permaculture

[paul wheaton <paul@richsoil.com>]

Let's see ... in the mid 80's I gave my pascal UI stuff away for free
and saw commercial companies merge them into their own products and
manage to have dozens of employees.  In the early 90's I put my C++
libraries out there in the public domain, only to see them rise into
successful commercial products for others.  Around 94 I put out some
DOS terminal software as shareware (people pay on the honor system)
which became wildly popular and I made heaps of dough.  When the
internet came along, I made a web browser and bill gates said he was
making a web browser and giving it away - so I shelved mine.  I
converted my terminal software to freeware and gave it away.  I have
since created heaps of free web sites - some more popular than others,
and given away a lot more source code.

So, in the great big world of giving stuff away, I think I've given a
lot away.  And the stuff I've given away has turned out to be really
popular.  My java site currently gets 2.1 million visitors each month.

So my strategy is to get this stuff in front of as many non-eco
eyeballs as possible.  And based on my knowledge set at this time
(which includes open source stuff) I think copyrighted freeware is the
best strategy.

As for asking for a donation:  what I would much prefer over a few
hundred dollars is to get a few links.  Links help me convey this
information which is my current passion.  Links from facebook and
twitter are good; links from a blog are better; links from a static
home page is the best.  The commercial sites with their 10,000 paid
for links are nudging me out.  And I refuse to buy links because I
think it is wrong (and because I delete that link spam from the
permies forums every day).

BTW:  I made another free web page.  This one features the seven free
youtube videos of  Michael "Skeeter" Pilarski giving a group of us a
free wildcrafting lesson.

http://www.richsoil.com/michael-pilarski.jsp

On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 11:50 PM, Douglas Woodard <dwoodard@becon.org> wrote:
> <http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/income-guide/intro.html>
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