“I try to avoid accepting freebies. It isn’t that I have oodles
of bread or enjoy paying for things when maybe I don’t have to, but
paying for that which I receive simplifies things considerably.
This isn’t simply a matter of my belief that people should be paid
for what they do (which belief I think is one of the fundamentals
of right and wrong). Instead, it’s so that if i write something you
can be sure that even though I might be wrong, my wrongness wasn’t
purchased.”
“…But when a software publisher offers a product for money, I
do not as a rule accept a free copy. It isn’t that I disagree with
reviewers who do get review copies. But I find that my delight at
money well spent, or anger at money squandered, is just a touch
deeper if there were actually money involved. I have written and
will write again about Kapital, the personal finance manager being
developed for Linux by theKompany.com. I bought a license for it,
even though I suppose I could have gotten it for free. (Now that I
think of it, I believe there’s a demo that everybody can get for
free.) When I write about it, I’ll know and now you will, too, that
my opinion is uninfluenced by exogenous variables.”
“So it was with trepidation, and only after discussion with
colleagues, that I accepted a freebie, one of three desktop
developments I want to take a look at this week. The freebie is
version 1.2 of HancomOffice, the Linux office suite developed in
Korea. I had taken a look at it a few months ago and was
tremendously unimpressed. The head of the company emailed me a
couple of weeks ago and asked that I take a second look, at the new
version, a copy of which would be sent to me if I wanted it. I
agreed to do so. (For those who keep track of such things, it costs
$45 to send a copy of Hancom Office from Seoul, Korea, to Newtown,
Connecticut, USA, via FedEx.)”