Software Shareware

Free software has been able to become an effective player in the software market because it is promoted and funded by major multi-national corporations. Individual users welcome this trend of open source software because it comes free allowing the user to have access to a larger social and economic revolution that now dominates the software industry.

Some 20 years ago software made its presence felt on bulletin board systems with a little text file proclaiming that software to be shareware. Users were free to upload it and, if they liked it, send little amounts of money to a given address. That was shareware, because it allowed you to share it with anybody of you liked. But it did not work because satisfied users seldom sent the money.

There is a relationship between free software and shareware. The predictions of open source software ruling the world have come with a feeling of inevitability. Where is shareware going to fit in then? Several uccessful and respected open source developers are of the view that there are no evidence of any incompatibility between the concepts of open source and shareware. It makes perfect business sense to them that some code is shared as open source while the developer sells products that use these and other tools. In fact more shareware products are expected to be used as open source than conventional commercial products because the culure of open source is closer to shareware.

Summing up, free software is unlikely to kill shareware. They need each other for their mutual benefits. If free software kills shareware, who would write all those truly useful applications?

Tags: Software Shareware

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 at 4:31 am and is filed under Software Shareware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.