From: sherwood@fenris.space.ualberta.ca (Sherwood Botsford)
Subject: Re: Open letter to NextDevelopers (long)(Flamebait)
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 22:08:43 GMT

Mr. Nicholson-Owens makes some very valid objections to my flamebait.

He missed one of my main points however.

If next applications were isolated from eachother, then most of his objections  
to my flames would be valid.  However the real question for any new application  
is:

Will it fit into my work style.

For that a fairly extended trial is necessary.  The two minute time can tell  
you if an application might be useful.  It does not tell you if it will be  
useful.

Another example:  Cassandra.  Initially I thought this program really neat.  I  
found, though after a week that there were too many things that I couldn't do.   
It went from launch on startup, to just sitting in the dock, to sitting on my  
disk, to the bit bucket.  It just didn't fit the way I work.

> >You have at most three minutes of my time to show me that  
> >a program is useful.  If it isn't, then it's gone.
> 
> This doesn't agree with your complaint about some demo programs not
> giving enough time (e.g., EquationBuilder and Communicae).  And since
> there are not that many programs for anything one might want to do on
> a NeXT, why are you limiting yourself to such a brief glimpse of the
> program?  How can you verify any of FrameMaker's powerful features in
> three minutes, even with the guided demo?
> 

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I'm speaking somewhat hyperbolically.  The 3  
minutes refers to the initial look at an app to see if it may meet my users  
needs.  I have 140 MB in /Untested currently.  At 3 minutes per megabyte it  
would take a full day to go through this.  What with installing, compiling, it  
takes actually takes more than three minutes. A program has to show that it's  
worth the time to give it a trial.

It's much like a resume.  The personnel manager spends 20 seconds reading the  
first page of your resume.  If he's interested he reads the rest.  If he's  
still interested he calls you for an interview.  

> This should be an obvious problem: how can you limit the use of the
> demo so that buying the program will be necessary, but still show the
> program off enough to make a sale?  

This is a very valid point worth answering in detail.  Several methods suggest  
themselves.  Some of them would a tad tricky to do in a way that wasn't easy to  
cheat.

	1.  Have the application check its own directory for writeability.  It  
writes to a location in its own executable once a minute.  When the total is 1  
hour, it deletes itself.  This would mean that people would have to reinstall  
it all the time if they wanted to keep using it, but an hour would enough time  
to really get to know the package.
	2.  Have the program check its own date on startup.  It will run for a  
week after that date.
	3.  Periodically post demo versions that are good until the first of  
next month.
	4.  Set up the demo version so that it only runs on Wednesday, but that  
it's full functioned on that day.  (I like this idea)
	5.  With a purchased version provide a palette of equation templates, a  
font set of extra symbols (the symbol set is limited...) a filter that allowed  
you to slurp up Mathematica from the notebook, and format it to your own  
style... 

> >	Twenty minutes, maybe.  It would be a nuisance to have to restart it  
> >three times per hour.  People who needed it for a single equation wouldn't  
> >register it.  People who used it day after day would pester me to get them a  
> >copy.	
> 
> People who need a single equation would probably never buy the program
> either.  Since you claim to have "multiple copies" of Frame, I'll go
> with the assumption that your equation-needing users compose their
> documents in Frame.  Since they are using Frame, they can also use the
> Frame Equation Editor.  Therefore the people that need only *one*
> equation (as you say above) will probably not get worried if they have
> to use the Frame Equation Editor.
> 
> 
Exactly.  And that is what does happen now.  So, in our shop EqB has to oust a  
pre-existing package from that niche.  And so for EqB to succeed here it needs  
to have a demoing capability that allows people to get comfortable with it,  
work with it, without having to fight it.

> >[The Communicae demo is] not very useful if
> >you have a 60,000 character graphics file.
> 
> This, again, is another good example of drawing the line between "a
> good demo" and "a free program".  Why not use a smaller example and
> determine whether Communicae will suit your needs?
> 
So now the user has to write an additional application (In VAX VMS fortran)  
that will write a shorter file so that he can tell if the emulator package  
meets his needs?  It's easier to move over to the Tek terminal for the two  
hours per month he needs it.  This can be used as an argument that he doesn't  
need it that badly, if he's not willing to test it.  However, Communicae lost a  
probable sale because of that.

> >	A while back I came across a neat addressbook/envelope addresser.  It  
> >too was crippled in a way that made it useless. I don't even remember it's  
> >name.
> 
> If this was a demo, then of course you won't be able to store all the
> information in the world and retreive it again after quitting.  You
> only need to type in a few dummy entries to determine if you will be
> able to do the kinds of things you need to be able to do with such a
> program, far fewer from the 100 addresses you complain about not being
> able to store.
> 
Wrong again.  With a hundred address capacity, I would find out if I ran it all  
the time, calling up peoples names. email addresses etc, much as I use a  
rolodex.  If it fits into my work style, I'll buy it.  I don't think of Next as  
a bunch of applications.  I use it as a working environment.

> >Make  
> >it more useful than painful and you'll get my PO.  
> 
> But how can one do this without giving their work away?  That's the
> whole point of a demo: it's a peek at what the program can do; whether
> it will do it for you on this demo is up to the programmer, but if it
> claims it can do something and you need that something, take it at
> it's word and *buy the program*.  If that claim is false, you have a
> good reason to get your money back.
> 

	Good question.  You can make it useful, but have quaint limits.  E.g. a  
database that only stores 100 items, or will only work on a file that is less  
than a month old.  Or a drawing program that will only allow three drawings in  
any given directory.  Or a load/save panel that makes you wait a full minute  
while it's saving.  Or a print panel that will only print half size, or prints  
with the word Demo overprinted.   For equation builder perhaps a possibility  
would be to have it quit on command-c.  That is, you would have to relaunch it,  
and reenter the equation each time you wanted to use it.
	Ideally it should be something that doesn't get in the way or is not  
annoying for occasional use, but can get really aggravating on repetition.

	I think that in the long run having programs out there that are  
somewhat useful in their demo version, very useful in their paid for version  
will generate more sales for you.

> >	Diagram in demo mode is usable.  Not very, because you can't save, but  
> >you could make a quick and dirty illustration, and cut and paste it to  
another  
> 
> This is an outright ridiculous expectation for a demo.  It's not a useful
> demo because it cannot *save*?  Get real.
> 
	This was really not clear.  Scott Anguish nailed me for it too.
	I was citing Diagram as a good example of the way a package can be  
crippled, be useful, and in the long run generate a sale.  DiagramDemo was  
useful enough because people could cut and paste from it and do things.  Since  
people also wanted to re-edit instead of redoing their work, I received  
requests to get a non-demo version.  


> It's also very *WRONG* to take work from a demo and use it in
> something other than that demo.  That is, effectively, making use of
> the program without paying for it which is, effectively, piracy.
> 
	Sorry to hear that.  I considered this as part of the evaluation  
process.  The ability to do that eventually generated the user requests to get  
the full version.

Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.advocacy