Commercial Software is copyrighted software that is sold in the stores, or by mail order, and you must pay for it before you can use it. Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Corel Word Perfect, Microsoft Office, Lotus Smart Suite, and the various components of those Suites are examples of Commercial Software. I cannot legally give you, or loan you, a copy of this type of software, so please don't even ask. I can install my software on the computer I bring to meetings and show you how the program works, and I, and others like Bruce, Paula, and others, do exactly that.

Some software is completely free; the author, or someone otherwise entitled to copyright it, has instead given it freely to the Public Domain. We can give you copies of this software perfectly legally, and you don't owe anyone anything (except possibly you may owe the person that gave it to you a blank disk, or a reasonable charge for copying the software to the disk.

Shareware software fits somewhere between Public Domain (PD) software and Commercial Software. It is software that the author has copyrighted, but he has publically granted permission to give a copy of the software to someone else, or allow them to download the software from a bbs, for the purpose of evaluating it before paying for it. With some software they may ask you to pay for it after trying it for one week, or one month, or some other time interval. It is perfectly legal for us to give you a copy of the software, but you are morally obligated to mail the person their registration fee if you like the software and continue to use it. Examples of such Shareware software is the BananaCom software Bruce and I give to people. If you have tried it, you will see when you exit the notice "Please use BananaCom as much as you like for seven days. Then send a check for $25 to Banana Programming, 1916 Brooks #205, Missoula, MT 59801." If I used the software, I would certainly register it; $25 is a very fair price. I have not registered it, because other than installing it for someone or to show someone how to install and use it, I don't use it as my comm program. The RoboMail program we use with the QWK feature on the BBS is another example of Shareware software. I certainly intend to register my package; I have not done so because the address we have on our copy is not the current address. Rocky Frisco is trying to contact the author, to find out where he moved, and whenever we find out that information, we will inform people in a message on the BBS, and here in the I/O Port.

Will you be arrested if you don't register Shareware? No. But if the author has done a good enough job writing the program, and has been generous enough to let you try it out before you buy it, and if after trying it out, you decide it is good enough to keep, isn't it good enough that you should pay for it?

Is there any advantage, other than a clear conscience, to registering software? It depends on the software. When you send BananaCom their $25, they will send you a version that does not have the "beg" screen at the end, and the alternating "/" and "\" that kills time when you exit will disappear, and you will be able to exit immediately. RoboMail gives you 21 days to evaluate it. If you don't send them their $35, the program will continue to work, but it will take a one second delay before it will exit on the 22nd day, 2 seconds on the 23rd day, and increasing the delay one second each day, until hopefully you find it annoying enough that you will register the blasted thing. I demonstrated a program called Sifter at one of the internet meetings that lets you go through a bunch of graphic files and separate them into different categories. With the Shareware version, you can separate them into four different categories; with the registered version you get 50 different categories, and you can enlarge the image being viewed by maximizing the program, and you can handle more formats than just GIF and JPG.

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