Chaos Computer Club 1997 February/cccd_beta_feb_97.iso/chaos/habi1/txt/hb1_26.txt

Text File | 1997-02-28 | 13KB | 311 lines

    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 poople─40 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 oüt 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
    registraÜon 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~. ─STEVE 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 PARC─which was wasted at Xerex
    and later at Apple turned into the Macintosh─is 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

    ─S.B.

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                        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."
    ─BOB 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 Üme 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.

    _ .-,.~-
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