Thorstenさんから送られてきた回答の原文。 ちなみに、質問文のほうは、あいかわらず、 「添削たのもう！」といったら添削してくれた、 筑波大学 工学システム学類に行ってる、 永田さん(e949031@jks.is.tsukuba.ac.jp)のものです。 またよろしく！！ Q1 Why did you decide to distribute your software as shareware ? DragThing used to be "coolware" - it was basically freeware, but I asked people if they really liked it to send me something "cool". I got a lot of t-shirts and things like that, but many people asked me to make it shareware because they couldn't think of anything cool to send me, but they wanted to reward me for my hard work. So, almost exactly a year ago, when I did the big upgrade to DragThing 2.0, I changed it to being shareware, and I got many people mailing me to thank me! They said they could now pay easily, rather than feeling guilty about not sending me anything before. Q2 Can the creation and distribution of shareware earn enough money ? In other words, does the registration fee earned break even with development and miscellaneous ? Yes, certainly. If you have a good enough product, you can earn enough money. Possibly more than doing it as a commercial product in some cases, because, aside from the percentage Kagi charges (the company that processes registrations on my behalf, and sends out the serial numbers), all the money goes to you, not to a distributor or another company. Selling commercial software, you might make a royalty of $4 on each copy sold at $50. But with shareware, you could make $14 on a copy sold at $15. The hard part of course is getting your shareware known by people, but again if it is good enough, people will find it, and it will spread by word of mouth. Magazines and web sites will review it too, which is a big help in getting it known. Would I recommend that people write shareware to make money? No. You shouldn't start writing software just with the aim of making money. You should write software because you enjoy doing it! Otherwise, you are doing it for the wrong reasons, and the product will not be as good because of it. I do however have a real job too writing software at a well known computer company I can't mention by name! :-) Q3 There are possibilities of people using your software without payment of registration fee; how do you take it into consideration ? Also, what ideas do you have of methods to prevent such from happening ? I rely on people being honest! When I released DragThing 2.0, I added a serial number to it. You can run it for as long as you want without registering and getting a serial number, but it reminds you at startup each time. In fact if you have the Speech Manager installed it verbally asks you to "Please register your copy of DragThing"! As another incentive to register, I added some special commonly requested features as a bonus, including floating windows and hotkeys, that only work once it has been registered. I think DragThing is commercial quality software, and it is very inexpensive at $15. I hope people recognise all the work I have put into it and register. But I don't want to make the software complain too much when it isn't registered, because that puts people off too. You have to find the right balance. Unfortunately, if you do nothing, very few people register. Some people just need a little reminder occasionally! be continue

1998-08-07-FRI

戻る