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The Real Story of Audion

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the something-to-read dept.

mijkal writes "Panic's Audion music software has been retired and made freely available. The developer has a nice write up on his experiences with Audion in relation to early-MP3 days, failed AOL deals, and the could-have-been iTunes app. It's an inspiring read on the history of a shareware developer and his adventures thus far."

45 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Shareware? by mfh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's an inspiring read on the history of a shareware developer and his adventures thus far.

    Shareware developer? I know what a Spyware developer is, and I know of open source and closed source; but is there really such a thing as a shareware developer anymore? There's adware, begware and nagware (hardly any freeware left, but there is some)... but this shareware is not computing. I can't think of one product that is truly shareware; "A shareware program is accompanied by a request for payment, and often payment is required per the terms of the license past a set period of time (although some consider this requirement to cause the software to be not shareware but a demo)."

    Well I guess Audion is going the way of actual freeware. Nice!

    --
    The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
    1. Re:Shareware? by diamondsw · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Welcome to the Mac side of things. We still have a *very* active and vibrant shareware community over here, and a lot of freeware (much of that thanks to GUI wrappers on th UNIX underbelly). I have at least a couple dozen shareware/freeware titles that I couldn't live without.

      Additionally, since the shareware/freeware developers know they have to stand out, you get a lot of examples of outstanding interface design (and you also get a flood of RealBASIC crap as well ;).

      --
      I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
    2. Re:Shareware? by OverlordQ · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So . . how do you differentiate between begware and shareware then?

      --
      Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
    3. Re:Shareware? by DLWormwood · · Score: 5, Informative
      I know what a Spyware developer is, and I know of open source and closed source; but is there really such a thing as a shareware developer anymore?

      Your confusion is understandable; in the Windows/x86 world, shareware truly is dead. But the distribution format continues to exist (though barely) in the Mac market. Besides, Panic, there's Ambrosia Software, Freeverse, Littlewing, Spiderweb and others.

      Mac users, partly due to reduced malware exposure and partly due to cultural conviction, tend to be more appreciative of shareware developers, and as such are more likely to download strange unknown software and pay their fees. I used to have a link to a developer's anecdote where he got about 3% or so pay-in from Mac downloads, but only got much less than 1% when he ported his product to Windows. The result is that Mac shareware tends to get more income than on Windows, despite (or because of?) the low market share of the platform.

      That said, even the old shareware houses are starting to migrate to brick-and-mortar. Freeverse sells some of their games in Apple Stores, and even Ambrosia has made CD pressings of Escape Velocity: Nova (as well as a board game!). It's a shame, shareware was as close as the "little person" could get to a true free market of software sales, sacrificed during the current war between Corporate software and Open Source.

      --
      Those who complain about affect & effect on /. should be disemvoweled
    4. Re:Shareware? by mmkkbb · · Score: 2, Informative

      Winzip would be in the nagware category.

      --
      -mkb
    5. Re:Shareware? by shlong · · Score: 3, Insightful

      One thing that is being overlooked here in the Windows vs. Mac shareware observation is that it's no longer possible to get a decent Windows development environment at a decent price. There are free or low-cost tools out there, but none have the bredth and depth to allow you to develop a decent app or game. It's not like 10 years ago when you could pick up a $99 copy of Turbo C++ and write a decent win31 program from it. So shareware is dead there because hobbiests can't justify the price tag for Visual Studio. Mac, on the other hand, has a decent environment with decent tools for doing Cocoa apps, and it's all free with the OS. Same goes for things like PalmOS. The tools are priced right to allow access to the hobbiest. That's what keeps shareware alive.

      --
      Cat, the other, tastier white meat.
    6. Re:Shareware? by Speed+Racer · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's not like 10 years ago when you could pick up a $99 copy of Turbo C++ and write a decent win31 program from it.

      It's funny you should bring up Turbo C++ since Borland still has inexpensive development tools that are perfect for a shareware developer. Delphi 7 Personal is under $100 and is very capable for Win32 GUI development. If C++ is more to your liking, you can pick up C++ Builder 6 Personal for around $65.

      --
      Free Mac Mini. Yes, I'm
    7. Re:Shareware? by mmkkbb · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not quite. In my mind, the difference between nagware and shareware is simple. Nagware produces a dialog box or something similar that whines at you until you register. Often, you must wait 60 seconds before you are able to dismiss this dialog box.

