most shareware authors are lucky if they get enough for a weekly meal with their significant other, or a case/slab of beer. Lets face it, we’re all cheap bastards.
Having said that, I have registered a few apps in my lifetime, probably Opera was the most expensive. Writers of shareware for alternative OS’s have it easy, they just post a rant about dying sales, and threaten to move to Windows, and suddenly there is a large upsurge in registrations because people want them to continue writing software for their system. Especially Mac shareware writers.
Nevertheless, there is a lot of shareware out there on par with commercial offerings, if not better. Tastefull nagware is the best way to get users to register (ie. Soundplay for BeOS (an MP3 player) where every 20 minutes or so your music is interupted and a corny “Register Me” is played, then it continues working as before). I hate time limited shareware, or crippled shareware. Opera have a decent model.
Crippled/time limted shareware makes not want to register it or even use it. I have paid for many a shareware application that I like to use but only after I got a full taste of what I can do with it.
It doesn’t work because most Shareware software just isn’t worth buying. It’s usually semi-functional and just doesn’t meet the needs of the average user.
It’s possible to make crack proof shareware anyway. You just have two versions, one of which doesn’t have the functionality of the full version. When users pay for it, you send them the full version.
I’m more than willing to pay for good software. But most Shareware spends less than a week on my computer because it just isn’t very good.
It’s possible to make crack proof shareware anyway. You just have two versions, one of which doesn’t have the functionality of the full version.
That hardly qualifies as ‘crack-proof’. If you release a shareware version without all the code of the full version, then there’s really nothing to crack.
When users pay for it, you send them the full version.
This approach has the same problem as copy-protected CDs – once one uncracked copy gets out ‘in the wild’, it can pretty much be distributed to everyone at that point – all it takes is one copy.
There are a few mac shareware apps that I am very grateful for: launchbar and watson particularly. But for me to spring for a shareware fee, it has to be something I use every day, and I only want to pay for it after I’ve become used to it. Crippleware and Nagware will almost never arrive at that point, so I won’t pay. I particularly hate it when someone develops a nice little useful app, but then they get too greedy with the fee, like asking for $25. Truth is, I’ll pay $5 for a little app, maybe $10, but asking more is bad business, unless it’s a replacement for commercial software that costs a lot more.
Unfortunately shareware with nag code or with limited functionality has a better chance of being registered than fully functional one. Some authors make this a feature: the limited free functionality is enough for an occasional user to go by, so that only regular users have to pay for it, and those are willing to pay anyway.
Of course in one case I deliberately did not pay the fee for quite some time because the increasing annoyingness of the nag code made me curios how far the programmers had gone with it.
“That hardly qualifies as ‘crack-proof’. If you release a shareware version without all the code of the full version, then there’s really nothing to crack.”
You know, of all the endeavours mankind has ever engaged in, arguing semantics has to be the least productive.
From the article;
“In my opinion, shareware tends to combine the worst of commercial software (no sources) with the worst of free software (no finishing touches). I simply do not believe in the shareware market at all.”
Linus Torvalds, 1998.
The problem isn’t the shareware model, or even the shareware market. The problem is the shareware developers and is a problem shared with the OSS crowd. Given that, I find Linus position inconsistent.
Many small developers don’t seem to have the rounded education or resources to make fully polished software a priority. Perhaps a good first step is an acknowledgement that programmers are usually the last people who should be making design decisions or writing documentation.
On the Mac, Graphic Converter must be the shareware king of all time. It’s been around for years and what a program! It has an interesting scheme. Instead of being crippled or have nag screens, the splash screen counts down 30 seconds before the program completely opens. I don’t know, because I bought it years ago, but the countdown may get longer as time goes on and you haven’t purchased it yet 🙂 Another thing about great share is that, usually, you only pay once.
Shareware can also come to the rescue. Apple has had big problems getting scanning companies to write drivers for OS X. John Hamrick’s VueScan has almost singlehandedly solved that problem.
I come from a tradition…long before OSS…that, if you do end up using a shareware program regularly and it isn’t crippled in any way or have nag screens, that not paying for it is about the lowest thing you can do. I still believe that.
Linus was not inconsistent…..
he said free, not Free. free as in beer software is not the same as Free as in Freedom software that also happenes to be free as in beer…in the latter case, you have hundreds or thousands (in a few cases) of people adding to, polishing up and debuging code all coordinated in a project with a single goal. KDE for instance is a very good piece of free Free software, as is Gnome and as are all the Ximian products(how do they make any money?)
at any rate…he was pointing out the fact that since Shareware and freeware has one or 2 sets of eyes and one or 2 minds working on it, it sucks… it sucks becasue it usualy only fits a very narrow job as that is what the creator needed it for where as Free software can start out Narrow but then people who see the potential can add to it to fit a slightly larger and compatable set of situations.
AHH fooy to your paying for good software 🙂 </sarcasm>
Linus was not inconsistent…..
