1943 [USA] † 1985

He was an editor, programmer, and lawyer, known as a pioneer of what is now known as the shareware business model for software marketing.

He was also the founding editor of PC World and Macworld and a leader of the New Games movement of the 1970s, which advocated for non-competitive game development.

In 1981, Fluegelman was the owner and sole employee of The Headlands Press, a small book publishing house in Tiburon, California. He had attended one of the first computer expos in San Francisco in the late 1970s and, after agreeing to publish and co-author Writing in the Computer Age, decided to buy his first computer. In October, Fluegelman received one of the first IBM PCs sold in San Francisco and within two weeks began writing his own accounting program in IBM BASIC.

In late 1982, Fluegelman developed PC-Talk, a very popular and successful communications program. He marketed it under a system he called "Freeware," which he characterized as "an experiment in economics rather than altruism." His software was licensed under terms that encouraged users to make voluntary payments for the software and allowed users to freely copy and redistribute the software as long as the terms and text of the license were not changed. He collaborated with PC-File (database software) developer Jim Knopf to adopt similar names (PC-File was originally "Easy-File") and pricing for their initial shareware offerings; they also agreed to mention each other's products in their program documentation.

Fluegelman edited PC World magazine from its launch in 1982 to 1985, and Macworld magazine from its launch in 1984 to 1985.

In 1985, Fluegelman, already suffering from colitis, was diagnosed with cancer. On the afternoon of July 6, 1985, he left his office in Tiburon, California. A week later, his abandoned car was found at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge near San Francisco.
His family held his funeral, and he is presumed dead, although his body has never been found. Kevin Strehlo, then a columnist for InfoWorld, submitted a memorial article mentioning that "friends say a suicide note was found inside his car." InfoWorld declined to publish this article, but an online news service did republish it.