alt.comp.shareware FAQ (1/2: Intro)
Yves Bellefeuille
Posting-Frequency: Every 15 days
Last-modified: 1997-09-26
URL: http://mini.net/pub/acs-faq.txt
alt.comp.shareware FAQ
Robert Lindsay Wells
------------------------------
Subject: Part 1 - Introduction to Shareware
Welcome to alt.comp.shareware (a.c.s.). This newsgroup is for
the discussion of computer software distributed as Shareware.
This includes requests to find programs, advertising by
authors and vendors, and general discussion of the Shareware
concept. Please follow these guidelines when posting here:
(1) KEEP IT ON-TOPIC AND TASTEFUL.
(2) "JUNK MAIL" OR "SPAM" TACTICS ARE NOT WELCOME.
(3) DON'T POST BINARIES HERE.
All participants are welcome, and a wide variety of
Shareware-related topics are open to discussion. However,
be advised that inappropriate or offensive posts will be
reported to the originating Internet Service Provider.
Part 2 of this FAQ lists many shareware-related links, see:
http://mini.net/pub/acs-faq2.txt
------------------------------
Subject: Examples of topics that are appropriate for a.c.s.
- Discussion of Shareware marketing and distribution.
- Discussion of registration incentive schemes.
- Advertising of Shareware products by authors.
- Press releases describing new versions of Shareware.
- Advice for new authors or users.
- Discussion of Shareware programs (eg: reviews).
- Where to find certain Shareware programs.
- Help with a Shareware program.
- Help locating a Shareware author.
- Discussion of general issues of interest to software
authors and users, and to the on-line community.
------------------------------
Subject: Examples of topics that are NOT appropriate for a.c.s.
- Binary postings of any kind (not a topic anyway).
- Chain letters and money-making schemes of any kind.
- Requests for pirated software or registration codes.
- Pornography or purient material of any kind.
- Spam advertising of any kind (including Shareware).
- Requests for "freeware" (which is NOT shareware - try
asking in the newsgroup alt.comp.freeware instead).
------------------------------
Subject: 1. What is Shareware?
Shareware is a distribution system for computer software based
on the "try-before-you-buy" principle. If you like a program,
then you make a registration payment to the author. If you
don't want the program after trying it out, then you delete it
or pass it along to a friend.
Shareware is NOT freeware. To legally use a program that
has been distributed as Shareware you MUST pay for it.
Registration usually gives the user extra benefits such as
the latest version on disk, a printed manual, technical
support, upgrade discounts and enhanced program functionality.
------------------------------
Subject: 2. Are there any Shareware trade organizations?
Yes. The Association of Shareware Professionals (ASP) is an
organization of Shareware authors and distributors. You can
contact the ASP through their WWW site:
The Educational Software Cooperative (ESC) is a professional
association of Shareware authors and distributors who produce
educational software. They can be found at:
http://members.aol.com/edsoftcoop
The Shareware Trade Association and Resources (STAR) is a
professional association of American and European Shareware
authors and distributors. Their web address is:
------------------------------
Subject: 3. Are there other Shareware Usenet newsgroups?
Yes. Here is a list of Shareware-related Usenet newsgroups.
Please respect the posting guidelines for each group:
alt.comp.shareware - General Shareware discussion
alt.comp.shareware.authors - Authors' discussion
alt.comp.shareware.for-kids - Children's Shareware
alt.comp.shareware.programmer - Authors' discussion
Shareware authors are especially encouraged to subscribe to
alt.comp.shareware.programmer, which was created to discuss
writing software and marketing by the Shareware principle.
Please DO NOT crosspost to the alt.comp.shareware hierarchy.
Many participants in a.c.s. subscribe to the other newsgroups
as well, and don't want to see the same post repeated several
times.
------------------------------
Subject: 4. Where can I find Shareware on the Web?
The Shareware Author Index (SAX) is a new searchable index
of Shareware authors and their products that contains direct
links to download sites and registration information.
Part 2 of this FAQ (Links to Shareware on the Web) contains
a detailed list of many web and ftp sites where you can search
for and download Shareware. Be sure to check it out :-).
------------------------------
Subject: 5. I'm a Shareware author. Where do I put my program?