      Examples of nagware:
      -DialogView, an extension for Mac OS Classic that made your standard Open/Save dialogs look nicer, would bother you upon startup until registration
      -In Escape Velocity, Hector the Parrot orbits the outskirts of planetary systems and whines until you register. In some versions, he attacks your ship.
      -WinZip makes you click "I Agree" every time you use it!
      -GraphicConverter has logarithmic scale that relates the time you must wait for it to start up and the number of days you have gone without registration.

      Examples of shareware:
      -Senseless Violence I, a Frogger clone with babies instead of frogs, did not present a single in-game annoyance or ad. You only had a reminder to register in a readme file.
      -Zipple; another Mac OS Classic add-on that could animate your Apple, Help, and Application menus; no registration necessary. The author sent you a bunch more Zipples.

      --
      -mkb
    8. Re:Shareware? by I_Love_My_Mac · · Score: 3, Informative
      And what's wrong with REALbasic? Any development app is going to allow a developer to create poor code, and lord knows, as a developer, I've had my share of bugs in my applications but just because RB allows a user to produce code quicker, easier (and yes, more sloppily) doesn't necessarily mean that it always creates poor code.

      Look at the top business apps on Apple.com's own download sections...
      Task Time 3.0
      Redlien Account Executive
      Studiometery

      These are just the ones off the top of my head... and btw, if you haven't crashed Adobe Photoshop, inDesign, Apple Mail, and other "Professionally" created applications (you know, made in those real dev environments) then you're just not using your Mac enough! Bugs happen.. it just so happens that RB allows more people to get in the game.

    9. Re:Shareware? by scribblej · · Score: 2, Informative

      I don't know where you're coming from.

      There are many free "development environments" for windows.

      My favorite is MinGW with MSYS. If you need an IDE, you can use something like bloodshed's Dev-C++, which is a bit buggy, but completely useable. I don't use the IDE, I prefer using a text editor... I guess I'm old, slow, and tired.

      Or, if you don't like that, you can get Microsoft's compiler and SDK's for free from MSDN. Again, you'll be doing without an IDE, or suing a third-party one.

      Or, if you don't like Microsoft, Intel's C/C++ compiler is also free, or so I've been told. I only use gcc and it's ports so I couldn't say from direct experience.

      Now, there are three FREE possibilities for game development on Windows. I bet other people can list more. Where is this high cost of entry that you refer to?

    10. Re:Shareware? by AstroDrabb · · Score: 2, Informative

      For Firefox there is a great plugin called Spellbound. You just right click in a textarea or input box and select "Check Spelling". There is also a plugin for IE called IESpell which works well for those who still use IE for some reason.

      --
      If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
      it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
  2. Sonique by inKubus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Speaking of old MP3 stuff, there was once Sonique but it went by the wayside after it was bought by lycos and the original creative team was disbanded.

    Sometimes it's better for everyone if some big corporation doesn't buy an application because then the developers and creative people stay together simply for the love of the project and breakthrus can be made rather than pandering to profit margins......

    --
    Cool! Amazing Toys.
    1. Re:Sonique by superpulpsicle · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There is nothing in the entire corporate universe more important than management folks getting richer.

      Your creativity, your breakthrus, your love of projects, your family, your rights... are all secondary.

    2. Re:Sonique by petsounds · · Score: 2

      In terms of features, interface and customability, I still think Sonique holds the top position. Their decoder is not up to par anymore, but it still sounds better than Winamp (which is dead now too). It's a shame that Lycos let Sonique languish and then die..Sonique 2.0 was very promising. It's funny how the Mac used to have almost no mp3 players and Windows had great ones, and now the reverse is true (though I'm still not totally enchanted with iTunes).

      But do people even use software mp3 players anymore, or is it all iPods and media centers like XBMC now?

    3. Re:Sonique by ProtoCat · · Score: 2, Informative

      The only reason why Sonique's decoder sounds 'better' is because they're breaking spec and likely doing filtering behind the user's back. I'm not so sure if the 1.9x series of Sonique players before their eventual failure to realize 2.0 were any different, but I doubt it.

