LiveCode Commercial License

[Mark Schonewille]

Richard,

You're saying that RunRev doesn't care about 95% of the market. I find 
that hard to believe, but if it is true, why isn't there a free license 
for iOS? Just make it closed-source but free instead of $99, if it can't 
be open-source.

The Enterprise license was a little expensive, but it was doable. 
Because you could decide when to update and didn't have to buy a new 
license whenever you wanted to release a new version of your software, 
it was actually cheaper. Because there were several discounts available, 
you could actually keep your Enterprise license up to date at roughly 
half the original price. So, either you bought a license every year at 
roughly the same price as the current Indy license or you updated every 
few years. At least, you had a choice.

You don't seem to recognise that Indy developers are forced to buy a 
license every year. Whenever an Indy developer wants to release an 
update, --usually a few times every year-- he needs to have a license. 
An Indy developer who updates his software regularly, has no choice. I 
think that's wrong. I'd want to buy a license for 250 euro and continue 
to use it until I think that LiveCode has sufficiently improved to 
justify a new license.

A hobbyist who wants others to benefit from his work for free but 
doesn't want to give away his code, is forced to buy a license every 
year --or to not give away his software, but who makes software without 
wanting to share it? I must say that $99 sounds reasonable, but the 
hobbyist is still forced to pay every single year, even if LiveCode 
doesn't improve to his liking. The hobbyist should be able to pay only 
if he thinks the update is worth it.

I'll be away to a LiveCode meeting, so I won't have time to read your 
reply, if any. I'll ask the people at the meeting what they think of this.

--
Best regards,

Mark Schonewille

Economy-x-Talk Consulting and Software Engineering
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On 9/18/2014 17:22, Richard Gaskin wrote:
> JB wrote:
>
>> Thank you for the information.  That sounds perfectly reasonable
>> to me and isn’t really much different that the Rev license.  If
>> you did not renew your license you did not get the new versions.
>> The only difference is now you also are not allowed to continue
>> writing with the version you licensed after it expires.
>
> You can use the Community Edition for developing, obtaining a Commercial
> License only when you need to deploy a proprietary work.
>
> The GPL that governs it is a distribution license, so it only applies
> when distributing your app - that is, it's only when you distribute your
> app to others that its source must be made available.
>
> So hobbyists making tools for themselves, or corporations making apps
> for internal use, most uses of LiveCode Server, and many other scenarios
> are a good fit for the Community Edition. Right now more than 3/4 of
> LiveCode users are using the Community Edition.
>
> The first item in this FAQ outlines various scenarios which apply to
> each license:
> <http://livecode.com/support/ask-a-question/>
>
> While RunRev's joining the trend toward subscription licensing may seem
> off-putting at first, if you think about it and look at the pricing
> you'll find that most of us are paying less than before.
>
> The older Enterprise license was $500, while the new Indy Commercial
> license is just $299:
> <http://livecode.com/livecode-licenses/>
>
> Given the lower pricing, and most of us having renewed annually anyway
> to keep current with the engine, and the free availability of the
> Community Edition to develop with between deployments, the only folks
> adversely affected by the switch to subscription-based licensing is the
> relatively small subset who didn't renew annually but need to deploy
> proprietary apps frequently.
>
> Such cases suggest an opportunity for considering open source:  If you
> have an app that is currently proprietary but not doing well enough in
> the market to cover even a $299 annual license, where's the ROI in
> keeping it proprietary?  The cost of maintaining your own licensing
> system, adding security to your app to enforce it, and handling support
> obligations is probably far greater, further lowering your business'
> return.
>
> If the GPL seems a good fit, it's more than just giving software away.
> The GPL is about receiving contributions from the community in terms of
> enhanced features and support.
>
> The GPL is not the perfect solution for all needs. No single license is.
>   But it can be a very good fit where proliferation of the software is a
> goal.
>
> And when an app is inviable as a proprietary work the fit gets even
> better: open source offers a way for the software to realize greater
> value in other ways beyond per-user license fees, allowing an app to
> reach a much larger audience and potentially garnering a community far
> greater than a company could afford to have on salary.
>
> Open source is definitely a different way of thinking about software but
> worth considering for many reasons, and even more so when an app is held
> back by a lack of licensing revenue anyway.
>
>
> As a side note:
>
> While this article is about software used internally in an organization
> rather than distributed commercial apps, given that an estimated 95% of
> code is for internal use it may be of interest to some here with the
> cogent case it makes for using open source process for such things:
>
> Why Your Company Needs To Write More Open Source Software
> <http://readwrite.com/2014/08/15/open-source-software-business-zulily-erp-wall-street-journal>
>
>
>