Gentlemen, A lot of brilliant software has begun life as a project of passion, geeks and or open source groups. No real commercial cost to produce. However, once people, no matter how few or many, start to use and like that software, the demands to improve, modify and add to it, begin. Now the development is no longer a labour of love, but a labour of pressure, stress and demands.
The product goes commercial: even more pressure, stress and demands, not to mention operating systems. How to compensate? We buy a licence to use the software. We don’t own it, only the right to use it as we get it. Future development has to be compensated as well. That can be done by buying a new licence to upgraded versions as they are released or by subscriptions. If the product demand is globally huge, unit costs can be kept relatively low, but if the customer base is small, say in 10’s or 100’s of thousands only, costs are going to be much higher. As Tim Shirley said, ‘I think SeeYou would be cheap at twice the price’ because he knows what goes into writing this stuff and he values its output. I hate being held to ransom on anything so if I’m happy with my old car, I keep it. If I want the new model, I pay for it. The new car doesn’t necessarily do any or much more than the old one, but no one is going to give me a new one. Eventually the old program will not be compatible with newer operating systems and will not work. Same dilemma, keep the old computer and OS or get a new one!!!! Rob Wintulich
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