Shareware Survey

[JESSICA BRODY]

    I use a lot of shareware lately. Some authors are good and some
are bad when it comes to contact. I consider it important that I can
contact the author if they want me to send them money for their program.
Some authors have no phone number and just a post office box and never
get back to you if you have a question. I don't wish to name names but
a disk defragmentation program I registered ($35.00) required some
confusing setting up. The author took months to respond to my letter
and I wrote three letters. He apologized for the delay but I wrote to
him again in March and still haven't heard from him. Another program
(I've learned not to register until I hear back), a DIR replacement for
$25.00, didn't display file attributes even though the documentation
said it should. I wrote to the author on Compuserve and he wrote back
that he is "way too busy" to get involved in that program anymore.
Another program ($49.95) was represented by a software distribution
company in Colorado, no phone number, no person's name, just a post
office box. Not only could I not get in contact with the real author of
the program, but they never replied to any questions of mine either.
Not one.
    It's very annoying and hurts the shareware authors who are
friendly and even willing to make a minor custom modification for you
just for the fun of it or because you asked. Plus the documentation in
a lot of shareware software is a shame. It's not helpful and it has a
lot of spelling errors. It makes me wonder what pride or perfection the
program has if the author doesn't spell correctly or take the time to
spell check. Shareware authors get very defensive and say that they
don't care about documentation, just about the software. Maybe that is
legitimate but it is a shabby attitude and I don't like it. Plus
shareware is sometimes very buggy (because authors may only have one
computer to work on and can't test on other systems). So there are many
upgrades (bug fixes). The worst kind of program/upgrade is when you can
customize the setup of the program but each upgrade requires repeating
your setup manually. If there is no data file or way to export your
settings, that is, "clone" your setup, you have to write everything down
and repeat the setup. Everytime they release a new bug fix is a drag
and I don't want to register until the program is stable. Also, some
shareware authors make promises (about free upgrades, or notification,
and stuff) and never keep their promise. Some companies are nasty. I
will mention a name here and that is Datastorm, the makers of Procomm.
I couldn't get it to work and they wouldn't talk to me unless I
registered. (Why would I register a program that I can't get to work?)
    The other side of the picture is just the opposite. Many
shareware authors are very eager to help and call you long distance at
their own expense. They often send you a registered version even though
all you did is ask some questions or make some suggestions. Their
documentation is clean and neatly formatted (and easy to print two sided
for less paper use) and the program is compatible on many systems, with
early versions of DOS, and many ROMs.
    Each program is different so I don't make one decision about all
of them. I register some programs I use and I don't register some
programs I use. May I say that I don't like the term "shareware"
because requiring somebody to pay money after trying a program is not my
idea of sharing. I can do that with anything I buy at Egghead Software
because I can test it for 30 days and return it before the bill comes if
I don't like it. If I want to share something with somebody I don't ask
them to pay me. "Shareware" is (one second...) a misnomer (had to use
the thesaurus for that ). It is really "buyware" not "shareware".
Real shareware are the programs that don't ask for money but ask you to
register and send feedback to the author. That's sharing. Trying
before you buy is not sharing. My father told me originally most people
didn't demand money but asked for a contribution if anything at all and
in those days it was really shareware. Downloaded software that
required payment after a trial period was called User Supported Software
and that those people began to mislabel their software and call it
shareware.
                           Jessie