Yes he was, when you’re judging the end result. OSS versus closed, and free versus paid, are merely different means to the same end result. Most shareware, like most GPL software, is crap from an end users point of view.
Looking closer at the end user “experience” it’s clear to me there is a shortage of HCI and documentation talent present in both models (and yes, I do recognise the resource issues).
…since Shareware and freeware has one or 2 sets of eyes and one or 2 minds working on it, it sucks… it sucks becasue it usualy only fits a very narrow job as that is what the creator needed it for where as Free software can start out Narrow but then people who see the potential can add to it to fit a slightly larger and compatable set of situations.
I’m no believer in army-scale development. It too often gets unwieldy and looses track of its actual target. I find myself staring at someone’s Linux or BSD desktop far too often only to find myself asking how so many people can have managed so little.
It really puts the abilities of one or two or five good coders working for a clearly defined goal in a different light. It’s amazing how even one or two lone programmers can match the product of fifty or hundred or a thousand.
“The more the merrier” doesn’t hold true in this regard. In that case, Linux wouldn’t still be playing catch-up with all the other players after ten years and innumerable developers.
And I certainly don’t mind paying for a good program. If it serves me well, and the author would like some reward for his work, he deserves it in my book. The pecuniary incentive does also open a channel between user and developer. We’ve both done each other a favour and may communicate on how to improve the program, something which is not always as easy in the OSS world, where there is no responsible developer.
In this way, one could say that OSS programs are created by programmers for programmers, since those who have the power to make a change are programmers, and non-programmers are left out.
Shareware, given the right developer, is developed as a dialogue between the user and the programmer.
SUCK BILL OR DIE.
YOUR LIFE AS YOU HAVE KNOWN IT IS OVER. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED.
– Re-Bootus of Borg
The best pieces of software I ever purchased were Shareware. On AmigaOS, that would have been MUI, Miami(Dx), GoldEd, and virtually everything from vapor.com. On Windows, that were UltraEdit and DirectoryOpus 6.
Generally, IMHO and in contrast to some of what was said here, shareware authors take more pride in their product than *either* a company or the “free software” movement. A company tends to simply ignore your requests and/or suggestions, and the “free software” community usually tells you to fix things yourself.
I had all the best experiences with bug reports and feature requests for the shareware I used.
As for crippleware, I have no problem with that. To the contrary, stuff like WinZip and TextPad show me that too many users don’t even *consider* registering otherwise.
MUI is a GUI “beautifier” as well as a GUI development toolkit. Not having MUI registered allows you to run the applications but doesn’t allow you to “beautify” (configure) the GUI.
Miami is a TCP/IP stack, and if unregistered hangs up after 30 minutes.
GoldEd ships a demo version that’s two years old or so, and simply doesn’t offer all the features of the registered, newer version.
UltraEdit does everything you could ask for, but has the “Save” disabled if unregistered.
All these are good enough to give it a good trial (better than any commercialware, at least), and decide for yourself if you want to pay for the uncrippled or not.
The one exception is DirectoryOpus 6. They give you 30 days free trial, and only *then* they start to nag you with requesters, but the software stays fully functional. I hope that GP Software still makes their profit, since nothing short of installing Linux gives you as much configurability on your Windows desktop. (Shameless plug here. 😉 )
that is your opinion. your entire argument was based on the thouight that he was talking about freeware when he was actualy talking abotu OSS.
so you might find OSS crappy, but that does not make Linus inconsistent logicly…only subjectivly.
umm….considering that Linux has gotten to where it is realy since 97 when KDE .1 came out, Id say tehy have come a long way.
look at Xandros or Lycoris (though Xandros is better by far IMHO)
it is all in the implimentation….the kernel kicks ass and KDE is pretty good and Ximian Gnome is very nice…what is slowly happening is that companies are begining to sponsor projects…and that way you get real work done and get the benifit of a transparent development modle. look at mozilla and all its children.
Neither Xandros nor Lycoris are to the best of my knowledge open-source packages. They’re commercial packages, albeit consisting mainly of OSS-developed software.
Besides, 1997 is six years ago. People have developed entire OSes in less time and with less manpower.
“That hardly qualifies as ‘crack-proof’. If you release a shareware version without all the code of the full version, then there’s really nothing to crack.”
I’m aware of that. But I think the point I was tryingto make was obvious. There’s nothing to crack so it eliminates the software crack, published reg code, etc issues.
“This approach has the same problem as copy-protected CDs – once one uncracked copy gets out ‘in the wild’, it can pretty much be distributed to everyone at that point – all it takes is one copy.”
Sure. But that’s just part of the game if you are a software developer and we have to deal with it. Commercial vendors have the same problem. Besides, I would say this is less of a problem than for commercial software since shareware usually isn’t as popular. In other words, it’s less likely that someone knows someone else who already has the registered software.
that is your opinion. your entire argument was based on the thouight that he was talking about freeware when he was actualy talking abotu OSS. so you might find OSS crappy, but that does not make Linus inconsistent logicly…only subjectivly.
