From: Alan Horkan (horkana@tcd.ie)
Date: Thu Aug 15 2002 - 11:28:00 EDT
i knew i should not have mentioned shareware.
there are some good freeware sites out there though.
i still wonder what it would take to get abiword included with cygwin.
As far as i know abiword can be built with mingwin but not cygwin.
I guess there are plenty of better things we could be doing.
Hope you noticed attempts to use POWs more. Any alternative suggestions
on how to harness the users?
Later
Alan
On Thu, 15 Aug 2002, Paul Rohr wrote:
> Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 08:12:50 -0700
> From: Paul Rohr <paul@abisource.com>
> To: Alan Horkan <horkana@tcd.ie>, abiword-dev@abisource.com
> Subject: Re: shareware/freeware stuff
>
> At 07:58 PM 8/14/02 +0100, Alan Horkan wrote:
> >i was thinking about submitting abiword to more shareware/freeware sites
> >specifically this one (somehow vaguely connected to Walnut Creek by
> >Google) http://simtel.net
>
> I obviously can't stop you from doing this if you really want to, but I
> would strongly urge you to reconsider.
>
> From the beginning, we've made a conscious effort to promote AbiWord in ways
> which emphasize how high-quality a product we're building. This has been a
> very ambitious, long-term effort, and we want to make sure that anyone who
> hears about our software gets the right picture of us.
>
> That's not hard in the Linux world, and it's even feasible in the Mac world
> -- both of which have thriving communities where you can expect to find
> high-quality, low-cost software.
>
> However, that's just not the way it is in the Windows world. To be blunt,
> when most Windows users think of shareware/freeware, their visceral reaction
> is more like:
>
> - heaping piles of crappy software
> - they want me to pay $25 for *that*? hah!
> - I can't believe I wasted time downloading that
> - I spent more time downloading this than they did writing it
> - etc.
>
> Yes, there are the occasional gems buried in those piles, but that's
> definitely the exception, not the rule. Thus, we've historically avoided
> putting any effort into getting our software listed at places where we're
> tainted by association.
>
> Instead, I'd encourage folks to concentrate their evangelism efforts in
> places:
>
> - where most of the software people find is polished,
> - where they look for valuable software that they plan to use every day,
> - where they find free/trial versions of software from major companies,
> - etc.
>
> Most sites which bill themselves as places to find Windows shareware simply
> don't fit that bill.
>
> Paul
> motto -- you're known by the company you keep
>
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