CompuServe Messages

It sounds like you're approaching this whole issue from the standpoint of trying to make some cash, whereas I'm approaching it as a guy trying to get a job done. If you publish software, then PD software is "Bad". It's software that people can use with no money changing hands – that can't be good for the industry, can it? Meanwhile Joe Programmer writes a program because nobody else has written it yet and he needs it, and he releases it. Joe User also needs that program. Because Joe Programmer has a day job, he decided not to start a company and sell the program commercially. You'd have Joe User never find out that what he needs does exist. And this does happen, fairly regularly from what I've seen. I think Amazing Computing does a great service (do they still do it?) printing the Fish listings in their magazines, because this gives the user a way to see if a program exists to do what he wants, and if it does, a way to get ahold of it without having to go buy a modem or find a "User Group". …Steve