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Shareware/Freeware Authors

Written by Matthias Kahlert, mkahlert@kagi.com
http://www.GeoCities.com/SiliconValley/Pines/8031/index.htm

General Information: The Different Types of Software

You have surely heared about all that different types of software: Public Domain, Freeware, Shareware, Postcardware, etc. But do you know the differences? On this page I'll try to give you a short survey of that topic.

But the details of that software types are often depending on the country you live in. For example in Germany their is no counterpart to Public Domain... For more information about legal details please try to contact a UserGroup or a Shareware organisation in your country.

Shareware

Shareware is a special way of distributing software. Shareware allows the user to test the software in a given time period without paying any fee. Therefore it is also called "User Supported" or "Try Before You Buy" software. If the user wants to keep on using the software after that evaluation (trial) period has expired, he has to pay a fixed licence fee to the author of the software. If he doesn't want to pay that fee, he is not allowed to use that software anymore.

Shareware is in contrast to commercial software freely available to all users. The author gives up the right to restrict the spreading of his software. The author has no influence on how his software is spread: WWW Archives, CD-ROMs, Mailboxes, etc. Everybody is allowed to copy and distribute the software.

From this it followes that the user has to pay the expenses on getting that software (e.g. downloading from a FTP server or buying a Shareware CD-ROM).

Freeware

Freeware is the free counterpart of Shareware. The software can be used free of charge and there is no testing time period.

Public Domain

Public Domain is a type of software that had it's origin in USA.

All software applications that arised with state support (universities, colleges, research institutes, etc.) had to be made available to all US citizens unrestricted and free of charge. The authors lost all (!) rights on their software.

Other Types

There are still some other types of software, but all that are based on the types described above. Postcardware for example is like Shareware, but instead of getting money the author just requests a postcard from the user. The same applies to Mailware (author request an e-mail), Beerware (author request a bottle of beer), etc.

Annotations

For more details about software types and legal rights inside Germany please visit the homepage of the European Shareware Authors Organisation (OASE).

Thanks to Rainer Eschen from OASE for his description of the different shareware types.

Modified on 16. August 1997

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