Suggestion: Non-Appbuilding Community Edition

Dan Brown daniel at digitalfauna.io
Sun Sep 5 09:55:01 EDT 2021


 > I'd also get rid of any existing lifetime
 > and lock in licenses (sorry, time to clean house)

That would clean house all right! Hand grenade style.
We'd be getting to the point of serious self-harm.

It can't  be any more harmful than abruptly pulling the rug from under the
feet of your largest user demographic. If revenue is the root of livecodes
problems then I don't  see why a small demographic of lifetimers is exempt
from an update in policy that seeks to increase the paying subscription
count

On Sun, 5 Sep 2021, 15:32 Curry Kenworthy via use-livecode, <
use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:

>
> Hi Folks,
>
> This seems headed for trouble again if we're not careful.
>
> We must avoid repeating the same history:
>
> 1. Added work for LC Ltd without compensation*
> 2. Buggy struggling main product due to #1
> 3. Overcomplicating things
> 4. Burdening those who pay with the extra expense
> 5. *Added work for ourselves without compensation;
> (That was the previous "bright idea" remember?)
>
> Cutting out the free Community version is a smart move.
> $10/mo hobby is pretty darn cheap. Everyone can afford that.
>
> (Some end-clients want OSS, but only half of those know why.
> The other half are only repeating something they heard.)
>
> A demo is beneficial, and calendar-time-limited demos suck.
> Thus, unlimited-calendar-time demo could be the way to go.
> 10-line scripts suck too. Non-standalone might be the way.
>
> But as Alex said:
>
>  > You can make it easy (or even trivial) for anyone
>  > to install and run the stacks you create.
>
> Yep. Even easier than your example; no plugin necessary.
> A shortcut to your stack, and it launches the IDE.
> Not that much different from a full desktop app.
> I could make it near enough to please most users.
> Then we're still encouraging nonpayment for LC.
> So we need an additional limitation.
>
> But now we're getting into bad ideas...
>
> Terry:
>
>  > what if only licensed versions of LC could produce
>  > and run distributable/shareable stacks while the free version
>  > could only run stacks produced by that particular instance of the app?
>
> That's getting nowhere. Two separate communities to support
> (plus the sucky problem of Community-can't-run-this-stack)
> so extra work for free, and it's begging to be gamed.
>
> I can probably still make a great "app" experience.
> This repeats all or most of the old problems,
> and even discourages using the $10 version.
>
> Worse still...
>
> Dan:
>
>  > Introduce breaking changes when it's necessary
>  > to move the language forward
>
> We tried "cut off the old hair" memes already, remember?
> That was part of the open source breathless refactoring excitement.
> Result: twice the bugs with a quarter of the performance for years.
> Plus tons of added work for us and our clients to update stacks.
>
> Some people went out of business, others used tons of time or money.
> Many of these misguided repeating memes simply need to die!
> Better to kill a meme than to see more people get hurt.
>
> LC is not an OS. Breaking changes have been a major pain in the rear.
> Almost as bad as the extra bugs and performance problems.
>
> To have a future, we need a firm stable foundation to build upon.
> Not encouraging an ever-shifting mire. Recompiles, yes. Rewrites, no.
> If maintaining is not easier in LC, people will go use other tools.
> We've seen that already. We need to learn from experience.
>
> Likewise...
>
>  > I'd also get rid of any existing lifetime
>  > and lock in licenses (sorry, time to clean house)
>
> That would clean house all right! Hand grenade style.
> We'd be getting to the point of serious self-harm.
>
> This one is not so bad, though:
>
>  > Nag screen with 5-10 second timeout in IDE and standalones
>
> Nix the standalones; free should be noncompiling, at least for desktop.
> But nags can be useful. And a possible mobile solution,
> but it would have to be combined with one more limitation.
>
> Today's users are quite willing to tolerate some nags.
> If LC Free competes against its own $10 version, nobody wins.
> We're back to a buggy underfunded main product.
>
> I've been too sick (good old Delta) to follow the whole thread,
> just read the last few messages, and will probably not be able
> to follow the rest of the discussion for a while either.
> This post is all I can muster.
>
> But let's learn from the old mistakes, eh?
> Many things which sound great ... aren't.
> Repeating them makes things ... worse.
> Let's not nuke ourselves again in the process. :)
>
> Happy coding, and hopefully I'll be back in action after a few days.
> Hoping this doesn't head right off the cliff while I'm down sick!
> Wish I could give this the full attention it deserves....
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Curry Kenworthy
>
> Custom Software Development
> "Better Methods, Better Results"
> LiveCode Training and Consulting
> http://livecodeconsulting.com/
>
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