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More On Policing Shareware
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.
"First, after a user buys a program, Ambrosia e-mails him or her a personalized registration code stamped with the date of purchase. Entering this code into the program activates it and ends any trial-period limits -- but the software won't accept a code older than 30 days. (Once the code checks out, Ambrosia programmer Matt Slot said, the program won't run any further tests.)"
Looks great until someone writes a keygen. If it doesen't auth with their server how secure is it?
Looks like more fluff to me.
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You want to make money on shareware? Charge less. Make it very convenient to pay. And don't annoy the end user.
Headlight Software has made lots of money from Getright registrations, despite some people having pirated it. I've registered it myself. (I think it was $20, not $25, when I did, though.)
If a software company wants too much money for a piece of shareware, users will get a patch or key generator rather than pay. If the software nags the hell out of the user when he installs it, he'll get mad. I know I do.
When I purchase software, I own the product. The problem with expiring registration codes is that you only own the software as long as the company is in business.
What happens when Ambrosia goes out of business and the software code expires? Your product that you PAID FOR stops working.
Can you imagine the impact of GM going out of business and then finding your car doesn't start the next morning? You paid for that car, and you expect it to function correctly for the expected life of that car.
Expiring codes, WPA, and all the other software piracy/protection schemes out there remove control of the software from the end user and shift it to the software vendor. It is only a small step to software as a subscription service after that.
I'm really glad my Linux machine is totally free and if Microsoft, or Ambrosia goes out of business it will still keep working.
-ted
The way I see it, shareware authors shouldn't expect to turn a profit. They should just see being profitable as a nice perk.
Why shouldn't shareware authors expect to make a profit? Because you say so?
Shareware is a distribution model - you like it so you register it, recommend it to your friends, etc - nothing more, nothing less.
Too many people equate shareware with free, and those that resort to password cracks are the worst kind as they can't even use the "I just wanted to see if it was what I wanted" defence.
Sure, most people will take advantage of the situation and never register software that they decide to use beyond the trial period, but some people are more honest and will happily pony up $20 for a package that does the job they want done.
But saying that the authors, the people who invested their time and effort into code that other people benefit from, shouldn't expect to see a return on their work is downright unbelievable.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
I find it disturbing that so many people continually show such complete ignorance of the history of this industry.
Shareware is fully-functional software for which you are *encouraged* to pay the developer (if you find it useful). You are also encouraged to share it with your friends, hence the name shareware. It is not time limited. It is not missing any functionality necessary for normal operation. It may have annoying messages nagging you to please pay, but if it is hampered in any way in which you must pay to get the fully-functional version, it is a commercial demo.
It's offensive that so many people these days seem to be freeloading off the good will and generosity of the shareware community in order to sell their commercial products!
Actually, I'll just quote Linus: " 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. "
Perhaps I've been spoiled by Linux, but I'm getting into Mac OS X now, and there are tons of little apps that on Linux would be free, but some chump wants $9 for on OS X. Yeah, part of it is me being cheap, but I keep going back to Linus's quote and end up not buying it.
"Shareware + source" might be interesting, even with a non-RMS-compliant license, but I haven't seen it. (And of course, I'd prefer full GPL if possible.)
What's really needed are more people learning how to port some of the freeware utilities from Linux and other *nixes over to OSX binaries, using Cocoa. I sure as hell can't do these things, but there're a ton of other developers out there that can.
Mostly what needs to be ported, IMHO, are small things. Network and system monitoring tools that can go in the dock, or other little things like that. Sure, the big stuff would be nice too, but I'm certain there are a ton of little apps that might even only take a few days to port for someone who can get used to Cocoa.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
If a developer spends 1200 hours of her life making a game, is it your right to disregard her terms?
The DEVELOPER is the OWNER of her own product. She does indeed have exclusive rights to her own creation; if she kept the only copy of the software encrypted on a CD and locked in a filing cabinet, you have absolutely no right to tell her that she must give it to you. If she gives it to you on the condition that you don't give it to anybody else, you have absolutely no right to give it to other people. She can choose to develop and distribute it however she sees fit, and she gets FINAL SAY in this matter. It doesn't matter if you don't want to cough up ten dollars; it doesn't matter if she wants to set up a registration scheme that forces you to call a 900 number every time you want to use the program. The terms are completely up to the DEVELOPER, not the consumer.
If you don't like the terms a developer has set forth, then don't use that developer's product. It's that simple. Cracking a developer's product for the express purpose of using it on your own terms is incredibly disrespectful to the developer. She worked hard to produce that software, she deserves respect, and she has the right to set out her own terms. You the end user, on the other hand, did exactly jack shit to create said software. Where do you get off telling us that it's morally okay to tell the developer to go piss up a rope?
If you disagree with a developer's terms, them do not use the software. Period.
Software development takes time. Software development takes energy. Software development takes thought. Software development is always, at some point, a royal pain in the ass. Software development is a labor of love. That you have the gall to even suggest that the end-user has the right to dictate their own terms to the developer tells me that you have never, ever developed software of any real magnitude.
There are precious few ways to keep people from pirating software, but damned if I'm going to let you claim that it's the right thing to do.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Alright, as a math major and a former warez monkey, ill bite. We know the public key. I'm assuming the program itself is the holder of the public key. Assuming you couldn't just pull the program itself apart to grab the private key, which is pretty unrealistic assumption imho, but alright... it would boil down to, worst case, factoring n. Which isn't trivial, but the important thing here is that it's constant. One person needs to do it on one machine. Once. Then, you make a wonderful keygen, and it's all over.