      As it says in the article linked above, they weren't do anything they shouldn't in regards to filtering. All things being equal, everyone's MP3 decoder following proper specs, should sound exactly the same -- the way it should be. It's not the decoder's job to filter anything, that's the job of an actual DSP chain you can tweak how you wish.

      So the next time someone is making claims about a decoder sounding 'better', provided that they're both using the same output at the same volume levels... One can realize that this is either placebo or there's something going on where nothing should be. Best way to resolve this, is to use whatever available wav logging options to capture samples from each of the disputed players and then ABX them.

    4. Re:Sonique by PMuse · · Score: 2, Funny

      There is nothing in the entire corporate universe more important than management folks getting richer. Your creativity, your breakthrus, your love of projects, your family, your rights... are all secondary.

      Second place? My, my. Aren't we full of heedless optimism today?

      --
      "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
  3. Never liked Audion by Pope · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Much preferred SoundJam, mainly from an interface point of view, but also because Panic's apps aren't the most stable things in the world. It (SoundJam) still does things that I much prefer to iTunes, mainly no song database and having Finder-labeled files showing up in their proper colours in the playlist. Very useful for quickly finding all the bad files I label Brown. :)

    --
    It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
    1. Re:Never liked Audion by NardofDoom · · Score: 2, Informative
      Huh? Transmit is wicked stable. I left it going for a few days when I lost my broadband and had to download a Linux iso.

      Maybe you're talking about using it in OS 9, but *nothing* was really stable on that system.

      --
      You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
    2. Re:Never liked Audion by AmiNTT · · Score: 2
      I would agree that Transmit is stable as hell. I've *nerver* had any problems with it. Now admittedly, I have only been using Transmit (registered, of course) and the Mac in general since January. Support has been excellent.

      If you want buggy software, look at photoshop elements. It blows up on a regular basis. Not much to encourage me to upgrade to CS, that is for certain.

      Back to the point - Panic has been excellent in providing software and support for the Mac.

      And of course, I'm eager to have enough money to replace the last PC in the house with another mac.

  4. Good business practice. by rice_burners_suck · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's nice that this program is being made available, rather than becoming a footnote, lost forever, in the software history books. Kudos to the programmer for being considerate of his users.

    1. Re:Good business practice. by nine-times · · Score: 2, Interesting
      agreed. Panic is a pretty good company. My *personal* preference is, if you are quitting development on a piece of software, and have no plans of going back to it, that companies would GPL is. I mean, that's just my wish, and I'm sure many here would agree.

      However, it's their software, and I do think it's very considerate, and even generous, to go ahead and make it freeware. By doing this, Panic hasn't really lost anything, if they were going to quit selling it anyway, but it builds good will.

    2. Re:Good business practice. by plj · · Score: 3, Informative

      My *personal* preference is, if you are quitting development on a piece of software, and have no plans of going back to it, that companies would GPL is.

      Umm, I think the Panic guys would have a rather hard time in doing that for Audion, as the thingy has a built-in Fraunhofer-licensed MP3 encoder...

      --
      “Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
  5. Breath of fresh air by dshaw858 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This is kind of a breath of fresh air for me. I hardly ever read accounts of Apple developers. There are infinite stories of Linux and Windows developers, but finally having the experiences of an Apple coder published is pretty cool.

    - dshaw

    1. Re:Breath of fresh air by NardofDoom · · Score: 5, Informative
      I was fortunate enough to have two job interviews with the makers of Reunion.

      It's a tiny operation, comprising four people. They were extremely dedicated to doing one thing and doing it well, and to the Macintosh platform. It made me proud to be a Mac user, since I was in such good company.

      Then I read slashdot.

      --
      You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
  6. and its free now! by i_c_andrade · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.panic.com/audion/download.html
    "Audion has been retired. It is now free of charge, but is no longer being actively developed, and is provided as-is without support. We hope you continue to enjoy Audion!"
    http://www.panic.com/audion/buy.html For OSX and 8.6(+)

  7. Alvin? ALVIN?!?!? by ps_inkling · · Score: 5, Funny
    Among the intrigue of negotiations with AOL and Apple, and feature-itis competition with SoundJam, is a link to what Alvin and the Chipmunks sound like at normal speed. Very amusing.

    A solid tale of adventure, including the Reality Distortion Field.

