If you’re a software developers there are numerous reasons you might want to give away software for free and there are numerous ways to go about giving it away. If you just want to give away your code for purely altruistic reasons and don’t care about profit, then open-sourcing your code is the best way to go. However if you want to one day make a living off your software, you might want to consider releasing a freeware or shareware version: users get a basic version and can pay if they want more bells and whistles. But what if you’re already a commercial developers and just want to give away a few full copies of your software for marketing reasons?
While it may be a good idea, there are a number things you need to careful. You want to make sure that not too many people get their hands on the free full copy or else your revenue stream goes up in smoke. Stopping piracy in such a situation becomes of paramount importance. The solution? Get in touch with the guys at Give Away of the Day. Everyday, these guys give away, for free, one full software that you would normally have to pay for. Each software is only available for 24 hours and must be activated within the given time period. And if you delete it, or reformat your disk, you can’t get it back. While end users get free goodies, developers benefit from the publicity and what’s more, they claim to pay software publishers for the software that is downloaded. It’s a win-win situation for all concerned. So go take a look and grab yourself some free goodies.
And thanks to Carol for letting us know about it.