4 ms·
Lot's of people make money from shareware, if you mean "software with a free trial or evaluation period". In the age of halfway decent worldwide network connec
by xenophonf 11y ago
Lot's of people make money from shareware, if you mean "software with a free trial or evaluation period". In the age of halfway decent worldwide network connectivity and third-party download sites that bundle adware/spyware, the idea of letting other people distribute one's software for you is probably dead.
If it didn't have all the historical baggage from the BBS days, I think that "shareware" would be the perfect replacement for FSF's somewhat awkward "libre software" or the more ambiguous "free software". Heck, most people already treat free trials as something they can download, install, run forever, give to their buddies, distribute over the corporate LAN, etc.---WinZIP being the canonical example. The word "share" really gets to the heart of what FSF's "software freedom" is about, which is modification and re-distribution by end users.