I think the whole idea of charging people to use mIRC is rediculous. If the creators of ircii or other chat clients behaved this way they would never have continued to be developed because noone in their right mind would use them and irc would be dead. second of all you are charging people for a program that sends :CONNECT to port 6667 and connects to ircd which is a FREE open source protocol. i mean come on guys why did you sell out like this.

while server admins and irc developers are working their @sses off to provide a chat service and open source clients for FREE, khaled mardem-bey is making money off everyones backs by CHARGING for his irc client which has like 1 new change every 6 months like *** Added new sqeaky noise to khaled's nose or whatever.. its total bull$hit.. gets your acts together. thats all i have to say.

If you don't want to pay you don't have to. There are plenty of free clients around, as you said.



You sound like you think this is a recent developement. Are you aware that mIRC has been a 30-day trial for years?


Why shouldn't Khaled make money out of his work?

Stop whining. This is getting old. Software is rarely free of charge. The people who write it get paid for their jobs just like you do.

you're right... if all Khaled was doing was just making a program that says "CONNECT" than this would be ridiculous... and if you're convinced that is all mIRC does, than just get xCHAT... it's an excellent open-source program, and the people that slave over it do not require ANY payment..

-matson

ps: btw, mIRC does a LOT more than that.. he made a stable GUI for the text-based irc protocol, and he only requests $20... plus it's not crippleware... it works and works and works while you evaluate it.

Where's your point? Khaled charges for a program he made himself, anyone anywhere can do the same thing. The HTTP protocol is also a 'free protocol', as is FTP, as is virtually any protocol, yet how many times have you complained to the makers of Opera, or WS_FTP, or any one of a thousand other web browsers and FTP clients that must be paid for? I'm guessing it's zero. And how many IRC clients have you created and worked on for years taking people's ignorant crap on a forum etc. etc. and then released for free? Again I'm guessing zero. And why do you make ridiculous threads like this one when your answer to both those questions is 'zero'? Because you're a self-righteous hypocrite, that's why.

I haven't been able to answer because I don't have time to sit at the computer all day. I never made a personal attack only talked about the fact that I think its a little rediculous to charge money for software thats been free for years. mIRC isn't a big complex program.

You fail to realize why Internet Relay Chat works in the first place. The servers are run for free. Until now the clients were free. When you start charging, the whole concept goes out the window. All of a sudden, server admins start seeing mIRC as a way for some company to make money off their free service.. etc.. It all spirals downhill from there.

It's a total sellout move. I know why Khaled is smiling in the About box now. He's f'ing us in the a$$

mirc has been needed to be paid for for a couple years that i know of, why on earth are u b*tchin now? and no not all ircds are free either, infact very few are, not to mention server irc networks have changed to using a new setup like MSn did, and look at yahoo and aol chats, same thing if your thinking 20 bucks is a big amount of money that is going to kill irc, then i personally believe your the type of person that doesnt really need mirc, and would be happier on another client. live with it or find something else.

mIRC has been a 30 day trial since July 6th 1996.


mIRC has been a 30 day trial since July 6th 1996.

hmmm.. everyone has the right to vent and talk about why or what they think shoulde be changed... THUS this is general discussion... how would u all like it if u vented and all of us came back on you saying that all you do is whine and cry about something.... NOTHING will EVER change unless people speak their minds... but try not crossing the line by attacking a certain individual... grow up peoples.... if u dont like what someone has to say.. deal with it and move on.. dont sit here and type about how much they piss you off.