It's a bit disturbing just how insecure most programs are. Sorry to be the one to tell you...
Many people have issues running executables from sources as trustworthy as warez sites
jeeesus, you know this is grasping at straws. Try to tell me that your average amatuer punter who seeks out cracks on http sites in the first place will balk at running something from a website.
"But in the shareware industry, which can't function without Internet distribution, this freedom of theft can be much worse."
Hmm... Sharware worked fine on BBS's and through mail order in the late 80's and early 90's. In fact, at least 75% of the software my family used when we started in the computer world was mail order shareware through regular old snail mail. WE didn't even have a modem until we had the PC for about 3 and a half years.
In fact, it was truly shareware... These days, whats called shareware is little more than functional demos. If it dies after a period of time, lacks critical abilities, etc... it isn't shareware.
Shareware registration normally wasn't required to use the program. REgistration generally got you nice things like automatically mailed upgrades, clip art collections(in the case of programs that used such things) printed manuals, document templates, level editors, stuff like that... Cool stuff that made the program more useful, but the program still did all that it was advertised to do even without registration.
These days, it may do all its advertised to do... For 30 days.
In my opinion, the biggest problem facing the open source movement is that someone has to figure out how, in a world where people are unwilling to pay for a good product, we're going to feed our families.
It's quite easy actually.
As the industy has faild utterly to convince people that ones and zeroes could possibly be worth money, stop selling said ones and zeroez. Sell the time for aranging them instead.
When I download and install KDE I'm also becomming a member of the KDE user community. The user community depends on KDE developers to deliver a usable product. The same community should pay those devolpers, as in hire programmers.
So when I becom a member I pay a members fee that goes to the KDE developers. That fee gives me quality code, frequent updates and bug fixes and community support when I have problems.
KDE might be a bad example, but you get my drift. The ones and zeroes are worth squat without the developers and community.
All programmers, stop selling your code, sell your time.
-
Probably the last thing a shareware developer wants is a really decent piece of software he's written selling wildy for $5 a copy. At only $5 a copy, if you had 60 new registrants a week, after a year you'd have 3000 users to support while only making a McDonalds salary. (Factor in the cost of the PC and IDE you used to write the software and it's less). One thing about warezed copies is, you dont have to support them. I personally would rather have 500 users paying $30 each. Honest users that rely on my software and need tech support, and realize $30 or $5 doesnt really matter because they "use" my software theyll pay either, than having thousands of people emailing me ignorant questions and requests and complaints when they paid less than burger and fries for my months of coding work. Something to think about anyway.
I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
I can definately understand that people get a very strange idea of the Shareware market. Originally, Shareware was fully functional and often complex software packages that the author asked $10 or so for. Today it's often nagware or crippleware (i.e. not at all fully functional software), and the price is often set way to high.
Of course people get the idea that Shareware is (somewhat exaggerated) "expensive crap".
I think that if the Shareware market cleaned itself up, by making sure that crap software, or very simple software, is released as PD (or Open Source) as it "should", and also making sure that the prices asked are, in fact, cheap, things could be very different.
I personally am glad to pay $10 for a better datebook for my Palm, but I won't pay $15 for a program that edits one entry in the Windows registry. And the very fact that so many people release shareware waaay to expensively puts me off the entire market.
Solution. .
Shareware authors should accept travellers cheques - in any currency - and be ambigious - 10 dollars, or 10 dollars in your local currency. Travellers cheques OK
Rock up to American Exprees, buy some 10 buck cheques, countersign and post.
Receipitant jush rocks into amex, and deposits into his/her account (less questions that way).
Amex leaves the banks for dead. Cheaper sending TT's.
Actually, Ambrosia themselves admit they have a flawed design. They admit they have inconvenienced paying customers. The fact that I should ever have to interact with them after the initial purchase of their product, just to use the product is absurd. Their prices for their products are more than reasonable (except SnapzPro X, I can create an AppleScript that does everything it does with only a default install of Mac OS X), but if any time I go to run an application, and it won't run because of something the author has programmed, that sounds like a bug.
The story on their website is fascinating in terms of a study of human nature, but they have twisted the reality that they tried to base a business around their hobby (which is exactly what they said), then throw in the "baby factor" (which sounds suspiciously like stories you hear from welfare queens: "I need money for my baby I made without thinking about the fact I had to have money to support it.").
Their editorial would have been more effective if they had left out all of the starving artist ridiculousness, it only sells their talent short. I wish more shareware authors would just say, "I am a talented programmer that makes worthwhile applications, and I made them with the intent of being paid for it. Stop ripping me off." Instead you always hear, "You should pay me for my program so I can eat and put diapers on my baby."
The truth of it is that shareware is a sketchy business model, and if you're going into it without realising that, you're going to get burned. I also don't see any difference between these new shareware registration schemes and Windows XP's Activation.
Sorry if I sound like I'm downing shareware, I'm just downing shareware authors attitudes. It's just in my mind Shareware = Application one or a couple talented programmers have worked on, Open/Free (as in speech) = Application tens to hundreds of talented programmers have worked on, and you don't hear OpenSource or collaborative programmers spouting the "will program for food" mantra.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.