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Sat 30 Aug 2003
Tons of Work
Category : Commentary/tonsofwork.txt
Since I made the decision to stop doing pro bono server trouble-shooting for people, I've managed to get tons of my own work done. Does doing shareware pay? I'm not so sure. For all the time I spent designing the software, testing it, writing the documentation, and then answering all the questions, only about 25 people bothered to pay the shareware fee (making a grand total income of $250) - out of about 8,000 to 10,000 downloads. One would have thought that the ability to help people do something they couldn't do for months would be better valued. So, this needs more thought, though it's definitely a great experience. There's a fine line between wanting to help the platform grow, and the need to watch over the health of your own business. It's better to keep things on an even keel. On a related matter, I've got Postfix running in Jaguar on one server, as well as on my iBook which I lug around everywhere. It's truly a "drop-in" replacement for sendmail. And I've got a copy of Panther, courtesy of Ernest P. The question is? Does Postfix on Panther even need an Enabler? At this point, if you just want to send mail out and you're handy with the command line, I don't really think so. But I did blow a large chunk of the $250 on Postfix and DNS books and three weeks reading them. Running a full-fledged mail server (with incoming and outgoing streams, and the need to get things like DNS right) is always going to be a different proposition. It may be better to help people understand the difference right from the start.
Posted at 3:57PM UTC | permalink
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