Personnaly id have to disagree with that. mIRC i would say is probably one of the most complex IRC clients, why not connect to IRC using telnet. Why not go to the makers of CuteFTP and say their program isn't a big and complex program - all it does is send files to and from a remote server, not exactly much. People around the world are "working their asses off" designing packaging and wrappers for different goods such as a chocolate bar, does that mean we shouldnt pay bin men to dispose of the litter?

khaled created mirc for himself and then decided to release it to the public... so you could think of it that khaled is developing it for himself and making a pretty penny for it just slapping a link on the website... indeed it is a great program but still anything irc related shouldnt be paid for. but hey... thats my opinion

p.s he defines this as a hobby.. not a living... would u make people pay for your hobby? think about it

NightCrawler, why wouldn't you want to be payed for a hobby? I sure would. Its not like Khaled put 1 hour of work into mirc, and released it. mirc has several hundred (if not thousand) hours of coding put into it. I wouldn't let all those hours for a "hobby" be put to nothing.

Personally, I think of the $20 as more a donation than a fee. Somthing to give Khaled a pat on the back saying "greta job" "keep it up". If you think of it as a fee, then you don't appreciate mirc and maybe you should be using another client. Write your own irc client some day, and you'll see how much work is involved. All the managing of the sockets, as well as the dealing with user input. Multiple socket handling, as well as parsing a language the client themselfe writes. I'd love to see you write soemthing like this and not want a single dime for it.

BTW, do you use trillian? Because AIM is a "Free" procol, and trillian uses it and also charges for the use of their client. How about a video game for Linux. Linux is free source, and now you pay to use the video game. This also improper?

Just another thing.. Some people have hobbies like building toy planes, or carving statues, painting, whatever. These people sell these "masterpieces", why shouldn't Khaled?

<deleted by moderator>

if khaled wants to charge his years of work that is his right and his wish, <deleted by moderator>if u r not happy with clients then use <deleted> java applets and <deleted>

<Moderator note: please tone your language down, there's no need to be rude>

As several people have pointed out, mIRC has been shareware for 7+ years now, and quite frankly if it wasn't shareware then it wouldn't be as good as it is because Khaled would no doubt have to spend the majority of his time working elsewhere to pay the bills. Seeing as mIRC is by far (somewhere around the 95% majority) the most popular IRC client I don't think it's a stretch to say that if mIRC didn't exist or wasn't nearly as good as it is then a hell of a lot less people wold be using IRC right now, perhaps as few as half. If only half the number of people used IRC not only would that reduce the quality of chat on the IRC servers that were around (of which presumably there would also be around half as many), it would also mean that fewer big companies would sponsor large IRC servers and foot the bill, meaning that places like DALnet and Quakenet wouldn't exist - and the IRC userbase would be spread out over dozens of small servers resulting in the concept of 'IRC community' being virtually non-existant. Rather than baselessly accusing mIRC and Khaled Mardem-Bey of single-handedly bringing IRC to the brink of destruction you should be thanking him for playing a huge role in making IRC what it is today, because I honestly believe that if mIRC hadn't come along IRC as a whole would be a mere shadow of what it is.



- Oh really? How simple do you think it is to create your own scripting language? Having never even attempted it before I can't say for sure, but I'm gonna take a guess and say that it ain't simple.

FYI, there are some IRC networks that already charge for use and have done so for some time, and there are other IRC clients which cost money, and as I and others have already said: mIRC has also been shareware for the better part of a decade. It's nothing new. Get over it.

i paid for mirc, i paid for trillian.... i paid for a lot of things.. but that doesnt change my belief on an irc client... i have spent more than thousands of hours on running ircds on small and large networks... i provide website hosting for FREE i run irc servers for FREE... for over 13 years i have done this as a hobby... and never once asked for a god damned dime... now like i said before.. stop griping about opinions.... either deal with it or walk away

"he defines this as a hobby.. not a living... "

from http://www.mirc.com/khaled/faq.html

Question: What was your initial motivation for creating mIRC?
Answer: The first IRC client written for Windows, WinIRC, was missing support for some basic IRC client features. So initially, necessity was the motivation. Later, it was challenge that kept me working on it, and the enjoyment of knowing that people appreciated it.

