Filling the CodeGear License Gap
I have a discussion about Codegear licensing.
Delphi 2009 is sold (more correctly: licensed) under two different types of licenses:
- Commercial license
- Academic license
A commercial license (full and upgrade) is much more expensive than an academic one!
The commercial license has the disadvantage of a higher price, but its advantage is that commercial applications can be made.
An asedemic license has the advantage of a low price, but there is a catch: you must prove that you are a scientist, student, or teacher! Or you won't get your license! The non-commercial nature of this license is not a problem!
I would like to see the third one:
- Non-commercial license
This license must be as low or slightly higher and the license cannot be used commercially. The license must be linked to the person who purchased it, just like the existing license types.
Does this license have advantages:
- Hobbyists have access to Delphi, C ++ Builder, and other Codegear software.
- Illegal use may decrease due to more affordable prices.
- It is an ideal license to build and maintain open source software with the latest Delphi.
What do you think about this?
What do you think about this?
1) Open commercial. You can sell open source software.
2) Hobbyists can sell software too ... and I don't understand why hobbyists would willingly spend a lot of dollars on a camera, guitar, bicycle, whatever, but can't spend $ 450 on an IDE - just because you can't copy a camera or a bike ??
3) Most people would buy the "non-commercial" version and develop commercial software anyway - how would CodeGear keep track of it? Tracking costs money and can offset any income.
4) Illegal use will not decrease, but for 3) - people using illegal software do not like to pay even $ 30.
There used to be a personal license to fit this niche. Also the Turbo and Turbo Explorer versions fit this niche. The problem is that there are 4 groups:
- Buys based on features first, price second (enterprise, etc.).
- Buys for non-feature price - should be cheap, preferably free (hobbiest, etc.).
- Free only, no licensing issues (pirates.)
The third group is characterized by being a pirate architect version when they only use the features in the Professional version (or the free version if one exists). They will never convert to a paid client, although they can convert to the free version if it has all the features they want (albeit unlikely).
The problem with trying to maximize the second group (turn them into customers) is you don't want to move people from the 1st group. If someone buys on a feature basis and you offer a lower version for less money, they might be happy with that version and just buy it. Why not save some money?
Non-Commercial is too vague under license as pointed out by others. If you break features too much, then it will be wasted to make a proposal, as no one wants it and reflects badly on the professional version. The only thing that will work is a screenshot, but that would be very annoying and by the very nature of the users it would be easy to get around.
Thus, the bottom line is the money that keeps the company afloat in maximizing the 1st group. Trying to calm the 2nd and 3rd groups can lead to loss of money. While I agree that if they want to target more hobbyists, they really need a free / low cost offer (updated Turbo and Turbo Explorer).
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