NewsGator has announced that they are offering their client software products as free software.  This includes FeedDemon, NetNewsWire, Inbox, and NewsGator Go! for Windows Mobile.  Also, the new version of FeedDemon (2.6) has been released.

This is quite a big deal.  FeedDemon is an awesome piece of software, and the synchronisation tool (also free) makes it invaluable for people who use it at home and at work.  Nick Bradbury has assured everyone that this doesn’t mean that development is going to stall now:

"Is this some sneaky ploy to stop development of FeedDemon and your other consumer products?"

Good lord, no.  I realize that some companies have made their software free as a first step towards dumping it entirely, but that’s not the case here.  If it was, I wouldn’t be writing this blog post – I’d be bitching at the top of my lungs in some bar somewhere.

This is a major investment on our part.  If anything, the pace of development will only get faster.  NewsGator CTO Greg Reinacker goes into this further, but basically, there are two reasons we’re doing this crazy thing.

You need to download FeedDemon now!  I don’t care what other RSS reader you use, this one is better. The only reason I could conceive before now not to use it was the cost, but seeing as that’s now no longer an issue, everyone needs to use FeedDemon.  There are so many features, I’ve mentioned plenty before (see here).

Download, it’s what all the cool kids are doing!