Shareware Survey

[DALE KEMERY]

Jerry - In an effort to clean up my legal act, I looked around at all
the shareware programs I have and found I actually used only two of
them: Screen Peace (a Windows screen blanker) and PKZIP/PKUNZIP, Phil
Katz' compression/decompression utility. I contacted the author of
Screen Peace who told me I shouldn't pay for it because he was now
associated with another program. Screen Peace was available for a
donation of $10 or $15, proceeds to go to Greenpeace. The new program
costs $49.95. Screen Peace works just fine, and the author told me not
to pay for it; I didn't. Then I sent Phil Katz $25, per the
instructions in the docs. For $45 or $50, I would get any future
updates and documentation. I didn't care about the updates or the docs
and sent $25, which was returned! The attached note said something
like, "We *expect* you to get it from a BBS. The price is $49." I was
amazed and puzzled. I deleted it from my system and now use UNZIP,
which comes bundled as freeware with one of my Borland programs.
   This weirdness seems to echo the complaints of others who've
replied to you. So-called Shareware (or is it Gimme-ware?) seems to be
the product of unbusiness-like hackers wolfing M&M's at 2 a.m. They're
hot to write code and collect money, but don't know--and don't
care--about support and professional procedures.
--Dale--