  8. Re:Inspiring? by guet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well,

    he's managed to avoid working in a soul-sucking job for a large corporation, where his creativity would dry up and his voice go unheeeded. He's managed to keep his sense of humour through it all (those barbed comments from Steve have to hurt), and he is actually more aware than ever that he's better off going his own way and creating the stuff *he* wants to make. I'd say it was inspiring in that he's happy, doing what he wants to do, and can make money doing it. Software companies always copy each other, that's the way it works, and I'm glad they do or we'd be stuck with a choice between several apps with orthogonal features none of which did everything we want.

    Actually the comment from Steve about iPhoto made me laugh as it's really one of Apple's worst products and could easily be bested, even after a couple of revisions. Someone could do worse than come up with a better alternative and sell it as shareware; I'm sure a lot of people who take photos as a hobby wouldn't mind a decent app to organise their images.

    One where you could edit comments for more than one image at once for example, or add custom tags to images, or which has flexible HTML export. Perhaps one where the internal file system wasn't so byzantine that once the files are in there your best bet for getting them out is to drag and drop to the desktop. One which had a decent search facility. I could go on, I'm thinking of something like iView, but with basic functionality free (to compete with iphoto) and then a few extras for registering.

  9. Re:obligatory offtopic logo comment by Feneric · · Score: 3, Informative

    Just checking "whois" records (and not doing a real search) it looks like Panic.com is a few years older than Vignette.com.

  10. Re:Inspiring? by SlamMan · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you'd read it, you'd see nowhere in there do they think they got fucked over by different companies. Apple bought their main competitor after Panic was already had a deal in progress with AOL, and then released what they see as a different (and in some ways superior) program. Apple even tried to hire them on.

    Not a "fucked over" situation.

    --
    Mod point free since 2001
  11. And the moral of the story is... by javaxman · · Score: 3, Insightful
    When Apple ( or any large potential customer ) wants to set up a meeting with you, meet with them! Find out what they're interested in! Don't cancel the meeting because your potential partners are too busy ( i.e. too busy for you ). Don't go hangliding/sailing/hiking. Don't think opportunity knocks all the time. Don't be too busy; find room in your schedule and get to work! MEET with your potential clients/partners/meal ticket!!

    Freaking pathetic. These guys passed up an opportunity to become iTunes, and why?? Because they thought AOL was going to solve all of their problems, because they couldn't hold a frickin' meeting without them?!? I know it's easy to spot in retrospect, but that's so pathetic, it should have been easy to spot at the time... I mean, you're an Apple developer and Apple wants to meet with you, so you... don't??!? What would Apple have had to do to buy these guys big frickin' houses?!?

    Tell you what - if you're a small software developer being contacted by Apple, hire me as your managerial consultant. I'll make sure you meet with them, at the very least!!

    1. Re:And the moral of the story is... by DLWormwood · · Score: 2, Interesting
      These guys passed up an opportunity to become iTunes, and why?? Because they thought AOL was going to solve all of their problems, because they couldn't hold a frickin' meeting without them?!?

      IANAL, and I don't have the details, but Panic might have opened themselves to legal exposure if they tried to negotiate with Apple without AOL being present. AOL would have treated such a meeting as "going behind their back" and even if they didn't sue over some technicality, their representatives in the industry could have started spreading stories about Panic developers being untrustworthy to deal with.

      Yes, it's stupid. I've been the recieving end of this in college, when my chapter of ACM was forced to sign a letter of apology to a couple of reps from Author Anderson since we didn't keep them informed constantly about a presentation we invited them to. Some IT people are so full of themselves and can get away with it...

      --
      Those who complain about affect & effect on /. should be disemvoweled
  12. Referral to Slashdot by GregAllen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The funniest thing is the referral to the /. announcement of the iPod.

    With my 20/20 hindsight glasses, the comments are hysterical.

    CmdrTaco editorialized "Lame." Many vehemently predicted a miserable failure: "I don't see many sales in the future of iPod."

    At the time, I thought "Really cool, but really expensive." Who could have known it would be so popular! :)

    --
    Please help find my missing daughter: FindSabrina.org
  13. Doesn't quite add up by wombatmobile · · Score: 4, Funny

    I don't quite get the sine qua non of the story, although its a nice story and I'd like to.

    Let's see... They're so enamoured of Jobs that they have "brain expolosions" in his presence.

