BOB WALLACE (outhor and distributor of PC-WRITEt, an outstand~ng word processing progrom for IBM PCs ond compat~bles' YVe give away source with our product, and we haven't {ound it to be a problem. We do what we call 'Shareware." We give away PC-WRITE, and it seems to be supporting us, you know. When I started, I wanted to do a product and I wanted ic to be self-supporting. I didn't want to do it for another company and hsve somebody else have controi over it. I wanted to have control over it and I wanted to make a living. Not having a lot of money for advertising, I figured the way ro distribote it was, you know, word ol disk. Diskettes are a new medium that I don't think people hsve realized how easy they are to copy and wha'tbat means, bur it gives us a distribution channel. It's very hard to get shelf space in scores. But most people choose their software basod on recommenda- aons by other poopleÄ40 pertent, I think. Next comes product reviews and next comes advertising. With PC-WRITE, people can not only recommend it but they cen give it to somebody. People want to feol like they can use the software for a month or two and see, "Is ~his my software7" ~ow many people here hsve bought a S500 packege and discovered, "Well, it isn t qui:e what I need,'' and you're ot S500! STEVEN LEVY: You do get royalties? BOB WALLACE: Yeah. people do send me money. People after they're using it want to hei safe, they want to feel like there's support, they want to feel respectable and part of a larger process, and they want to support companies they like. So they send us money. Support ineludes a newsletter and updates and phone support and the source code. We've done feirly ~veil. We've sold 6,400 S10 diskettes, and about 1,700 peo- pie chen registered for S75. Then we also sold some on an OEM basis [Ongrnol EquiArnent Manufioc~rer, where a hardware n7aker or distributor includes sathvare with d~e mact~ine purchasel, a couple thousand ehat way, berause once you're out, and peoplc have heard of you, then you cen stare working quaneity deals where poople'll buy your sourte and modify it and send you royalties. LEVY: Was all that sokly a markeeing decis~on? WALLACE: It was a way to do what I wanted to do without getting involved either in another company or with venture capital. And giving software away is a lot of fun. You get great letters and great phone calls, peopk are very apprecianve, and they g;ve you some great ideas. At the same time we'll gross about S225,000 this year, Ie's supporting two of us; we're ad- ding a third person. So you cen start a srnall company that way. I donit know how far we can get, I don't know how many poople wouid send in voluntary registrašon money to Mierosoft or sornething like tbat. STEVE WOZNIAK: In a company sometimes a prodoct gets developed arKi the company decides it doesn't fit a market, it wan't sell. In a case like that the company shouid be very fr~e to quickl' give it to the engineer, '. PC-WRiTE is freely cop~able and you are encounged to give it to fnends. You cen get it Dy m~l for SlO postpad from Bob Wallece, Quicksoft, 219 Fint N. '224. Seattle, WA 98109 ~f after usin'it you deeide to reg~ster your pr~gram, send Bob 57s. and you'll ~et phone supporc, a bound manual, and the next ver~on of die prograrn. Also, if anybody to wham ~u ~ive co~es of your PC-wRiTE decides to re~iscer. you are sent S25 of d~eir S75. A pyramid "heme wid~out losers. `` In a company, sometimes a product gets developad and the company deeides it doesn't fit a market, it wan't sell. But because they own the prodact, the' will squash it and ssy, 'Even though we're norgonna putit out, nebody else in the world~s gonna get it.' That's a hiding of information, and that is wron~. ÄSTEVE WOZNtAK. legal r~lease: ' It's yours, oke it out and start your own company." But sometimes the companies, because they own the product, will squssh it and ssy, .'You cannot have it, even though we're not ganna put it out, and nabody eise in the world's gonna get it" That's a hiding o( information. and tbet is wrung. STEWART BRAND {oud~or of "Spatewar hno~c Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums," 1972~: It seems like there's a couple of interesting paradoxes that we're working here. That's why l'm especisily in- terested in what Bob Wallace has done with PC-WRITE and what Andrew Flusgelman did before that with PC- TALK. On the one hand information wants to be ex- pensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place iust changes your llfe. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the C05t of getting it OUt is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting ageinst eech other WOZNIAK: Information shouid be free but your time should not. BRAND. But then, at what peint of amplifIcation is your time being so well rewarded tbet it's getting strange or 50 under-rowarded that it's strange' There's problems there with the market. Then there's another paradex which is espacialiy visible here. This conference is primaril' programmers, almost no one who is primarily marketing. In the last year or so the marketing poople drove the business, and they're having a eough year. (laughter) And nobody's really sorry about that. There's an opportunity now for the programmers. the creators. tne fountainhead to rees- tablish where dhe initiation of this stuH comes from Where it begins. WOZNIAK: You get.a lot of problems when you get engineers who are interested just in the technical solu- tion, the right