Free Food For Thought
It never ceases to amaze me how stupid people are; [I] had a few remarks from users who don't seem to realise that 'Freeware' is just
that: Free! They seem to expect the same amount of support and features that many a commercial product don't even supply. My stuff, however simple, has taken a lot of time and effort. I make it available because I want to; I'm not sure after this last month whether I will make anymore of my stuff freeware. When I use Freeware that
I like, I try to e-mail the author and congratulate them or make a suggestion. I would have felt better if thats the experience I also got, but it wasn't.
3 Comments
Anonymous
February 13th, 2002
at 11:04pm
I Have To Agree, When I Download A Freeware Program And It Does Not Work Right Or Locks Up I Normally Just Delete It And Find Another One That Will Work.
The Way I See It Is Be Glad You Get Anything For Free In The Money Hungry Society In Which We Live, No Need To Keep Whining To The People That Help Us Po' Folks Stay In The “Technology Loop”.
(FYI : I Do Email The Programer If I Find Bugs Or Little Mistakes)
Anonymous
February 14th, 2002
at 9:26am
I don't mind the requests or even bug reports, but its the people who don't try, before they email me. I test my stuff as much as I can, I also try and get beta testers to test it, but good beta testers are hard to find. As you say, if the program doesn't work or it's not what you're looking for, then delete it.
I was grateful to Chris, because some users do the same as me, they had a look at my site, and I've got a few registrations for my shareware program.
TBH I miss the BBS days, to me they were a lot more personal and to some extent more fun.
Anonymous
February 14th, 2002
at 6:19pm
Well, to be honest, I think the bar has been raised a bit since the days of the BBS. Today, freeware can be even more competitive than shelfware. Good or bad, user's expectations have grown with it.
I live in the Linux world where open source is the defacto culture, so my experiences are probably different than most. But just for curiosity sake, how much did you pay for say, Internet Explorer? Free doesn't mean anything anymore.