Yet More MacHeist
Simone Manganelli replies to my last post about MacHeist (I promise this is the last post I make about this).
This is the crux of the issue:
“As with the music industry and the movie industry, I think the middleman should be cut out of the equation. The MacHeist organizers are completely superfluous.”
I’m sure many developers completely agree (in fact, if blog posts are any indication, most indie developers—those who weren’t in MacHesit, anyway—agreed last year). But that really isn’t your or their problem. The developers who participate in MacHeist sell their software every day of the week without a middle man. So they see some value in MacHeist, even if you don’t.
I think most people approach this issue as “would I personally make a deal with MacHest in the same situation?” But that will never matter unless you actually did make a deal. The only people who criticized MacHeist (Gus Mueller, John Gruber, Paul Kafasis, et al.) were those who didn’t participate. If you want to see the opinion of a developer who did, Oliver Breidenbach defends MacHeist in this Mac DevCenter post (be sure to read the comments).
Also, Wil Shipley is always right. It is a fact.