    They love making their software.

    Jobs courts them.

    They pass.

    They stop making the software.

    Now they're happy ever after without Steve and without making the software??

    When Frank did it his way he got to keep the money and the software.

    Oh and there were women.

    Still, it's nice to read a story from happy people.

  14. Skins and Alpha Channeling? by hellfire · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Okay, I'm not a huge MP3 hoarder, and never was, but I never really got into MP3s ever because all the audio programs seemed "too cool." It was cool to make an audio player that supported visual features? Why? Back in the days before napster:

    Me: Hey, are there any programs that can play these MP3s?

    MP3 guru: Are there? d00d! Look at these MP3 players!! This one has awesome support for skins and its skins are cross compatible! Look at all the choices you have to make your MP3 player look cool!

    Me: ummmm yea but is it easy to use and will it play my Mp3s?

    MP3 guru: and this one supports alpha channeling so it's like L337 n' stuff!

    Me: Hello? How does making the player transparent make it work better. Does this audio program even have audio features? And what is L337? Some kind of code to unlock the program?
    ----

    Basically I never got why back in the day so much time was spent on how the player looked vs. how the player worked. Even these days, there are visual features of iTunes (such as that weird psychedelic screensaver thingie that changes shapes while different music is playing) which I just don't get why anyone wants them. I just want to listen to music and I want my software to make sense!

    It seemed like MP3 players were designed by the niche and for the niche, until MP3s were no longer a niche.

    --

    "All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"

    1. Re:Skins and Alpha Channeling? by DaveJay · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Arguably the best MP3 player (not organizer) ever created was SoundPlay for BeOS. For the basic task of playing one or more MP3s, either cross-faded or back-to-back (or simultaneously) it was virtually unmatched in smoothness and ease-of-use -- the interface was typical BeOS, bland but instantly intuitive. Of course, it owed a lot of that to BeOS's underlying media handling.

      There's still (I think) a system out there using SoundPlay and an organizational system using the filesystem itself for the database, called TuneTracker...designed for automation of radio stations, but makes a killer MP3 organization/playback rig.

      One small note about SoundPlay: there is a slider that allows to you alter the speed of playback infinitely (well, as much as you can in the digital realm, anyway) in real-time, with instantaneous response...and if you slide the bar far enough, it starts playing BACKWARDS at variable speeds, too.

      Boy, I miss that program. Now I have to reinstall BeOS on an old box. ;)

  15. Mac audio players by sdkaneda · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm about 2 months in on owning my first Mac (thrilled by it, thanks) but the one thing I couldn't help notice is the absolute dearth of good mp3/audio players on OS X. iTunes is grating on my nerves! Can anyone recommend an audio/mp3/media player (pref. one that takes advantage of Cocoa) that's a little more poweruser friendly?

    --
    #roses { color: #ff0000; } #violets { color: #0000ff; }
    1. Re:Mac audio players by Thu25245 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Without any idea of what you consider "poweruser friendly," I'd have to suggest you 1) Investigate Audion, if you haven't already, since it's now free, and 2) Investigate the power-user features of iTunes, like Smart Playlists and the Browser.

    2. Re:Mac audio players by wibs · · Score: 2, Informative

      I used to have the same complaints about iTunes. Unfortunately, if you want to play AAC-encoded music, you're pretty much stuck. So I finally gave up trying to find an alternative and now just use software such as Synergy to give me system-wide hotkeys, a little transparent info window, and a bunch of other stuff like control buttons in the menubar. It's pretty nifty all by itself, but there's no shortage of cool little shareware and freeware apps to get more bang for your buck with iTunes. Just look around MacUpdate a bit, you'll find something you like.

      --
      If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
  16. Not dead on the Mac by kuwan · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Mac platform has a pretty good shareware community that is helped by sites like MacUpdate and VersionTracker. The Mac, having a smaller percentage of the market, has the benefit (for shareware developers at least) of having more holes that shareware developers can fill. So if you have a great idea and can turn it into a great app, then you have a good chance of finding success in the Mac market. Watson, Konfabulator, and NetNewsWire are a few great shareware apps on the Mac. Unfortunately Apple might decide to fill the same holes that your app might fill as was the case with Watson and now Konfabulator.

