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My ideas on free software:
I believe that paying massive amounts of money for even the simplest program is one of the signs that the computer industry is turning into an ugly capitalist monster. Sure, companies write good programs to make money…but the average home user will rarely use a program enough to justify the spend of hundreds of dollars on a program that is limited to a few photographic touch-ups. Wouldn't it make a lot of people happier if for the non-profit user the product was a fraction or the price or even free, but for corporations the usual licensing applies. With all the workers having the product at home then they would want to keep the same products at work, so the corporations would be pressured to buy the licenses for many, when only a few would normally be bought.
Now this brings me to shareware. When a company only asks $30 for a piece of high quality software, that you know is high quality because you have been using it for about a month now, you can almost say "How far wrong can you go with $30???", but as the price rises it starts to move into the realms of the large specialized products. Anyway, as computers are more widely used, why can the companies lower their prices and make the same or even more money???
Finally my words on Freeware and Public Domain software. Freeware authors have my utmost respect. Their hours of effort are rarely rewarded with more than a few thank you notes and a couple of bucks. I believe that asking for a donation but not crippling a program to get it is the most selfless, respectable way to make money. Not only do you help the not so rich to expand their horizons but you also help to undermine the monopoly that the large software companies have built up. This helps the computer community to build up a friendly future for everyone to enjoy.
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