1. A few words on Shareware

MusicBox 2.00 is shareware. Let me just take a few moments of your time to
explain this popular concept for those of you who are still unfamiliar with
it.

There are at least two forms of "free software". One is freeware, and as
you may have guessed, this means that the software is completely free of
any charges. You may use it, copy it and do whatever you want with it,
without having to pay anything to the author.

Shareware is almost  the  same  thing. You are free to use and copy the
program as crazy as you want, but continued use of shareware software
requires registration. That is, if you use the program frequently, you
must register it with the author. This usually entails that you have to
mail a couple of bucks to the author, who will then be extatic with joy and
probably send you something in return (his latest creation, for example).

However, most people still do not really do this. They continue to use
shareware programs without registering, because they know that nobody has
the authority to actually DO anything about it. As a shareware programmer,
you have very few means of physically enforcing the laws you are asking
people to obey, so therefore you rely entirely on the conscienceness of the
end user to actually register.

Unfortunately, consciencious users are an endangered species. It has
become very popular to simply take free software for granted, and this
abusement of the shareware concept is growing to be a real problem for
those of us writing shareware programs. We are only receiving a
fraction of what we should be receiving, and there's nothing we can
really do about it.  Other than to stop programming, of course.

To make things worse, there are currently quite a few shareware programmers
giving the rest of us a hard time. They ask you to register, but when you
do, you never hear a word from them again. This is unfortunate, since any
first-time registree will be strongly discouraged from ever trying
something like that again.

Due to these facts, many programmers nolonger release fully featured
versions their programs. In stead they release "crippled" programs
that  have  some  features disabled, or only work on a limited set of data.
They  are  usually  called evaluation or demo versions.  This is not only a
sad trend, but also disappointing for the end user who would of course like
to try the Real Thing before registering. However, I feel this tendency is
here  to  stay. Programmers are simply fed up with the overly relaxed
attitude people have towards shareware.

MusicBox 2.00 is being released into the public domain in a crippled, but
freely distributable form. This version is useless over long periods of
time, but still allow you to try it out to its full potential, since no
features are disabled. The evaluation version differs from the registered
version in these counts:

- It will pause for 2 minutes every 10 minutes

- A shareware information windows is shown on start and exit

These constraints are relatively easy to live with, and will certainly
allow you to try out the program before registering.



2. How to Register

To register you must fill out the included registration form
(Registration.form) and mail it to me along with at least US $15.
You are welcome to send more money (which will probably means faster
development and more updates), but US $15 is the minimum required fee.

I will then register you as a user, and immediately mail or fax you a
registration number and a registration code. Then you start the program
"Registration" in the MusicBox directory, follow the instructions and
enter the number and the code. This program will write these data
directly into the programs.
After that you can use MusicBox without any restriction.

The registration number and code will also unlock future updates, which
will be found on der AmiNet (ftp.wustl.edu etc.).



3. How to Reach the Author

I am always open to suggestions on how to improve the MusicBox 2.00
program, and how to improve the documentation. You are most welcome
to write to me regarding this, and my address is:

Thomas Dreibholz
Molbachweg 7
51674 Wiehl-Forst
Germany
E-mail:      Dreibholz@bigfoot.com
         or  uzs6pq@ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de
         or  dreibhol@athene.informatik.uni-bonn.de

Feel free to send comments, suggestions and - naturally, bug reports
to any of these adresses.