    I have found a small amount of success myself with my Shareware app, HyperSpell. But its nothing I could ever quit my day job over. Mainly its something to do in my spare time and it filled a hole that I wanted filled. The biggest problem most shareware developers face is just getting people to know that their app exists (marketing).

    --
    Not free as in effort, but I'm willing to try it.
    Free Flat Screens | Free iPod Photo

    --
    infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
  17. Steve's Value is in Cutting Away the Unnecessary by glennrrr · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm writing this because I too am part of the small fraternity of Mac MP3 application developers. I was part of a three man team writing MusicMatch Jukebox for Mac OS when iTunes was released. And soon afterward I was out of a job.

    I know that iTunes would have crushed all competition anway, but Steve Jobs is the guy who saw through the stupidity of skins. WinAmp had them, so every MP3 player has skins. You can read in the article about the incredible amount of wasted development effort spent on improving the skins-giving them transparent corners and whatnot.

    At MusicMatch we spent a third of our time developing the skinning engine. And what did we end up with? A lot of ugly, non-intuitable windows designed by graphic artists with no concept of UI design, windows that docked in some skins but not others, and with list views that couldn't expand because of the surrounding bitmapped edges. If we'd have settled on a standard interface and just worked on getting the music database, radio streaming, and audio playback working we'd have finished much, much faster, and given the user a nicer experience to boot.

    Steve saw what was valuable in a music player and told the SoundJam guys to junk everything else. Simplify. Simplify. And the result is the preeminent digital music player.

    The Panic guy writing the linked article even now doesn't admit the wasted effort, and why he couldn't come up with a list of reasons why Panic 2 was better than iTunes 1.

  18. I'd Say They Made The Right Decision by chia_monkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    In theory, it sounds all good to meet with Apple. I mean hey, they rock, don't they? They have a cool culture, cool products, etc. But c'mon...give these guys a break. First, they didn't know they were going to be asked to be iTunes. Hell, maybe in the back of their heads they were thinking Steve (Jobs) just wanted to shut them up. It's easy for you to say they were dumb now, but back then...they had no clue. And let's not forget...everyone laughed at the idea of mp3s being a viable money maker. It was just for college kids to steal music and play...

    Let me ask you this. Do you run your own shop? I commend them for thinking about what they want in life. Like he said, they're young, not married, so why not go for it? Follow your dreams. And if the going gets tough, I'm sure Jobs would have no problem hiring them if they said "we need a job". I for one am impressed with their decision. It was tough, and they're following their dreams.

    --

    "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
  19. CHRIST, I have never seen such dense people. by Holi · · Score: 3, Informative

    Waaaahhhh it has a pop up asking me to purchase it. it's evil....

    Your definitions of shareware are soo out of whack it is not funny.

    Shareware is software you are authorized by the author to distribute but you are not allowed to charge for and either the software has a time out function or some other way the author (ie a pop up or something in the readme file) reminds you he expects to be paid.

    The idea behind shareware is that the users are able to "SHARE" the software with their friends/associates/random strangers. It is way of advertising by word of mouth, and no, Shareware can and usually does require registration. What your are mistaking for shareware is freeware or donation-ware (ie. bittorrent client).

    --
    Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
  20. Great story, but not a "how to be a success" story by adzoox · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This story was one of the best I have read in recent memory.

    That said, I hate it when great programmers just sit on a product and stop innovating or coming up with new directions to take their product.

    In my opinion, Panic should try to become something like Pixo and create great Mac friendly interfaces for Mp3 portable players or work with Napster and Real, and Microsoft to produce a player that will play secure WMP files well on a Mac.

    My preference was always towards SoundJam over Audion, but still after SoundJam became iTunes - I leaned towards Audion for the custom skins.

    If interested, I wrote a bit about this on my website.

    --
    Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
  21. aquisition = death by joe094287523459087 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    i worked for scopus, bought by siebel. millions of lines of code, all trashed

    i worked for centerrun, nee raplix, bought by Sun. 40 people worked really hard to make a great product. now you can find it on sun's site, if you look carefully. advertising budget/market awareness of solution? zero

    if you sell your software company, you can be confident the software will cease to exist.

  22. FTP client so good you'll pay by acomj · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've been using Transmit another product from Panic software, for a couple years now. Its a FTP client and so much better than anything else out there that I've upgraded from the command line and bought a licence.