Python Shareware?

[Niklas Frykholm]

>Okay, here's my opinion on shareware: Don't do it, it's too much hassle.
>
>If you are interested in making software, you should be interested in 
>making it good. So you GPL the code, allow everyone to use it, and modify 
>it, and thus the software will become good/the best/whatever.
>
>If you are interested in making _money_, you have to have a product or a 
>service to sell. Software is not a good product, but *support* for the 

I have made some money from shareware, not fortunes, but some money.
About 30 % of the money I made came from people who paid the shareware
fees. 70 % came from comapanies who said: "hey, this shareware is
nice, can we get the source and write our own version?". If I had GPLd
I don't think I would have gotten any money. I love GPL, it's
socialism that works in practice, but if you need the money...

I would discourage you from putting nags and protection mechanisms in
your shareware though (I never had any). Distrusting and annoying your
customers is not the best way to make business. It is better to make
paying as simple as possible than to make stealing as hard as
possible.

>There is another benefit to you of free software: If you are really good at 
>programming, you can show off with your GPL'ed code, and use that to get 
>into a company that is willing to pay you to code stuff for them. You can't 
>show off code that is closed-source, like code from, say, your previous 
>job.

But you can show your shareware code to anyone you want to, so this
argument isn't really relevant.

(In retrospect, I'm kind of happy that not too many people has seen my
old shareware code. Let's just say my coding has... erm... improved. :)

>I think a steady income of $100,000 or more a year will benefit more than 
>the meager sales of a shareware piece of software. Plus, you get the 
>comfort of knowing your check shows up every month, and it's the same 
>amount each time.

Agreed. But what is the price of freedom? To beat your wings
rythmically under the open sky instead of riding the subway to the
Corporation. Ah... maybe I should quit my day job...

// Niklas