Please don’t park my name in the subject header, read my argument more carefully, and consider your own opinion an opinion. Thankyou.
He’s saying the shareware model leads to crappy software because it’s closed and cheap. As covered by another contributor, what about the downside of a million unaccountable monkeys? No, you’re right. He isn’t being inconsistent. He’s being selective.
Don’t judge software by model. Judge by result.
One of the often overlooked parts of shareware is marketing the products you build.
I tried the shareware route 8 years ago, and writing the software is the easy part. Marketing your product takes a lot more work than coding it does.
If you are fortunate to create a high quality and successful product, you end up getting reamed by the warez people.
I have been tempted to try the shareware/demoware market again, but with products aimed at businesses and consultants instead of home users.
As a sales method shareware can work, but you have to make the unregistered version useful enough so that people use it and become reliant upon it, but crippled or nagging enough so that people have a reason to register it.
And the price has to be high enough to make a profit, but low enough that it’s not worth spending the time looking for a crack, which will probably not work with the next update.
For me personally cooledit 2000 hit that point in the balance, useful enough that I got used to using it, but a few features that becamse important during one contract that it was easily worth paying the registration for.
Lycoris and Xandros are Open source… you can sell Open source software, that does not make it any less than or any more than Open source software.
Great post, Brad!
This article is a waste bandwidth. The headline is misleading because the rest of the article is pure OSS propaganda.
That said, has anybody ever seen any facts about the economic model of shareware? Is it financially feasible to write shareware as a single developer?
I only ask because it seems to me that shareware apps outnumber ‘commercial’ apps 100:1 (just look at all the download sites).
Raf
P.S From my own experience, I have purchased a few Shareware apps before (UltraEdit, Axialis Icons etc) but all of them were in the range of $15 – $30.
“”I only ask because it seems to me that shareware apps outnumber ‘commercial’ apps 100:1 (just look at all the download sites).””
This is an excellent reason why it’s very difficult to get decent returns from shareware. There is a great deal of app duplication, especially at the low (Read poorly designed/implemented) end of the shareware market. Pushing through this static is probably not easy.
Now developers can mostly get away with this in the free(as in beer) OSS environment because they aren’t reliant on software revenues to put bread on the table (This doesn’t magically improve the quality of the code :>). They can afford to wait for the users to come to them. They don’t necessarily have to take the application to the users.
However in the shareware marketplace a fragmented userbase (Which the level of app duplication leads to) is very damaging indeed. Profitable shareware has to be of a high enough level to stand above the mediocre masses, either find a niche and fill it or compete with current apps if the target is in a wider category, reach a decent sized audience and create a fair sized userbase. Free OSS software has none of those concerns when it comes to developement survival, although they’re handy to bear in mind for other reasons.
There is no doubt that this is difficult to achieve, and once achieved it no longer makes much sense to continue with the shareware model if the application isn’t too specialised.
For a shareware success take a look at Kyodai Mahjongg. The developer has been working on this one game for many years now (I think it’s at version 18, the original was 16 bit). I don’t know how much money they actually make off it, but there are a few reasons it’s actually made it past the shareware birthing stage. The developer found a niche, and made it their own. They’ve produced a genuinely excellent quality product which wouldn’t look out of place shrink wrapped and on the shelves. They’ve developed and extended a wide (Albeit specialised) userbase that supports the developement of the app.
Basically if your app is of a high enough quality and fulfils all the needs of your targetted users it can succeed, whether it’s OSS, shareware or commercial. However the major stumbling block, no matter how good your app is, remains making those users aware of your app in the first place. Many excellent applications have died simply because more people used an inferior product and either didn’t know about the alternatives or didn’t think it was worthwhile switching to one of them.
Yes, I agree, but the question still remains how much money does a shareware developer/company make/could make?
I read this story once on some IRC news site (it was a parody ofcourse) that after 6 million downloads the registrations for mIRC reached double digits 🙂
Also, there was a story here or on slashdot a while back about a company developing a successful reg schema for one of their mac apps (Aurora or something like that) Does anybody have a link to that one?
Oh and as for breaking into a market: I have developed a small VB addin (like many others) that automates error handling in VB. Although it tragets a specialized market, I do get >500 downloads a month (it’s free though) 🙂 without any publicity other then the download sites.
“Oh and as for breaking into a market: I have developed a small VB addin (like many others) that automates error handling in VB. Although it tragets a specialized market, I do get >500 downloads a month (it’s free though) 🙂 without any publicity other then the download sites. ”
And that’s how you “hook” people into buying a product from you in the future.
“Hey, this guy wrote this great add-in for VB, and now he has a shareware app.” Chances are good that if they liked your add-in, they are more likely to buy you product.