UltraEdit for Linux: who wants a license discount?

Sun Nov 8 10:54:20 IST 2009

On Sunday 08 Nov 2009 08:35:58 Dotan Cohen wrote:
> > Putting the forums in BCC is a good start, but what would work even
> > better is if you actually posted it separately. The way you posted it
> > makes it extremely difficult for people to answer you publicly. I suspect
> > the only reason this was posted at all was because one of the other
> > admins manually approved it (which I wouldn't, by the way, for the reason
> > stated above).
> 
> I see, thanks Shachar for the explanation. This is how I learn!
> 

This is also how I learnt recently, after sending an email to several lists 
with different subscribers, and being told it was not advisable. Trial by 
fire. ;-)

> > I'm not going to buy it as I
> > don't need it, in fact I didn't even test the betas due to university
> > time constraints! If anyone wants my discount, just ask.
> >
> > But that's just the point, isn't it?
> 
> I am not a coder, therefore I do not need a coder's text editor. But I
> figured that given the nature of this list, someone here might be
> interested.
> 

And it is naturally on-topic here. I can also forward your message to Hackers-
IL / Perl-IL / etc. (separately of course) where there are other programmers. 

> > Even on Windows, you rarely have to go with commercial solutions. There
> > are free (which are free) solutions that do an excellent job. On Linux
> > the market is even more saturated.
> 
> I would say that there are a few markets which are saturated for free
> (foss or money) solutions, yet there is room for a high quality
> commercial product. Office suits, for example (I would gladly pay for
> MS Office if it ran on Ubuntu and saved in compliant ODF, it really is
> a good program). Or even web browsers (I would pay for Opera if they
> still required it, it is that good).

:-)

Yes, I can think of other niches that exhibit a lot of FOSS , non-FOSS 
freeware and commercial and/or prorietary solutions:

* Bug trackers - 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_issue_tracking_systems

Bugzilla seems to be the most visible , but there is no clear winner here, and 
there are many commercial (and even very pricey) solutions despite a lot of 
high-quality free software offerings.

* Version control systems - http://better-scm.berlios.de/ - a lot of high-
quality open-source options, but still commercial options such as Perforce , 
Rational/IBM ClearCase , and other smaller options are doing fine.

* SQL databases - several high-quality and/or common open-source options, and 
there's still room for some commercial competition.

Etc.

Regarding text editors, I myself am pretty happy with gvim and vim ( 
http://www.vim.org/ ) as my text editors, but I'm also using kate and other 
editors for editing mixed Hebrew/Latin text and naturally often use the built-
in text editors of applications (like KMail here or Firefox's <textarea>'s 
edit box). 

I'm not sure if there's a lot of market for non-free editors on Linux - most 
low-cost, but non-FOSS development tools I've heard about for Linux failed to 
sell a lot. But naturally UltraEdit for Linux may be an option for people who 
are used to UltraEdit on Windows, or for people who would like to use a common 
editor on both platforms and don't want to get used to a Windows-specific 
editor. I wish UltraEdit the best success in making money, directly or 
indirectly, of the Linux version. However, like I said, I'm happy with Vim, 
and due to a previous bad experience with a non-free software 
package[BitKeeper], I prefer to avoid depending or getting used to non-FOSS 
software as much as I can.

{{{{
[BitKeeper] - see http://better-scm.berlios.de/docs/shlomif-evolution.html

and http://better-scm.berlios.de/bk/bk_suitability.html
}}}}

> 
> > As a point of proof - even the beta testers don't need the program.
> 
> This beta tester is not a coder!
> 

Right.

> > In any case, now is a good time to show the commercial viability of
> > Linux and support UltraEdit.
> >
> > That sentence would have been appropriate had the people of the list
> > decided to use UE without paying. I'm sure you don't think we would, for
> > the sake of showing economic viability, buy products we don't intend to
> > use, do you?
> 
> I certainly do not expect one to purchase software that he does not
> need. I asked under the assumption that someone here may be
> unsatisfied with VIM/Emacs/Eclipse.

Yes. BTW, is there a shareware version of UltraEdit available for download for 
a free-as-in-beer trial?

> 
> > This is not a cynical question. Can you provide us with anything UE does
> > that is not available in any number of free automatically installed
> > editors, most of which are the default text handlers anyway? I'm asking
> > because the question of economic viability stems from demand and supply,
> > not from spending money on ideologically buying something you don't need.
> 
> Start here:
> http://www.ultraedit.com/products/ultraedit/what_can_ultraedit_do_for_you.h
> tml
> 
> > In other words, it's UE that need to supply the viability, not the
> > community. The community just needs to be willing to spend the money
> > where the product justifies it.
> 
> Agreed.

I agree too. It seems that in the Linux world (and UNIX world in general) 
there's much less market for shareware and other low-cost software than for 
Windows or Mac OS (either Mac OS X or the pre-X Mac OS "Classic"). I don't 
know the reason for that, but part of it may be due to the inherent diversity 
of Linux, the BSDs and UNIX (including a proliferation of CPU architectures 
and many distributions), and the aversion of many "hard-core" Linux 
enthusiasts from using software that isn't open-source or to recommend it to 
their friends. 

If free, Unix-based, operating systems take over the world (and I sure hope it 
will happen, and I am actually trying to assist it happening myself), we may 
see a huge decline in the amount of shareware being produced. That may not be 
a bad thing as most shareware out there is bad, most shareware authors sell 
very few licences[Ettlinger] , a lot of shareware has high-quality open-source 
alternatives (or can easily be duplicated using some hackery by half-clueful 
programmers), and the culture of open-source software may be a good or better 
substitute, even if we take earning a living from it as a consideration. As 
ESR notes in the Magic Cauldron (see 
http://catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/magic-cauldron/ar01s03.html ) 
most of the software out there does not have any direct sale value, but is 
written primarily for its use value. 

{{{{
[Ettlinger] - in an interview I conducted with him:

http://www.shlomifish.org/open-source/interviews/adrian-ettlinger.html

A shareware author (among many other claims to fame) said that:

<<<<
It's not a very high volume business; we've only sold about 4,000 copies over, 
let's see, about 8 years now. 
>>>>

I believe most shareware out there sells much less than 4,000 copies. 
}}}}

There are very few people who got rich out of selling shareware, but there are 
also quite a few successful companies delivering open-source or mostly open-
source products. If you're into selling or distributing software, you are 
likely destined to not become very rich. So it's probably not so bad.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

-- 
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Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
"The Human Hacking Field Guide" - http://shlom.in/hhfg

Chuck Norris read the entire English Wikipedia in 24 hours. Twice.