Rob Vens is talking about an interesting topic: building and distributing freeware using VW. I do that - BottomFeeder :) Rob's first language was Smalltalk, so even though he's not currently working with ST at work, he does shareware/freeware work in it.

Rob started doing these kinds of apps by making things he'd built for his own use available (personal finance applications to start with). Problems?

• Small team (just yourself, usually)
• Lack of free time
• High but inconsistent release schedules
• Anonymous user community
• As many platforms as possible
• Bug and feature driven
• Very much depending on user feedback

I identify strongly with all of those, as I face the same issues in my projects (BottomFeeder and Silt). More issues he encountered:

• Packaging
• Distribution
• Installation
• Platform Compliance
• Versions, bugs, feature requests
• User feedback
• Licensing
• Making some money?

Tools: VisualStudio (scripting), 7-Zip, Xara3D, Axialis Icon Workshop, ResHacker for Windows exe files. His update scheme involves downloading and replacing the entire deployed image/executable.

For distribution, he uses his own website - you choose a platform and download.

Platform Compliance: this is always hard, as are icons, and version/readme file issues. Tracking bugs? User feedback? Not easily tracked, mailing lists didn't work out.

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