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Shareware and Unix?
McDoobie asks: "Is there a market for low cost shareware in the Linux/BSD and Unix market in general? Would it be worthwhile to have a small home based business next to ones regular day job producing well made, but small, shareware for an environment that is dominated either by large corporations or Open Source developers? If so, what should a potential developer/publisher focus on to make their products/price range attractive to customers? What type of customers are most likely to look into such software? SOHO? Small Enterprise? Home users?
In a nutshell, where should one begin when investigating the potential of the Un*x (and perhaps Apple) environment for the small time developer who's interested in earning a few dollars on the side?"
Support may cease anytime, and continued development is uncertain. With Free Software you can pay someone to fix problems when the original developer is gone. With shareware, you are screwed.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
a kind of 'service' company, instead ?
As pointed out, shareware on a free os doesn't sound that great. On the other hand, wouldn't people be ready to pay a small fee for having their database / browser / random application correctly installed & configured ?
Using SSH/Telnet, you can easily hop over that person's box, and do stuff directly. Of course that requires some trust between you & the user, since you'd prolly be able to trash the whole system ^_^
Another suggestion which comes to mind: develop software on-demand, and release the source as Open Source. Like, someone says 'ok, i need a small app that does this thingy, can't find it. i pay you some price, you make it, and release sources under an Open Source license.'
This has the advantage to ensure you do software which'll actually be used (even if by only one user !), and people will less likely be afraid of the 'company goes boum, source lost, money lost' scenario, since sources will be available...
Just me 2 cents of euro...
Tsuyoikoto ha taisetsu da ne, dakedo namida mo hitsuyousa (Strength is an important thing, but tears too are necessary)
The intention is honorable, but the wording could be clearer. For instance, who decides whether the company is committed enough? Or whether it's meeting demand? When it's insupported? Who deems it ``abandonware''?
Personally, I think much could be gained by using concrete and verifiable criteria, such as "at least a major/minor/mainenance release in a twelve month period" or "the company's website being unavailable for a period of 30 consecutive days".
Just be careful, because weaseling out of such an agreement will not be quite as easy as it would be with a more abstract one.
Pathman, Free (as in GPL) 3D Pac Man
I know there used to be a common shareware X image viewer (common, as in installed by Red Hat 4), which was distributed as source code.
The problem is, people don't like paying for things, especially if they can get something for free. And this is especially free on slashdot, where people claim to want "free as in speech" but take "free as in gnutella". Everytime music swapping/file sharing is mentioned on slashdot, most people justify under various excuses (RIAA sucks! The artist only gets $0.50 per CD anyhow, so it's ok! My CD collection was stolen! Information wants to be free!). And not registering for shareware doesn't require any effort!
Shareware needs a large user base to overcome the freeloaders, something linux doesn't have (The macintosh user base may or may not be smaller, but they have an entirely different, no FREE, culture).
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
I think that it will be hard to do. The free-Unix crowd is used to having their cake for free and even if you came up with something unique, some developer would probably create a free clone of it.
Since you mentioned MacOS X, I would suggest developing for them as your primary audience. Offer a version for Unixes as well, provided you can do so without killing yourself, as paying users on those platforms will probably be few.
I know there used to be a common shareware X image viewer (common, as in installed by Red Hat 4), which was distributed as source code.
That would be xv. Slackware distributed it until at least version 7, and maybe they still do.
I've yet to meet anyone who's registered it, though...
Everybody wants everything for free.
Actually, every teenager wants everything for free.
I've been using and developing Linux for a long time now, right from the start.
It's a good OS, I love it, and given the right massaging is even good for Granny.
But the BASTARDS who demand that everything must be free or it's crap really piss me off.
I'm the guy who openly and freely donates money to any good software I use that accepts donations. Last year I must of spent something like $3000 on "Free" solutions, and would of gladly paid more.
Why? Because I'm sick of this whole "it must be free" mentality. So much shit won't EVER get ported or developed for Linux in a serious manner because the mentality of the under 20 crowd, the cheap broke as fuck crowd, that demands it all be free.
Im no old man either, I'm 26. But of all the Linux "it all must free" Zealots I talk to, they are almost all under 20.
They don't seem to understand why people won't give everything away for free. They don't have to pay any bills living in their mommie's basement begging her for cash.
Unfortunately, in the real world, it doesnt work out that way.
I WILL, AND DO, PAY FOR ANY SOFTWARE I FEEL IS HIGH QUALITY. AND I WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO
Sincerely,
Anonymous
Head Developer, [CENSORED] Distro.
Since the vast majority Linux development tools are Free and installed by default by many distributions, there's less justification for someone to hack out a craptapular trivial app, closed source, and charge money for it. Most shareware apps are not advanced enough to compete with open source equivalents. If the shareware app is a simple accomplishment, which many are, someone will eventually scratch an itch, make an open source work-alike, and ever-after that open source app will gain the benefit of a wider pool of developers.
It would make more sense for someone seeking light income to either create a closed source app that is truly above-and-beyond anything currently open source, or to make their app open source and charge money for it under an honor/donation system, or for support, or for automatic updates, or in exchange for additional customization/integration work, or one of the other various schemes others have come up with.
It's the example MS and other closed-source OS vendors set with the exclusive and expensive licensing of developer tools and developer documentation, that encourages closed-source shareware. Thankfully, Linux is not hampered by these barriers to development.
As it was said many times before me, it is near impossible to make money selling software on linux or bsd systems to people who expect to get it for free, and with the source. However, an effective money-making strategy within the open-source world is making an entrance.
Not everyone that uses open-source OS's is computer-savvy. They might have an idea of what they are doing but still need help a lot of the time, or they may be in a mission-critical possition where they do not have the time to spend asking questions and waiting for potentially unrelated or unhelpful answers on newsgroups or forums. These are the points that you want to capitalize on.
Take MySQL for example. The software is very good and very much free. But with all that work put in, where does it pay off? By selling support to corporate users, or customers in need of expert help from the core developers themselves. Packages start at the bottom with an inexpensive installation help package, all the way up to a package with a hefty price tag that will give the buyer unlimited email dialogue with the team, give the team login access to your server to help with administration, and 24/7 telephone support.
However, most start-ups do not have the resources that have accumulated over time for the MySQL team. The other option, also done by MySQL, is alternate licensing. That is, selling your software under a different, non-free license for a price. For MySQL, buyers of the alternate license can include the database's libraries royalty-free, and not have to worry about their application being inherently GPL-compatible.
Using the Windows idea of shareware, where authors slap a $10 registration on even the most useless software, will be shot down by the open-source community since users simply will not pay for software outside of something worth the money, such as OSS (Open Sound System). Selling product support and alternate licenses have had success by many different companies, and if done right it can be successful for you.