What can you get from free software?

March 9th, 2005 by Samuel Tardieu

I described in another post how and why I wrote recoverjpeg, a program that recovers lost digital pictures on corrupted media. This software is totally free (both as in free beer and as in free speech); the only reward I counted on was to receive some excerpts of recovered pictures to illustrate the software’s web page. However, I received much more.

At this time, the return on investment for this software is:

  • Around ten thousands of my own pictures that had been mistakenly erased (that alone would have been more than enough)
  • A bottle of champagne from a satisfied user (thank you Blaise)
  • Two boxes of liquorice pepper candies from a satisfied user (thank you Phil)
  • A handful of very beautiful pictures from a satisfied user (thank you Volker)
  • A beer and a picture from a satisfied user (thank you Erwan)

And this is just the beginning. Not bad for 326 lines of code.

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