The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5) - Joel and the Fog Creek photograph

Joel and the Fog Creek photograph

<<I didn't do it myself, it was a professional architectural photographer...>>

Sigh. Deep deep deep disappointment. I was writing a freeware application (likely to be used by lots) and wanted to add it as my splash screen. I was about to write to Joel for permission when i saw Joel's post. Its out of question i guess, since he paid big bucks for it and i cant pay him a cent for it.

On the bright side, can someone please suggest a good free picture for a database tool. More professional it looks, the better. Should look like my tool will save them lot of time .

Dissapointingly Yours ,

Karthik
Friday, March 5, 2004

You could look into using a stock photograph. Just Google on "stock photos."

Here's a site that offers free stock photographs (with certain limitations):

http://freestockphotos.com/

Robert Jacobson
Friday, March 5, 2004

My suggestion....make your software Donationware and on the spash screen put your photo -- with a 3 day old beard and groggy eyes in front of the computer -- and watch the money roll in :-)

There was a (possibly apocryphal) story about some shareware which said "if you do not pay $x ownership of your eternal soul passes to us" and they found surprisingly many people paid for it

Code Monkey
Friday, March 5, 2004

Hmmm.. I'm no lawyer, but if you're not SELLING your software, aren't the "fair use" laws a lot more lax?

E.g., as a teacher, I could photocopy books and pass out copies to class. Fair use law.

The real Entrepreneur
Friday, March 5, 2004

Fair use law is really pretty limited. Even teachers don't have carte blanche any more -- the rule of thumb is that they can copy small portions of a book (a few pages maybe) but anything more requires permission from the copyright owner.

Robert Jacobson
Friday, March 5, 2004