"Ware" labels perplexing

When J. Peter Maurer sold his popular Textpander utility to Macintosh software developer SmileOnMyMac, he didn't expect a wave of criticism. After all, he had tens of thousands of dedicated users and piles of positives reviews. As you type strings of text that you define, the program replaces them with plain or formatted text and images; type "homeaddr," for instance, and the utility inserts the mailing address you've defined. In olden days, this was called a "macro."

But carping arose from all corners of the blogosphere about how a "free" software program had become a $29.95 commercial package. In fact, neither claim was true, and this conflict shows how the terminology that labels software across the free to fee spectrum still perplexes users decades after shareware arose as a force in the Mac software world.

In the case of Textpander, now sold as TextExpander by SmileOnMyMac (www.smileonmymac.com/), bloggers were incorrect that the package was free; it was, rather, donationware. Likewise, the new software is commercial, but it can be used in a fashion without ever paying for it.

Maurer dryly wrote on his own blog that anyone who made a donation would have received a free license for the new product via e-mail. The complainers who found his product useful hadn't ponied up. The bloggers apologized. (An alternative shareware utility, TypeIt4Me, costs $27; www.typeit4me.com/.)

Textpander, is one of several "donationware" products that Maurer, a medical student, has programmed and updated in his spare time (www.petermaurer.de/).

In an interview via iChat with Maurer, who lives in southern Germany, he wrote, "I realize that the term 'donationware' might be misleading, in a sense that some interpret it as 'pay if you want,' while I've always interpreted it as 'pay as much as you want, but do pay if you use the application regularly.' " Maurer said that only about half a percent of downloaded copies of his software resulted in donations.

This minor scuffle is easy to understand when you look at the numerous terms that cover software you can use before payment.

Shareware dates back to at least the 1980s. An early Mac terminal software application called Red Ryder is considered one of the first success stories. (It was largely used for dialing into bulletin-board systems and transferring files, early shades of what the Web would offer.)

Before the rise of the Internet — and, more specifically, widespread broadband — distributing software as shareware was the only practical way for smaller developers. This let them avoid the cost of shrink-wrapped packaging, selling to distributors and retailers and billing. Shareware was intended to work on the honor system: Use the software, and then pay the fee.

As more users joined the Internet, the shareware ethos faded a bit, and many developers migrated from pure shareware into a variant that still allowed extensive usage without payment but was more likely to result in satisfied users ponying up.

• Crippleware. Software distributed with some features disabled. Pay the fee and those features are enabled when you enter a code.

• Trialware and disableware. Software distributed with a limited number of days or uses as part of the license, like 30 days or 10 launches. After that time, the software disables itself and ceases to work without a registration code.

• Demoware. Although demoware is often synonymous with trialware, it can include software that works only in a limited fashion, or which labels all of its results with a "demo" flag. For instance, you might be able to print from a demoware version of a word processor, but the words, "TRIAL COPY" might appear in giant gray letters on every page.

• Freeware. No-cost software often with a single, limited purpose. (This is distinct from "free software," where unrestricted access to programming code is more important than the no-cost angle.)

• Nagware. Fully functional software that regularly reminds you to pay.

TextExpander has been transformed into nagware, even though SmileOnMyMac's founder Greg Scown rightly dislikes that term.

"We're trying to find a way to say, take the product and use it, we won't get in your face, we won't annoy you, but we will remind you this is software produced by a commercial software house," Scown says.

The firm answers tech-support e-mails within one business day, and often much faster.

TextExpander has two levels of payment reminders. Within the first 30 days, the software alerts you every time it calculates you've saved an hour of typing. After 30 days, Scown said, TextExpander displays a translucent reminder that requires no action after every 10th expansion of a shortcut.

Incidentally, TextExpander is also a quite useful piece of software; this flap introduced it to me, and it's now part of my recommended set of utilities to make my use of Mac OS X more efficient.

Glenn Fleishman writes the Practical Mac column for Personal Technology and about technology in general for The Seattle Times and other publications. Send questions to gfleishman@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists