On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 14:00:41 -0800 (PST), David Graham wrote:
> I use Eclipse but I have heard good things about IDEA.  If we ever
> meet in person maybe I can buy you a beer with some of the $500 I
> saved not paying for IDEA ;-).

Not to worry, David. It's products like IDEA, JIRA, and Confluence that get me 
out of work on time. And as the commercial says:

"Having more time to spend with your family? --- Priceless!" :)

You know, twenty years ago, I was part of another software movement called 
"shareware". Back then, we bravely posted fully-functional applications to 
bulletin boards and disk libraries. (No Internet or CD ROMS for us! It was 
384bps phone lines and 5-1/4" floppies!) If people wanted to send us money for 
our applications, we let them. We didn't have expiration technology back then. 
If someone didn't want to pay me for my stuff, they could keep using it, 
indefinitely, for free. But every week, there I was at the bank, depositing a 
stack of checks. :)

Maybe it's because so many people have voluntarily paid me for my work, that it 
doesn't bother me to voluntarily pay other people for theirs. Sure, there are 
free products that I could use instead. But, if there's another product I'd 
rather use, why shortchange myself? For me, it's not about free, it's about 
being the best.

If Struts wasn't the best framework available at any price, I wouldn't support 
it. But, because it is a great product, with a thriving community, I not only 
spend time here, but I even make modest cash donations to the ASF and 
SourceForge.

-Ted.

Postscript to all the lurkers out there:

Is shareware dead? Not quite. If you can't support organizations like the ASF 
and SourceForge with your time, we also accept PayPal :)

* http://apache.org/foundation/contributing.html#Paypal

* http://sourceforge.net/donate/

Seriously, gang, bandwidth ain't free. ;)

-T.



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