Question: Will you be releasing the mIRC source code under CopyLeft/GPL at some point?
Answer: I might, however mIRC is the way I make a living. It only happened by chance, and I've always expected to move on at some point, but it's still hard to give that up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, but IMO, when someone spends much of his time over several years creating something, and expending effort to satisfy the "must needs" many ppl want, that person has a right to request compensation for their efforts. If anyone chooses to not use it because they dont want to pay for it, that is their choice. mIRC has grown far from a minimal time consuming "hobby", but look around you... many many ppl are paid for the results of their "hobbies" and lots go on to create a business from it that sustains their daily needs. Why resent someone for doing something they enjoy that happily can keep a roof over their head?

i may have been a bit harsh with my words or misunderstood.. one of the 2 :P... of course people have the right to charge for their hobbies... i do.. i have a webhosting company with a friend.... we make websites we sell among other things... but i have been spending over 12 years creating many things such as scripts, websites, running ircds admining ircds and creating a business from scratch... all except the business i dont charge... its just in my opinion that mirc should be free... and obviously khaled is making a living off it.... what he does with mirc and how he creates it is beyond my knowlege and i give him many high fives for his effort and devotion... i have paid for mirc and other things... omg this reply is kinda pointless.. ignore me... my beliefs are kinda twisted and mixed... to be free or not to be... i just think that if your doing something for fun or amusement of helping others.. why charge for it... thats all i have to say....

if your confused dont bother replying cause i may reply with even more confusing text :P

As you said:

That's what the problem is with many arguements, where people who believe they know all jump in and make accusations that are completely off-track, bias, and not true.

I ain't going to be rude here, but this is the truth. As you said again:

You're making money from creating webpages, yet you won't allow Khaled to make a client and make money from it at the same time? That's called hypocrisy. Even though every single person becomes a hypocrite some time or another, a really intelligent person would acknowledge when they're in the wrong sooner rather than later. You (and others) are just singing the same tune over and over... Just stop this endless loop of crap and just admit the fact that Khaled, who's working for years on something many of us take for granted (myself included), can, and will gain monetary benefits from this program to live the life he deserves.

My $0.02.

I guess that what he means are that you pay for the klient mirc.. but the server are free so thats why mirc also should be free, if you look at a hompage, then you often pay for the shell to host your page.. but if you can code the rest is free.. and he have some parts right, without all these free irc servers around the world, who would need mirc or any other chat klients? "just a tought"

oh well. imo, if mIRC is just a plain text irc client, not a complex software, and anyone feels it not worth the $$, they can always switch to telnet. it's free! and it just plain text too. what's more, it's already included in most of your windows OS.

Some IRC networks cost money to connect to, so does some hosting. Other IRC networks cost nothing to connect to, so does some hosting. The cycle will just continue round and round, the fact is that as soon as it starts affecting him is when he jumps out and says "This is wrong!", this is what really annoys me, and they really should stay in their own little greedy hole and shut the hell up.

Tell me 1 server that cost money to connect to i never seen one..

talkcity charges for you to connect to thier servers if you wish to use any irc client other than thier own java. there is one! that meets your requirement

Then you have a option.. free = use Java.. and pay = use mirc or any other client.. so then it dont cos for every one

I paid for mIRC I paid for trillian, why? because they are two programs that i love to use and the creators of said programming have asked for compensation for all the work that they have put into the program. Do I find this offensive? I don't think so, I think it is perfectly fair. I am quite sure that Khaled has spent by far thousands of hours working on the IRC client that thousands of us love and use daily and hours a day if your like me :tongue:, Why not give something back to him? Its only $20.00 and its for a lifetime you never have to pay it again! I think its a wonderful deal, not every software company is so willing to hand out free upgrades for as long as it is upgraded. Trillian for example I think I paid 25 dollars and that registration is good for 1 year. I can always use Trillian pro that I have currently or if it is upgraded before the year is up i can get the upgrade but after that year I can only use what i have at the time unless I wish to pay another 25 dollars for another year. Ah well thats just my 2 cents worth, Cheers ^^