Posted by admin on August 14, 2009 under Software Architect | 
Copyright
Nearly every freeware or shareware application contains the text “Copyright (c) 19xx by …”. But is it legal to put that message into an application without registering the copyright?
Yes! It is legal!
Yes, it is legal to copyright an application.
Under the Berne convention, copyright is granted to you by default the moment you create something. Everything you write is your intelectual property, your copyright. It is automatically granted once you fix any creative expression. Registration allows you to claim higher damages, and aids in thwarting infringment.
The copyright text is simply a reminder of that to others, a way to make sure that they can’t try to weasle out of court by saying “oh, but it didn’t say ‘copyright’ anywhere, so I had reason to believe that it was in the public domain”.
What about the Laws?
The laws vary from country to country, and in the U.S. in particular you need to be careful.
In the UK and most european countries as far as I know you own copyright by default when you create something, unless it is explicitly assigned elsewhere as in a contract of employment for example. You don’t need to declare your copyright to retain it in these countries, but you should…
In the U.S. it is my understanding that in order not to loose your copyright you must ensure that every copy you distribute clearly declares your copyright. If you don’t take these measures you risk being unable to take action against people copying your software without permission.
Copyright Offices
Why should you then register your copyright at an official copyright office?
Because it makes it easier to prove that you are the copyright holder, and to attach a date to the fact in case somebody claims to have created the thing before you did, whereafter you snatched it and put your own copyright text on it (which would of course be illegal!). A formal registration provides you an additional protection against infringement.
Other Possibilities
Adding the copyright message cannot demonstrate that the program is really yours (I could steal somebody else code and say it’s mine). A cheap way to solve this is to go to the notary office and deposit a copy of your program. In case of problems the notary office can proof the date you developed the application.
-- by Matthias Kahlert
Posted by admin on under Software Architect |
Matthias Kahlert’s views on – What should be called a Good Software.
Software Quality
If you want the people to pay for your application it should have a high quality standard. It should be adequate to commercial application.
You should especially invest your time into the user interface. There can be as many good features and functions that other application don’t provide, but if it has a bad user interface it won’t be bought… People like to see nice icons, 3D buttons and pictures, so don’t neglect it. But don’t use too heavy graphics, and don’t make it too colorful!
And your application has to be bug free! No crashes, no bugs, no errors, no misbehavior! The major software companies can make some mistakes and they will still sell their applications.
So before shipping your application it is very important to test it. Find some beta testers that try your application on their machines, try it yourself at all possible circumstances (like locked disks, wrong calling parameters, etc.).
Software Usefulness
No one is willing to pay a shareware fee of US$20 for an application that he uses once a year. And make your application as easy to use as possible. Nobody likes to click through 20 dialog windows each time he uses the program.
Software Uniqueness
If there are ten other programs that do exactly the same like your application and that are as good as yours, your shareware registrations will obviously be low. If this is your situation you should consider to kill your project and try to concentrate on more promising things.
Easy Registrations
Make it as easy as possible for the users to pay your shareware fee. You should use a payment service provider like Kagi or Quicomm that handle the registrations for you. By using such a service the users can may with many different methods: cash, check, credit card, virtual cash, etc. And the most important thing: You don’t have to deal with all that registrations, they handle all for you (think about bad checks, or what would you do with credit card payments…).
And you should offer site licenses where appropriate. For some utilities site licenses can be very profitable.
Excellent Support
Always provide a very excellent support. Give the user the possibility the choose from different ways how to contact you: e-mail, fax, phone, etc. Concentrate especially on the e-mail support. Goodwill and badwill can flow very quickly across the Internet or other online systems (CompuServe, AOL). You can get very good publicity through the Internet…
Posted by admin on under Software Architect |
Have you ever tried to decipher the software version numbers? Here is a nice article by Matthias Kahlert.
Related Terms – Software Build Number, Version Numbering System, Software Release Numbering, Verizon Software Update Number, Apple Numbers Software, Number 6 Software, Software Serial Number, Number Six Software
Have you ever wondered what the digits of the version numbers are meaning? Here is the answer:
Version Number Layout
Version number usually consist of three digits. A change in the first digit indicates a major enhancement, a change in the second digit indicates a feature update, and a change in the third digit indicates a bug fix or a correction. If just the last digit changes, there is usually no change in the user interface or in the application layout, it’s just a fix in the application code that the user normally can’t see or recognize. If the third digit of the version number is a zero (0) is it usually dropped. So “My Application v5.3.0″ is called “My Application v5.3″, or “Second Application v7.0.0″ is called “Second Application v7.0″.
If you also release beta versions or development versions, you can also put that beta number behind the version number, starting with an “d” (development) or “b” (beta).
For example “My Application v5.3.2b5″ tells the user:
- This application had 5 major updates or enhancements.
- There have been three minor updates since version v5.0.
- You did 2 bug fixes in version v5.3.
- And it is the 5th beta version of v5.3.2.
Using such a numbering system the user can easily see, if he uses the most recent version of your application and how many updates you released since he got his first copy of it.
Application and File Names
You should also use these version number in the file names of your applications. This helps, especially on large CD-ROM collections, to find the most recent version.
For example I cataloged all of my applications in a kind of file database, and when I search for a specific file, it’s always fine to get version number in the search results.
You should also include the version number in the file names on your FTP site. If your application is named “My Application” and the version number is v5.3.2, the FTP file name should be “my-application-532.sit.hqx”. In this case the dots inside the version number are usually removed.