First, NEVER post your program as a binary to a.c.s. Upload
your program to one of the top Shareware sites by FTP, and
then advertise what it does and where to find it in a.c.s.
Uploading instructions for some key sites can be obtained
from the following addresses:
Coast-to-Coast: Send E-Mail to cct...@Mail.Coast.Net
Garbo: ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/UPLOAD.INF
SimTel.Net: http://www.simtel.net/simtel.net/upload.html
For a comprehensive list of FTP sites, try downloading:
ftp://garbo.uwasa.fi/pc/doc-net/ftp-list.zip
You may also want to use a Shareware file distribution
service. An excellent list of Shareware author resources
may be found at:
http://www.ramsisle.com/othrsite.htm
Finally, visit the Shareware sites listed in Part 2 of this
FAQ (Links to Shareware on the Web). Many sites have uploading
or submission information for authors.
------------------------------
Subject: 6. I'm a Shareware customer having a problem with an author.
Sometimes when you place an order to register a Shareware
program things don't go as planned (it doesn't happen very often).
The first thing to do is try contacting the author directly. Most
problems can be easily cleared up this way.
If the author is a member of the Association of Shareware
Professionals, and you are unable to resolve the dispute, you
can try contacting the ASP ombudsman for help by sending an
E-Mail to
You are also welcome to request assistance by posting a
description of your problem here in a.c.s. (many authors
follow the newsgroup). Remember, give the facts of the case,
and avoid over dramatizing the situation.
------------------------------
Subject: End (shareware-faq/part1)
------------------------------------------------------------
This FAQ is posted and maintained in the public interest by:
Jean-Claude Wippler - j...@meta4.com (auto-posting)
Robert Lindsay Wells - well...@aol.com (content)
Special thanks to: Professor Timo Salmi - t...@uwasa.fi
------------------------------------------------------------
--
Yves Bellefeuille
Ottawa, Canada
y...@storm.ca
Francais / English / Esperanto
Yves Bellefeuille
Posting-Frequency: Every 15 days
Last-modified: 1998-02-01
URL: http://mini.net/pub/acs-faq2.txt
Maintainer: Robert Lindsay Wells <well...@aol.com>
alt.comp.shareware FAQ
Robert Lindsay Wells
------------------------------
Subject: Part 2 - Links to Shareware on the Web
This is Part 2 of the >>> alt.comp.shareware FAQ <<<, and
is a list of Shareware sites on the World Wide Web where you
can find Shareware to download and "try before you buy."
[100 Shareware Links - By ACoder's Cave]
http://www.mamsofco.com/100sl/
[Albert's Ambry - Shareware Search + Register On-Line]
http://www.alberts.com/
[Altus Software Marketing - Shareware Registration]
http://www.axxis.com/altus/
[Arizona Mac Users Group - 12000 MAC Programs]
http://cdrom.amug.org/
[Association of Shareware Professionals - ASP]
http://www.asp-shareware.org
[Children's Shareware Pages - MAC & PC]
http://www.gamesdomain.com/tigger/sw-kids.html
[CNET's DOWNLOAD.COM - Select Mac & PC Shareware]
http://www.download.com/
[CNET's SHAREWARE.COM - Search & Browse 200,000+ Files]
http://www.shareware.com/
[Coast to Coast Software Repository]
http://www.coast.net/
[Dave Central - Internet Software for Windows]
http://www.davecentral.com/
[DITR Marketing - Online Software Marketing & Distribution]
http://www.ditr.com/
[DP Computing - A New and Growing Shareware Site]
http://www.dpcomputing.com.au/
[Educational Software Cooperative - ESC]
http://www.edu-soft.org/
[Elite Shareware Author's group - ESAG]
http://www.edepot.com/esagindex.html
[Father of Shareware - Lots of Links]
http://www.halcyon.com/knopf/jim
[FilePile - 1,000,000 files from Exec-PC BBS & CD-ROM]
http://filepile.com/
[Foothill.net - Links to Internet & Web Shareware]
http://www.foothill.net/mthome/sharware.html
[FTP Search - Search ftp Sites by Program Name]
http://ftpsearch.ntnu.no/ftpsearch
[Galt Technology Shareware Zone - Lots of Stuff]
http://www.galttech.com/
[GangGang - Shareware by Australian Authors]
http://www.ganggang.com.au/
[Garbo - Browse the Well Known FTP Site]
http://garbo.uwasa.fi/
[Jim's Shareware Links - Lots of Links and More]
http://www.pnx.com/Jwelborn/Index.htm
[Jumbo - A Large Shareware URL Collection]
http://www.jumbo.com/
[Junk Yard of the Net - A Page of Links]
http://www.winbet.sci.fi/junkyard/share.htm
[Kagi - Register Shareware On-Line]
http://www.kagi.com/
[Nonags -- An Excellent Resource for Finding Shareware]
http://nonags.com/
[NorthStar Solutions - Register Shareware On-Line]
http://nstarsolutions.com/
[Pass the Shareware Please - Reviews and More]
http://www.passtheshareware.com/
[Pik A Program - Download & Register Shareware On-Line]
http://www.pik.com/
[Public (software) Library - Credit Card Orders]
http://www.pslweb.com/
[RegisterLine - Register Shareware On-Line]
http://registerline.com/
[RegNet - Register Shareware On-Line]
http://www.swregnet.com/
[RegSoft.com - This way to Shareware]
http://www.regsoft.com/
[Sander's KeyScreen Previewer - Shareware Screen Shots]
http://www.screenshot.com/index.htm
[Santiago's Top 40 Games Download Page]
http://www.primenet.com/~top40
[SAX - Shareware Authors Index - Many Resources]
http://mini.net/sax/
[ShareIt! - Register Shareware On-Line]
http://www.shareit.com/
[SharePaper - Reviews and More]
http://www.sharepaper.com/
[Shareware Junkies - Reviews and More]
http://www.sharewarejunkies.com/
[Shareware Place - PC and Mac Shareware]
http://www.sharewareplace.com/
[Shareware Shop - Many Resources Including Want-Ads]
http://www.bsoftware.com/share.htm
[Shareware Trade Association & Resources - STAR]
http://www.shareware.org/
[Simtel - A New Location for the Simtel Collection]
http://www.simtel.net/simtel.net/
[SlaughterHouse - Links to Lots of Windows Shareware]
http://www.slaughterhouse.com/
[Softsearch - Search a Large Shareware Database]
http://www.softsearch.com/
[Softseek - Reviews, Screen Shots and Download Links]
http://www.softseek.com/
[SoftwareSite - Amiga, Mac & Windows Shareware]
http://softwaresite.com/
[Walnut Creek CD-ROM - OS/2 Shareware & Lots of Links]
http://www.cdrom.com/
[Windows95.com - 32 Bit Shareware for Win95 and NT]
http://www.windows95.com/
[Winsite - Was cica.indiana.edu - Windows]
http://www.winsite.com/
[Ziff-Davis Interactive - Great Shareware Site]
http://www.hotfiles.com/
This list does not constitute an endorsement of any site.
Follow the links to discover other sites for yourself :-).
------------------------------
Subject: End (shareware-faq/part2)
Lars Helgeland
Robert Lindsay Wells <well...@aol.com> wrote:
>[...]
>This is Part 2 of the >>> alt.comp.shareware FAQ <<<, and
>is a list of Shareware sites on the World Wide Web where you
>can find Shareware to download and "try before you buy."
>[...]
>
> [Coast to Coast Software Repository]
> http://www.coast.net/
>[...]
The Coast to Coast Software Repository (http://ftp.coast.net/Coast/,
ftp://ftp.coast.net/) closed down earlier this year.
It looks from the mirror sites like they stopped taking submissions
in late March and zipped up their latest index files on April 1st.
They may have been open for general browsing and downloading for some
time beyond that date; this I don't know.
I sent mail to ser...@mail.coast.net a couple of times in August,
when I first learned of this close-down, asking if they still had
CD-ROM copies of the collections for sale, but I never got any reply.
A copy of the most recent (1998-02-18) list of mirror sites can be
found by doing an ftpsearch for download.inf, with msdos/filedocs in
the path, or you could just take the returned hits as an indication
of those mirror sites that are still active.
Lars
WellsCom
>The Coast to Coast Software Repository (http://ftp.coast.net/Coast/,
>ftp://ftp.coast.net/) closed down earlier this year.
