I don't know *when* you're supposed to decide how much to pay for the software at Binaryrow.

I think the best option is to have it work pretty much like shareware. You run it for a while before you decide how much you're willing (and able) to pay. (Possibly with the minimum amount charged initially at the download, and then you can "top it up" later.)

I like it! Makes you really get what you pay for instead of paying for the unknown.

Sure you can get any GPL, Open Source software without any charges, but it's not free. People who develop it has human needs, you know.
While you don't have to pay for downloading these softwares, it's expected that you'd make a donation to the people who took their time to develop it, at least. Or else they'll go work somewhere else to pay their bills.
I guess $1 is too low, a minimum $5 would be more than fair, just to cover the costs.

Kingsoft Corp. is the largest software manufacturer of business software in China. Kingsoft Office has more then 45 million users....really!!!.. Majority are of course in China, then Malaysia, Japan and Australia. Although this is 10+ years old project, I believe first English version was released in 2007. It does not mean that this software is only three years old, this is very mature software. I would easilly compare it to Microsoft Office 2007 without ribbon but with docx and xlsx support. Yes I use it and I like.

This is not OpenOffice based. Street price for this goes from $40-$80. It is really nice guesture that now before Christmas some people can get cheaper.. Much cheaper.. Thank you.

I like free and open source, too, but this is as close as it gets and I understand why some people may like Kingsoft Office better then OpenOffice, which is simple too large and too slow.

I never even heard of Kingston until I read this story, If I were a small company competing against Norton etc. I would probably be be giving the software away free to get people to use it. Of course the story doesn't mention that you probably have to keep paying yearly/monthly fees to maintain their services like most other security software vendors, so why not give it away for next to nothing. That said I really do like this business model especially in regards to the music industry. I don't know why more bands don't want to give this a try and bypass the greedy dinosaurs in lala land (hollywood). I think it would be a step in the right direction to reduce some of the piracy as well. I also have to agree with Grunchy that there is a lot of great open source software available for everyones favorite price: $0.00.

I like open office, firefox, thunderbird, irfanview, gmail, picasa, etc. If I have to pay 1¢ then I feel wripped off. $1??! Who do you think you are!! Gwan beat it I can get a better deal somewhere else.

...and think it should apply to more than just software. I would pay a fair price which is based on how much the product means to me and how useful it is.

The $1 minimum is not right though. The minimum should be the amount it costs the company to produce that product and deliver it - processing and all. Let the buyer decide how much profit the company should make and the good companies with an honest product will prevail.

.... it's not like they're offering MS Office or Adobe distiller!
Cannot say anything about the security suite, but I just downloaded it.... we'll see!

David, thank you for a good story. Here is a direct link to "Pay What You Want" for Kingsoft Office and Kingsoft Internet Security. This "experiment" will be live until Monday December 14, 2009.

http://www.binarynow.com/store/pwuw/