Ewan's Musings

To Pay or not to Pay

Thanks to my involvment in the Open Source OPL Project, I'm looking at all areas of development, to see where the new author needs some help, to ensure that new authors coming to Symbian don't have to hunt for information - especially those who are programming for the first time, perhaps in OPL. It's struck me that while I have a lot of knowledge on some areas, there is a very large gap that I think I need to fill. Being a shareware author.

Since I started releasing applications, they have all been free software through FreEPOC. It's served me well, but the last few weeks have led me to ponder about releasing one or two apps as shareware to see what it'slike, and if the support issues, backend support and a million and one other things are any different.

So I think my next application is going to be released as a shareware application (ie the one after Quad, which is out next week on the Communicator). Whether I put it out in my name, or my trusty pseudonym that I've used for coding commisions previously remains to be seen.

But no matter what it's an interesting exercise. How many registrations it garners is also intruiging. Seeing as it's an arcade game I reckon I can count on only 4-6 weeks of true sales. Anyone want to make a guess at how many sales I can get? I like to have a personal target that's realistic. Is 40 regs good? Or 60? or 100? Who knows.

Let's find out.