Lars:
This is really too bad. Somehow the diversity of the net seems to be
diminishing, even while there is greater demand than ever for software to
download. It's been proven, though, that it's very hard to make decent money
from on-line software archives. One example that comes to mind is BestZips (who
also put out a very popular CD). They were killed by their own popularity ...
their massive server and hosting costs, caused by huge download rates, couldn't
be offset by advertising and CD income alone.
I've heard that the big boys, such as CNET and Ziff-Davis, actually lose money
on there web activities, but accept the situation to keep their stake in the
on-line world. They see a future in on-line software commerce, but haven't yet
solved the profitability question.
As a side note ... it's amazing how many huge software corporations, such as
Microsoft, have discovered that "evaluation copies," "free trial versions" and
"lite versions" lend themselves perfectly to on-line distribution (i.e. they
have "discovered" the shareware concept).
Anyway, it's important that individual developers continue to have diverse
distribution vehicles, including CD's. After a program has been written and
released, it's all about distribution and promotion. Clould it be that the days
of free archiving are ending? Might authors be expected some day to pay for the
privilege of having their software carried at popular archive sites ... perhaps
with some amount of marketing services included in the price? Could it be that
the on-line registration service business model, that takes a percentage of
each sale, could be the on-line *distribution* model of the future?
Lindsay
---------------------------------------------
Robert Lindsay Wells, Ph.D. Well...@aol.com
+ http://members.aol.com/wellscom/index.htm +
---------------------------------------------
Timo Salmi
WellsCom <well...@aol.com> wrote:
:>The Coast to Coast Software Repository (http://ftp.coast.net/Coast/,
:>ftp://ftp.coast.net/) closed down earlier this year.
:This is really too bad. Somehow the diversity of the net seems to be
:diminishing, even while there is greater demand than ever for software to
My dear net-friend,
I'd rather say that the distribution channels are shifting than that
the diversity is necessarily diminishing. In fact, I would say that
what is happening is that these net services are fragmenting into
smaller and smaller pieces. This was started by the introduction of
WWW. These days many, if not most authors have distribution WWW
sites of their own. And there are some link services linking
extensively to those sites. Therefore there are very few
traditional, broad-scope FTPs site left like Simtel.Net, the Windows
specialized low-profile Winsite, and some very narrow scope FTP
sites like Garbo, which rides on teh fact that there still is much
demand for MS-DOS programs, but MS-DOS programs usually need not be
kept current, since so few updates appear in these days.
I won't start predicting e.g. Simtel's or Garbo's future (I simply
do not know). But I would be very surprised if new, heavy-traffic,
broad-scope FTP sites would ever start coming to viable life again.
P.S. Since this directly concerns FTP sites I have added
news:comp.archives.msdos.d to the distribution.
All the best, Timo
....................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi Co-moderator of news:comp.archives.msdos.announce
Moderating at ftp:// & http://garbo.uwasa.fi/ archives 193.166.120.5
Department of Accounting and Business Finance ; University of Vaasa
mailto:t...@uwasa.fi <http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/> ; FIN-65101, Finland
Spam foiling in effect. My email filter autoresponder will return a
required email password to users not yet in the privileges database.
Advice on spam foiling at http://www.uwasa.fi/~ts/info/spamfoil.html
Scott Kane - MSA
WellsCom wrote in message >
>As a side note ... it's amazing how many huge software corporations, such
as
>Microsoft, have discovered that "evaluation copies," "free trial versions"
and
>"lite versions" lend themselves perfectly to on-line distribution (i.e.
they
>have "discovered" the shareware concept).
Agreed. I think in general a good thing for shareware developers that they
have.
>Anyway, it's important that individual developers continue to have diverse
>distribution vehicles, including CD's. After a program has been written and
>released, it's all about distribution and promotion. Clould it be that the
days
>of free archiving are ending? Might authors be expected some day to pay for
the
>privilege of having their software carried at popular archive sites ...
perhaps
>with some amount of marketing services included in the price? Could it be
that
>the on-line registration service business model, that takes a percentage of
>each sale, could be the on-line *distribution* model of the future?
This is an excellent point, Lindsay. I'm inclined to agree with you. It
would probably address *some* of the registration problems authors
experience as well...
Scott Kane