solution. It's got an incredible velue to them because it was an inc~dible discovery, it took a lot of work to find it, and they psy no attention to markaung considerations. Somebody has to use this thing eventually. it has to make sense as a product. Sometimes engineers are in control and cause the most disasereus consequences for the companies in this business, because they did not act as one person with marketing. BRAND: One of the problems with alE that brilliant ressarch at Xerox PARCÄwhich was wasted at Xerex and later at Apple turned into the MacintoshÄis tbet they never gat to cycie their stuff through product. They never got to really deal with customers the way Wallate does or Fluegelman does, where they hsve a direct pipe between themselves and the peopk who are using their stuff. And since the Shareware guys are not fighung their own inventory (because they don't hsve to have any), they cen respond with new im. provements, new versions all the time. What they're deing strikes me as the best solution so far to these paradoxes. One of the things l'd like to see shared here is the economics of how to be in business for yourself or in cahoots with other designers, and hsve the marketing guys working for you. WOZNIAK: Frequently you have the engineering here and marketing chere, parti~ioned. It's much better when the engineers have a lot of n~arkeeing content and the marketing people have a lot of engineering content. It's much more modvating and more produccive. TERRY NIKSCH (HomebQw haclcer) Yeeh, bot I think you're almost getting into a definition there. I think a hacker works to please himself first and to impress his ÄS.B. 1 ~i. ~- _. _ ~ -~` F - i i~'SI~ ~L ' F~, ~ =1~ ' ~' F. .~'~ designer of Appk cornputer, c~founder; ~1 . '~ ~_ of Appk Computer rnc ~ 2 6 -:~ [__~ ~, -,-N ~__ ``Giving software awa~, is a lot of fun. You get great letters and great pl~one calls, people are very appreei- ative, and they give you some great ideas. At the same time we'll gross about S225,000 this ~ear." ÄBOB WAlLA`:E, author and distr;ibutor of PC-WRITE peers, but as soon as you go for institutional approvel, which includes the institution of the markeephte. I don'e chink you're hacking anymon,. BOB WALLACE: No' no, no. 5haroware is a marketing hack. (laughter, oppiause) WOZNIAK: Somebody who's designing sc~mething for himself has at least got a market of one that he's very clase to. ANDREW FWEGELF1AN (outhor ant tisuibutor of PC-TALK2, an excelknt telecommunications prograrn for I8M PCs and compatibles; {ounding ediror of PC World and Macworld): That's what got me started. I originally wro~e PC-TALK as a pure hack. I wan't confess what language I wrore it in, bue the fact is tbat I had owned my computer for about a month and I was trying to send my files to someone using a completely difSerent computer, and there vves not one piece of software in the ent re world that would let me do tbat. I srayed up for a ~ot of nights to figure out a vvay to do it. and I consider ehat to be very much within the hacker ethic or spirit. YVhat gat me away from being a hacker was when I figu~d out, 'How cen I get this our to people?" Although l'm known for giving away software for free, I did it purely to figure out how I couid make some money with what I had done. The reason it's been suc- cessful i5 very strange. On the one hand, whar peopte buy is not really access to the p~gram, or the infor- mation. What they're mainly buying is the supporr, the stability, and the fact that it vvorks reliably. And the reason for that is because l've had the opportunity to get a lot of feedback from a lot of poople who vvere pissod ofS when they got Version 1.6 of the program, found that it didn't work with their modem, and they called me and said, "Hey. I've got this strange situation and here s what you can do tO fix ie.'' I call tbat "freeback,'' and that's really whae made the pn,gram successSul. Right now my highest cose is user support. More than hall of all the money I spend is to hsve people on the phone telling, not prog~mmer typos, bot jost regular people, hcr~ to use the program. In tbet respect my business looks similar to very com- mercial ventures. The difference is that it's been made accessiible to people in a very unconditional ~vay, and that's what people hsve responded to. DAVID WBAR (game des~gner {or Acirvision): You don't hsve to sey tbat you either give ;t away or sell it. For example, a while back, just for the fun of it. I uled to see if I couid compress A"le pictures and l came up with some code that required less disk space, so I pub- lished the listing in a megazine and as a result other poople looked at it and said, "Hey, here's a better vvay,~' and it evolved tnraugh a whole bunch of people coming up with more and more compression. At the same šme I gsve the code itselS tc a publisher who put it out a. part of a packege and I get nice royal- ties from it. So it~s not one world or the other DOUG CAR15TON: I think that therets a certain lovei of naivete here about the commercial world as a whole. All you hsve to do is take a look at the Japa- nese >1inistry of Industry and Trade, MITI. Japan cer- tainly has getta be one of ~he most commerrial nations on Earth. With software they essentially wanted to require anybody who owned any proprietary product 1. PC-TALK.lit \35 sugges~ed donarion. frunn Fnec~aref Headlands P~ss, Bcx 862, Tibu~n, CA 94920. Av~ilable free dwough most u~en' ~reup5. _ .-,.~- ~ ~ ' ~ - ~ ...~. ~i 3~!i