I seem to have missed something

Thu Jul 25 19:29:53 EDT 2024

First of all, it's 3 years not 2. ;) 

I am in the same boat regarding the utility apps to make life and jobs of family members and colleagues easier.
Over the years I've created plenty of them and I am sure some of them need to be maintained in the future. 
Sometimes I even cannot remember an app when people tell me that they still use it. ;)

The new licenses allow to create free apps as long as they are not used commercially.
The following is from the FAQs.
"If you build and ship an app that is completely free, with no commercial benefit to you or to a client you build it for, then the end users of that app are free, you do not require a license for them. For example a free educational app used by students would fall into this category. You do still need to purchase a developer license for yourself. Free apps will display a LiveCode Create badge throughout the app, and will have “Made with LiveCode – Non Commercial Use Only” notices you are not permitted to disable. Educational apps will display an “Educational use only” badge in addition to these." 

So that is not a problem I would say. 

But the tools I've created  for free for family members and colleagues to use in their job would be a big problem if I would have to upgrade them after 2027. There is for example a command line tool  with only 199 lines of code, which is used by  10 people. They do not call it directly, they even do not know that it is executed on their machine, but the ERP calls it under their Windows user account with some parameters every time the users send e-mails to a customer with documents attached from the ERP.
The licensing alone for this small tool would cost for 1 Dev and 10 Users 4356 Euro per year.  That is roundabout twice the annual maintenance fees for the ERP. 

The other thing is the "phone home". If for example a command line tool which shall be executed in "realtime" first has to phone home before it does for what it was created, I am wondering if this is not decreasing the performance.  Kevin explained already, that it will be possible to create also apps that do not phone home, but this has to be discussed with LC Ltd. separately for each app.
In my day job I am working as an IT-Security- and Data-Protection-Officer. So this Phone Home "feature" gives me in general a stomachache. 
Kevin already confirmed that LC Create/Native will comply GDRP. That's of course reassuring to know, but detailed information is needed about  what data exactly is stored where and how. And also about how secure the data is. The technical organisational measures should contain all this information.

I will wait and see what the future really brings. 3 years is a long time and yet somehow it isn't. 
My main goal is to stay and continue  developing with Livecode (classic,Create,Native)  even after 2027. But I will start looking for an commercial alternative that allows to deploy at least to Mac,Win,Linux. The mobile platforms and Web would be fine, but are not so important for me.

Matthias

> Am 25.07.2024 um 18:55 schrieb Bob Sneidar via use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com>:
> 
> It’s water under the bridge, but in retrospect I think the proper way for Livecode to have structured their business was to have 3 products: Livecode Desktop, Livecode Mobile and Livecode Web. Each product should have maintained their own revenue stream unbound and unburdened by the other two. As it is, any financial burden developing for Mobile or Web is shared by Desktop. If one fails, all fail.
> 
> I also think that the Non-Commercial version we used to have (as much as I took advantage of it) was a bad idea. Give people something for free that they would otherwise have to pay for, guess what? They will use the free thing.
> 
> Finally, I think that Livecode, much like Now Software of the past, overextended themselves. Now Software tried to develop a new product from the ground up and learned what all developers learn: It’s REALLY HARD to do.
> 
> Livecode attempted to incorporate what I would consider to be niche technologies, so their resources have become much diluted. The native compiler project is dead I assume. Mobile is probably sucking resources from other things because it seems like every other week iOS or Android are making prior builds obsolete by their incessant changes. V10 has taken how many years to produce? Don’t get me started on Artificial Intelligence!! And I don’t NEED a no-code way to develop apps. I LIKE CODING!!
> 
> All I ever wanted was to create utility apps to make my life and my job easier. That is it. I don’t need the bells and whistles, but I have been investing in those all these years just to keep desktop deveopment alive. Now I will not be able to afford developing for just the 3 internal users I have, and approaching my employer to incorporate my applipaction throughout the company is dead in the water. Thank GOD I didn’t already do so!
> 
> So by whenever in 2027 this awesome party ends, I will likely bid farewell to you all and consider abandoning my development hobby completely. It feels like I have been given 2 years to live.
> 
> Bob S
> 
> 
> On Jul 25, 2024, at 9:30 AM, William Prothero via use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com> wrote:
> 
> I second Graham's comment about apple's requirements for getting an app to work on the iphone are a huge pita.
> Bill
> William A. Prothero, PhD
> Prof Emeritus, Dept of Earth Science
> University of California, Santa Barbara
> 
> On Jul 25, 2024, at 7:31 AM, Graham Samuel via use-livecode <use-livecode at lists.runrev.com<mailto:use-livecode at lists.runrev.com>> wrote:
> 
> I’m in roughly the same position as Bill. Long ago I wrote Livecode apps for sale,  but in the last several years I’ve just written a few personal apps, and have more or less stopped work, due mostly to old age. However I don’t like to say I’ve entirely given up as a hobbyist, and I was thinking of revisiting an app idea I had at the time of the pandemic - so I’m glad of Kevin’s reply.
> 
> At present I’m thinking about iOS apps and wonder how much help from Create I will get for deployment  - obeying all of Apple’s rules for the publication of an app (even a free one) into the public space. For me this part of app development proved far more of a PITA than the actual coding, and I know I will always need all the help I can get on this aspect. Maybe I missed it, but I am not clear what Create will offer.
> 
> My other use of Livecode scripting has been to use it as “IYSWIM” (“if you see what I mean”) modelling tool, where I get the logic straight before plunging into a relatively hostile coding environment (think the Apple Watch, which will never be covered by Livecode in any form). As far as I can see, I will be able to go on using versions of Classic for this, even if the become outdated over time. I’m glad about this.
> 
> Best
> 
> Graham
> 
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