Another Alice Adventure:



                          Address to the Foundation

                   Copyright 1995 by Peter Neuendorffer


 You will have to excuse my lapses into babble, as I have just finished
 adding a game and a spell checker to one of my programs.  After two
 near all-nighters, I dropped the resulting Shareware off via the
 telephone. It will go across the country within  twenty-four hours, and
 around the world within a month.  I work very hard writing Shareware,
 and it is my primary activity in life.

 But I get ahead of myself.  I'm giving my address to the Shareware
 Ungrateful Authors Foundation, tonight, and I'm trying it out on Alice.

 "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Shareware Ungrateful Authors Foundation,"
 I begin.  Alice, my friend and mentor, interrupts "You mean fellow
 suckers, perhaps." "No, that would be too bitter," I rejoin. At all
 costs we must carry ourselves with the decorum of the commercial
 writers we are.

 This discussion is not a description of software for the user, and
 neither plugs or pans anyone's work. This sort of critique is done
 admirably by the end user. If you have such a fan club, I am envious.
 As you know, the public perception of shareware is that it is free,
 dangerous, and of shoddy quality. But before we address these issues,
 we must examine what is Shareware.

 Originally it was felt that a lot of people could write software for
 fun at home, and share it widely. Then came the idea that one could
 retain intellectual ownership - copyright. It was later, and timidly
 suggested, that perhaps the authors of Shareware should be paid for
 their time.

 The lure of instant distribution through online bulletin boards created
 a surplus of product. Often very bad product. But also some programs
 became so popular that the original programmers hired more people - up
 to fifteen! Their work became a (computer) household name.

 Then, after a while the Shareware programmer was criticized if he/she
 didn't include every option suggested.  In an effort to increase
 nonexistent registrations (The user is supposed to pay for the software
 after say 30 days) he/she worked all the harder, often doing overnight
 coding.

 It was discovered that many users, fearful of a virus, would delete a
 Shareware program from their system if it did not perform for them the
 first time, especially if they had not even looked at the manual.
 Shareware authors, desperate to get payment, sometimes would "cripple"
 the evaluation work, which was resoundingly panned by users and online
 conference hosts.

 The promise of worldwide distribution thanks to the modem continues to
 excite me. Sometimes I get calls for customer support from users. Email
 comes in from Africa and Peru. Occasionally they send in a registration
 fee.

 Some of the types of applications that are popular with Shareware
 authors are report utilities ('How much memory you have'), add-ons for
 more popular programs ('Doom WAD files' - Barney Doom), or file search
 utilities. The theory is that people will buy commercial programs for
 the brunt of their computing, and will look to Shareware for the little
 things.

 It takes me about a month to prototype a new application. This can be
 done much faster in Windows, as the languages I use are Visual. I can
 literally paint the screen. At 50 hours a week, this works out to about
 200 hours. Say at $20.00/hour we might suppose a labor cost of ??? Not
 to mention profit.

 Occasionally, two people in a company will have a big argument. This
 can get quite serious, and is usually carried out on a computer
 bulletin board network conferences, for all to see. The resulting
 publicity is suspicious, but it is certainly there. Also, the user
 feels free to criticize the author, as no one is going to buy his work
 anyway. This is a popular online sport. Especially ripe are spelling
 errors.

 But let us not forget the highlights of Shareware programming. These
 come not from public acclaim, but from the thrill of challenge.
 Preparing various shaky versions for our beta testers, whom we cajole
 into saying "This stinks!" and then get mad at them when they do.

 Or the last day of crunch mode, when we discover, much to our dismay,
 that the software still has bugs.  In fact even after publication,
 usually about 20 seconds after, we discover an unforgivable bug. We
 recompile our work and repackage the product and get on the phone to
 the five Sysops we have published to, begging for a "Slipstream." This
 means the program has changed, but the user doesn't know it. We then
 dutifully write mail to all the out-of-town sysops who have downloaded
 the work.

 One of the fringe benefits of being a developer is the junk mail. We
 have a stack of catalogs to read when we get some free time, any minute
 now. We received three chain letters last week, one providing
 value-added cookie recipes. Then there are the hang-up calls. But I
 digress.

 A surplus of product has led to a degradation of quality, as well as
 the possibility of virus being written. Contrary to popular belief,
 writing a virus is a trivial problem, and not a badge of expertise. We
 all note the front page publicity given to roadhogs, pirates, and
 crackers, while we authors toil away in relative obscurity (sigh, then
 pause for dramatic effect.)

 Since it is "free" software, you can try it out first. You can get
 Shareware by purchasing a CDROM disk, subscribing to a bulletin board,
 or downloading it from a major online service (for a fee.) Just know
 that the author, you of the Shareware Ungrateful Foundation, will not
 see a penny of any of those fees. These companies, while providing
 services, are fed by the author, not the other way around.

 Alice: You are not really going to give that address? It sounds so
 negative. You are biting the hand that feeds you. Didn't anything good
 happen?

 Along the way, I have had a lot of fun publishing my own ideas and
 work. There is a great rush when I finally finish something, then hit
 the upload button, knowing that a previously nonexistent work is now
 out in the world. I began to correspond with someone about an imaginary
 friend named "Alice" which came to the attention of WindoWatch, hence
 my chance to write for this magazine.

 Nonetheless, I did get a large custom job from Scandinavia. It was
 interesting as I had to translate some of it into Norwegian. Then,
 after seeing my Transit software, I was invited to see the master
 control room at Amtrak. The dispatcher presses a place on a monitor
 map, and the train switch is closed in the yard. A large visual on the
 wall showed the progress of trains from here in Boston to New Haven.

 But take heart fellow Shareware authors, somewhere someplace, someone
 is using software that you wrote. And be grateful to belong to an
 industry society, this Foundation, that protects you and your programs,
 thinking how it must be not to belong to such a society. Thank you all.
 I will now take questions from the audience, as long as they are not
 too personal.

 Alice: Do you think these free programs are any good?

  Peter Neuendorffer has an homepage where he and Alice can be reached at
  pertern@user1.channel1.com.

                                    ww