Downloads - Immodest Proposal

[Curry Kenworthy]

Bob:
 > As a result, we have no business talking about how much they
 > should charge for licensing. I am up for renewal on the Indy
 > license. I am not well to do. I am balking at the price right
 > now. Still, I could use the non-comm version, but then I feel
 > like I am not contributing, so I am torn betwixt the two.

To promote LiveCode to various people, I would also love to see a lower 
entry point on Indy or another closed source edition. Like you, I don't 
presume to know or wish to control how the business should be run or 
priced. But I've known and worked with enough people on smaller budgets 
to have no doubt that price point affects some of us, and people have 
very different situations and mindsets.

This has been discussed at great length before, the hobbyist and so on, 
and it's so true that for many people the free version does the job. 
Problem solved. For many others, having a business means their ducks are 
sufficiently in a row that $999 is a no-brainer price. Even better. And 
yes, it is an amazing price for all the technology and platforms included.

All true, and yet repeating these often enough can lead people to buy 
into the fallacy that this covers the entire range of interested 
LiveCode users. Unfortunately I happen to know that it doesn't. There 
are people who have their own reasons for wanting something more than 
free, but the current Indy price makes that a pretty big jump. Obviously 
wannabe iOS publishers on a shoestring is one group, although there are 
others I could name, including those with more proprietary ambition than 
cash in the short term.

It's not my place to judge or defend these people and their reasons, any 
more than LiveCode's decisions and their model. But I would still like 
to have those people onboard, so I would love to see anything to that 
end, such as an Indy special or perhaps another column in the price 
continuum of free, ___, 1K, 2K. Lagi's point about impulse buys was 
interesting too. So long as an edition reached those people I wouldn't 
really mind which method it would use.

In your own particular case, if the open source version sufficed, you 
could still voluntarily contribute a certain amount annually. But I 
would hate to see anyone leave the Indy edition, which is my own 
personal favorite!

No expectations of easy agreement, especially on this of all things. But 
there's value in planting a seed now and then and seeing what other 
people think too. The future will sort it all out. I've just burned 
through another budget rather quickly, my public communication time, so 
I'll duck back to work. I enjoyed the chat very much as always! Happy 
coding. :)

Best wishes,

Curry Kenworthy
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