Andrew Fluegelman
| Andrew Fluegelman | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Andrew Cardozo Fluegelman November 27, 1943 |
| Died | c. July 6, 1985 (aged 41) |
| Cause of death | Alleged suicide |
| Occupation | Publisher |
Andrew Cardozo Fluegelman (November 27, 1943 – c. July 6, 1985) was a publisher, photographer,programmer and attorney best known as a pioneer of what is now known as the shareware business model for software marketing. He was also the founding editor of both PC World and Macworld and the leader of the 1970s New Games movement, which advocated the development of noncompetitive games.
In 1981 Fluegelman was the owner and sole employee of The Headlands Press, a small book publisher in Tiburon, California. He had attended an early computer expo in San Francisco in the late 1970s, and after agreeing to publish and coauthor Writing in the Computer Age decided to purchase his first computer. In October Fluegelman received one of the first IBM PCs sold in San Francisco, and in two weeks began to write his own accounting program in IBM BASIC.
In late 1982 Fluegelman developed PC-Talk, a very popular and successful communications software. He marketed it under a system he called "Freeware", which he characterized as "an experiment in economics more than altruism".Freeware was licensed under terms that encouraged users to make voluntary payments for the software, and it allowed users to copy and redistribute the software freely as long as the license terms and text were not altered. He collaborated with PC-File (database software) developer Jim Knopf to adopt similar names (PC-File was originally "Easy-File"), and prices, for their initial shareware offerings; they also agreed to mention each other's products in their program's documentation.
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