Put the knife down and take a green herb, dude. (c) Ruffin Bailey 2001-2018

Poor Joel can't stop getting under my skin. Bribing Bloggers - Joel on Software:

[Joel claims he accepted free hosting services for blather blather...] and only because Joel on Software is really a non-profit, advertising-free site and I was happy to accept the sponsorship.

Please, unless there were a few years I've missed (which could be the case, certainly), I always remember joelonsoftware linking to Fog Creek pretty directly. Self-pimping's fine (see page header). Pretending self-pimping's not advertising for profit ain't.

Here's an example of the current self-pimp at the bottom of the blog I'm quoting from, above:

About the Author: I'm your host, Joel Spolsky, a software developer in New York City. Since 2000, I've been writing about software development, management, business, and the Internet on this site. For my day job, I run Fog Creek Software, makers of FogBugz - the smart bug tracking software with the stupid name, and Fog Creek Copilot - the easiest way to provide remote tech support over the Internet, with nothing to install or configure.

Pretty pimpy.

Luckily, he does have the decently to make light of his pimpige, which mitigates the under-skinness a bit.

By reading this article you are contributing, at least indirectly, to the Joel Gets a Hot Tub fund.

Here's the issue: If you're a pimp, be comfortable admitting you're a pimp. There's really nothing wrong with having a business and trying to make a buck. This is not done mechanically. Heck, even the law isn't a set of rules; it's a conversation. Have conversations. Situationally decide your morals. I love being idealistic, but being so means operating with one hand tied behind your back. Being so is not, however, trying to confangle some wack explanation when you've stepped over your own idealistic lines.

There's a great line from Robin Williams' character in the movie Dead Again where he tells Kenneth Branaugh's character, who is constantly figeting with a pen, to decide if he's a smoker and be that. Same advice for Joel. You're successful now. Embrace the hot tub. Decide/realize you're the president/owner/CEO of a company, and be that.

What's the real issue that'll have to wait until I have more time? It's, of course, whether you can schizophrenically be two people, one who is a less-than-perfectly idealistic businessperson and another who is an idealistic blogger with unquestionable morals. The short answer is that you cannot, and that he has not. The long answer, well, will have to wait, and will boil down to the same answer, I'm betting.

(Btw, this ctrl-i, etc, shortcuts in Blogger plus Firefox's spellcheck (which I obviously ignore with regularity) make for a pretty neat in-browser app.)

Connected to yesterday's post on the heist of MacHeist, I thought I'd post a counterpoint from one of the participants. Why? As I looked over the software in the bundle for $49, I started getting pretty interested. RapidWeaver was an app I'd used before, back when it was in beta. Good idea, but not good enough for me to bite (I haven't used any of its html; nasty to hack, iirc, if only because of all the danged images the tempaltes used). Now it's a while later, and between it and a few others, I thought $49 ain't that bad a price.

As I've said before, there are three types of people:

Let me redefine #3 -- "Other/People you can do something about". Turns out this group includes people who would simply leave your software alone rather than pay full price. They're not going to crack it. They're going to do something worse, forever ignore it.

That's what MacHeist is getting around. I'd never try NewsFire, an RSS reader (I'm very happy with NetNewsWire Lite, which recently responded to a bug I'd filed for this free software!), outside of this bundle. But if I've got it, I'll give it a shot. I've never paid for RapidWeaver, though I'd like it. I'd probably never pay for Disco, a CD burning and tracking application. But for $49? Why not? Heck, if I clean up Digest Handler, would I take a flat MacHeist fee? Better believe it.

So on to that counterpoint from the horse's mouth.

Realmac Software | Weblog:
Over the past week the blogosphere has been alight with accusations that MacHeist is ripping off the developers. This is total rubbish. While MacHeist may be taking a bigger cut of the profit than the ten developers involved, I actually think the guys at Macheist deserve it. It takes a lot of time and effort to set up something as slick as this.

You also have to remember that MacHeist is only going to get a single hit of cash from this project, where as the developers will be reaping the benefits for a long time to come, paid upgrades anyone?
...
We also have thousands of potential new users. While a lot of people won't have purchased the bundle specifically for RapidWeaver they'll probably give it a whirl and hopefully love it. So when RapidWeaver 4 ships, they may just be tempted to pay for an upgrade. It's a win-win-win situation :-)