English language learners and LiveCode

Richard Gaskin ambassador at fourthworld.com
Tue Jun 12 15:06:46 EDT 2012


Hello Richard (sorry, couldn't resist). :)

Richmond wrote:

> I have repeatedly raised the possibility of either a feature-reduced
> version of Livecode or a re-release of an earlier version of Livecode
> (say 2.0) at an extremely cheap rate if not free.
>
> This has been ignored.

"Ignored"?  On the contrary, they not only gave it consideration, but 
also actually did it, as you noted:

> Free RevMedia, as we are surely all well aware, lasted a very short
> while........

There may be a reason for that, and I'm willing to be it wasn't Kevin 
Miller stumbling into the office drunk one day raging, "Let's get those 
teachers!  To hell with them!  Let's take away RevMedia!  That'll fix 
'em!  Sure, we'll lose millions along the way, but damn I hate the 
education market and I'm willing to throw all that money away just to 
stick it to them!"

I suspect their reasons for EOL'ing RevMedia was far less interesting, 
based merely on ROI and other boring spreadsheet stuff.

If there is a compelling business case to be made which could 
demonstrate their direct experience to be incorrect or incomplete, 
submitting a proposal with well-researched supporting data to their 
office would be more likely to get a response from them than sending 
summary notes to the users here who have no control over LiveCode.

Even better, consider putting that effort into the folks who run Python, 
Moodle, or other orgs who already depend on business models based around 
free software.

If you're successful at helping those orgs make more money, we may be 
able to make a case for RunRev to take LiveCode open source, which would 
be far more beneficial to so many others in addition to the EDU segment 
than simply a free-as-in-beer proposal.

Thus far, the best business model RunRev has been able to come up with 
which lets them keep electricity coming to their computers and food to 
their developers has been the one they have now.  It can probably be 
improved on (all systems can), but a complete change of direction would 
not be prudent without diligent, detailed research.

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Fourth World
  LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
  Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com
  Follow me on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/FourthWorldSys





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