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I am currently developing my first serious piece of software in C#. It is a good learning experience so far.

My software is basically a task scheduling tool with some advanced features and capabilities.

I am not near the finishing stages yet, but I was wondering what people's opinions are on trial versions of software. Do you think it would be more beneficial, in general, to have a limited time trial (say 30 days) or a limited functionality version of the software?

I think I know which I would go with, however I always like to listen to the opinions of others.

Thanks,

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  • Is this software you are trying to market, or are you trying to figure out which type of software you will integrated into your package?
    – Jay Elston
    Mar 25, 2014 at 5:07
  • Neither at the moment. I like to hear people's opinions and that is what this question was mostly about. Saying that, I would probably implement my own as I like to learn new things on the journey...
    – Michael Murphy
    Mar 25, 2014 at 8:37

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I would recommend neither. Go full open-source for this one project. Your first public software release is primarily a learning experience, and you'll learn more from an open-source project than from a free trial. You need to get some experience managing your user community, predicting and responding to needs, and understanding how people will use the things that you build. Open-source means that your more experienced users can more easily help you with these tasks.

By the time you get to a point where trialware is a reasonable option for you, you'll already know the answer to this question for the software you build

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  • I like this answer and I totally agree. I'm not making this project to make money and to be honest I dont think it has a great potential to anyway. Thought I do like it, I am interested in it and I feel that others will find it useful when it is complete. This question was mainly sparked by my pondering about how these things work, and what people think the best solutions are. Thank you
    – Michael Murphy
    Mar 24, 2014 at 23:15
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    Open source projects can be trial also. People think open source projects as something giveaway free software. No!
    – Mert Akcakaya
    Mar 24, 2014 at 23:45

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