J. Michael Looney, (s)he say:
> On Wed, 3 Jan 2001, Ryan S. Dancey wrote:
>
>>>>> I have a question about writing shareware for D20 system.
>>>> My advice is to not write shareware, but to write Open Source software.
>>>
>>> Quite possible it will be open source. (IMHO these two are not completely
>> mutually exclusive)
>>
>> "Shareware" requires a payment to be made to the author. Open Source
>> requires the the source be freely redistributable. That's mutually
>> exclusive.
>
> Sorry, no, the are not exclusive. RedHat etc. is the largest shareware
> thing ever done. Get it for (more or less) free. Want support? Send
> money to the "author". The fact that some of us don't need support is
> besides the point.
>
> Now the "cripple ware" version of shareware and Open Source, now there is
> a problem.
There may not be a legal problem with shareware and Open Source, but
Raymond, at least, is a rabid anti-shareware feller, so I can see where some
people might think shareware cannot also be Open Source.
Many in the Open Source community feel that no software should ever be
charged for (essentially, writing code is either (depending on who you talk
to) God's gift, and you can't charge for those, or so trivial, charging for
it would be like charging people to learn how to tie their shoes.
To make money off of programming, it's claimed, you should give the program
away to everyone and then sell one or two large support contracts to keep
food on the table, sell binary versions, or sell books about it.
Honestly, the only one of these which works for most shareware is the
selling of binary versions. I just can't see AT&T buying a $100,000/year
support contract for Pip (my free expression parser). :)
--
Kevin Tatroe
www.islandspirits.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
