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More On Policing Shareware

Posted by timothy on from the right-to-be-annoying dept.

RHW22 writes "Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro looks at shareware, focusing on the question of whether or not this industry can survive if people never actually cough up $$ for the product. He mentions Ambrosia Software, 'a developer of Macintosh games and utilities in Rochester, N.Y., could stop guessing after it revised its payment system last year. The new system aims to stop people from using pirated registration codes in two ways.' Read his column here." We mentioned this several weeks ago, with a link to Ambrosia's description of their system and what led to its adoption.

3 of 479 comments (clear)

  1. So shareware authors are all gullible? by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 2, Funny

    maybe they shouldn't be so GULLIBLE to expect that someone would want to fork over money for something if they dont have to. if a business model relies on honesty, it's not gonna work in the year 2002.

    Show me (and the authors) a distribution model that gets as much potential exposure with next to no marketing spend and perhaps I'll consider your argument.

    Relying on the honesty of others might not be as profitable in 2002 as it was in 1952 but to say that it can't work at all is foolish. Ever heard of WinZip?

    --

    "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
  2. Re:Then you never really own the software! by glwtta · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm really glad my Linux machine is totally free and if Microsoft, or Ambrosia goes out of business it will still keep working.

    Isn't it the other way around? If your Linux machine keeps working then MS will go out of business?

    :) (oh, all you MS-bashing bashers - try not to take this too seriously?)

    yeah, yeah - off-topic. I've learned my lesson and will never stray from the righteous path of the all important "topic" ever again. After this one.

    --
    sic transit gloria mundi
  3. Captain Hector by Y-Crate · · Score: 3, Funny

    In case you are wondering who the often-referenced Captain Hector is, he is a character that would appear in Escape Velocity: Overrride.

    You would be cruising along the galaxy when a ship buzzed by and a Captain Hector would send you a message reminding you to register if you liked the game.

    If you waited too long to register, or just never bothered, Captain Hector wouldn't just buzz by anymore. He would stop, and train his guns on you and blast away at your ship.

    He proved to be quite effective, to say the least.