One Problem With Making Your Software Free…

Published on by Nick Bradbury

…is that it’s easy to dismiss what people want, because they’re not giving you money for it.

Sure, I enjoy making money as much as the next guy or gal, but I’m really doing this because it’s fun.  I like writing software, and I’m going to keep writing it until my fingers break off. 

There’s no point in creating software in a vacuum – you’ve got to make it useful, make it scratch an itch, for it to be truly rewarding.  And to do that, you’ve got to listen.  You’ve got to pay attention to what people are asking for and what they’re complaining about.

So, regardless of whether you’ve paid for FeedDemon in the past or you’re a new user now that it’s free, I’m not going to stop listening.  It wouldn’t be fun otherwise.

13 thoughts on “One Problem With Making Your Software Free…”

  2. Nick, I’m a long-time FD user (and, well, one of those former NG subscribers), and I’m compelled to say that the passion you display in your post may be the very reason why; it seems very much that you love this stuff just as much as I do, and you code it like you use the thing every day. FeedDemon is a wonderful product, and I thank you for its utter usefulness; may it prosper going forward. I look forward to its every iteration.
    Cheers,
    Paul

  3. I’ve purchased FeedDemon a year ago and find it very useful. One problem with the 2.6 release: desktop alert displays ?????? instead of Cyrillic feed names, they are shown fine in the tree, but not in the alert.

  4. @paul: thank you – that’s really nice to hear!
    @dennis: even though FeedDemon is now free, you’re more than welcome to donate to the “Nick Bradbury Pizza & Beer Fund” at any time ;)

  6. nick, you rock! :)
    your software is always top notch and you really go that extra step with features people are asking for.
    can’t express how much i respect you :)
    thanks.

  7. I’ve been with ya since the days of HomeSite and switched to FeedDemon once I heard about it and have been through the non-syncing days on forward throught the NewsGator integration – you’ve *always* accomodated new feature requests when it made sense for the product: just keep doing that and you’ll be fine!
    In fact, now that’s it’s free, you should feel more empowered to tell people to piss off :)
    Honestly though – you’ve always done a rock solid job with FeedDemon – the fact that it’s free now is just a bonus!

  8. I’ve been using FeedDemon for two years now, and very happily using it, it’s great software. Making it free comes at the right time, my free licence for NewsGator would have expired in March :-)

  10. > @Serge: could you share the URL of a Cyrillic feed that triggers this bug?
    Any Cyrillic feed, even a custom Watch with Cyrillic title. This was not an issue in 2.5, was broken somewhere between the latest 2.6 betas.
    Sample: http://oper.ru/rss.php .

  12. This program is an absolute MUST HAVE. By far the best RSS reader. Thank you very much for all the inspired work you have put into this software so that the rest of us technological illiterates can enjoy a vastly enhanced Internet experience.
    Very much appreciated.

  13. If the interface gets cleaned up I may return to FD. Even free, the interface is too …. ick. Clean crisp and well defined. You know the exact opposite of anything: MS is doing, and of course Web 2.0.
    Sort by title only works in Surfer, and it’s the least usable for me. Bummer.
    It is fast and reliable, but usable is not a word I use to describe it. Frustating.

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