I have a couple of freeware programs that I make a bit of money from. Even though they are free, many users still send me money. I'd like to start working on a larger project that I've been asked to build, and won't have much time for the shareware projects any more. However, to be fair to the users (and to myself), I don't want the projects to just die.
One of these projects will soon have much of it's functionality superceeded by Tiger, but the other I'm considering selling off to another developer. In fact, I nearly did so late last year, but negotiations fell through at the last minute (we'd agreed on a price and terms of sale, but he ran out of money, apparently).
So you might wonder why would you pay money for a freeware product? And why would I expect to get money for a freeware product? Well, this software has absolutely no crippled features for non-paying users, no nagging, nothing. However, some users actually like to pay for what they get, and they do actually send me money for the software. So although it's freeware, it is still an income earner.
I'm getting around about $1000 (US) per year from a freeware product so I expect that by simply introducing a nag screen, or an expiry time, or some other incentive, I could get substantially more than this. In fact, I'll probably try this in the next release. Also I've never done any advertising apart from posting release notifications at Version Tracker. With advertising, I'm sure the software would be even more popular than it is.
The software was first released about 3 years ago, and has been included in several paper magazines, and is very popular in it's niche. There are a few competitors, but it stacks up well and has a large user base (partially due to being first to market in it's niche for Mac OS X).
So let's say I got double that figure per year with a little nag screen, I guess that (US$2000) would be a reasonable asking price for the XCode project, including all related files. If you think it's unreasonable, but would still be interested, by all means make me an offer (details can be had by PM). However, I'm not desperate to sell, so I may or may not be inclined to accept it - depending on the weather.
I can provide PayPal and Kagi data to prove the income, and will provide a URL to download the software to anyone who PMs me. Likewise I can provide more detailed answers to any questions to anyone who PMs. I've also got a negotiable list of conditions of sale that I made up with the guy with whom the sale fell through last year.
I would also be available to assist any buyer in understanding various parts of my code.
Sorry for not being too specific about the actual software itself in this message, but I don't need anyone commenting on my own handiwork in this forum.
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