I do some contract work now and then for a company that does
localization of software/hardware product documentation and web site
content. They regularly bill in the high five figures, often six
figures, on a monthly basis. Their biggest client is a company in
California that sells computers (ahem).
They have a single-user licensed copy of BBEdit that they "share"
among multiple users (less than 10) on their local area network
because the owner of the company is a cheapskate and thinks that
spending money on legitimate software licenses is a gouge and a
penalty (and not a legitimate business expense), and he actually
encourages the use of pirate serials, where possible, to enable the
use of software applications needed to do work for clients, rather
than purchasing a legit license. Yes, he's a scumbag (and my
apologies to the delicate fellow who was personally offended by what
he imagined were 'sexual connotations' in the absolutely wonderful
catch-phrase "It Doesn't Suck").
He (the cheapskate owner) was only convinced to fork out money for a
BBEdit license because employees insisted that BBEdit was an
essential app for the work they do and demanded it, so he bought them
a single-user license. Note that the cost of a single-user BBEdit
license is roughly equivalent to a small business dinner + drinks, a
lot less than a round of golf + drinks + dinner with clients, and
maybe even less than an inner-city parking ticket that has not been
settled and allowed to fester for a while. I don't know what a multi-
user BBEdit license would cost, but I'm inclined to believe that it
isn't a serious gouge.
Much of what I do for them is building/adapting reusable or one-off
workflow solutions to process original source files (from dozens to
hundreds of files per project) in a manner that suits the needs of
the current project. Almost always, the workflow solution I deliver
relies on BBEdit in some capacity (a mixture of AppleScript, Text
Factories, BBEdit object model scripting, Unix Filters, PHP/Ruby/
shell etc.), and it's the flexible nature of BBEdit extensibility
that makes it all possible. I save them countless hours in production
grunge work thanks to the ability to use BBEdit and a Mac in this
fashion.
It's embarrassing to admit that I do work for this guy, but
hey...work is work, and in my own small way I'm doing the right thing
by demonstrating the enormous value of a fine application to other
Mac users. The people there who use BBEdit see the value immediately.
The cheap bean counter who thinks he's "saving" a few hundred collars
is clueless and wrong and just doesn't care.
It pleases/saddens me to no end, when working at their offices, to
watch the knucklehead routines they go through asking anyone who's
not using BBEdit to please quit the app so someone else can use it
for a few minutes (I'm usually on my own laptop, using my own
licensed copy, so I can either laugh or cry depending on my mood).
And each time this happens I silently applaud R*ch and the BB staff
for how they've chosen to handle it -- a polite UI "nudge" to please
do the right thing and purchase a multi-user license, else quit all
superfluous instances and work as a single-user.
I thought it might be informative for all the people who've added to
the collective quibble on this thread to see an example of the other
side of the coin, so I've added this long bit here. I only have one
desktop and one laptop, so I've never been inconvenienced by the
"marketing fraud" that our initial poster and owner/user of more than
2 personal use machines has decried here today. But please, get a life.
BareBones has implemented a reasonable and fair solution that is a
good middle ground between accommodating the needs of the majority of
individual users and "thwarting" deliberate license abuse.
Complaining that you weren't adequately notified of the precise terms
of license prior to purchase in a manner you now expect is just self-
indulgent whining; nit-picking the details of how it might be
personally more satisfying if done differently isn't really a
productive or interesting thread here, I think -- please take it to a
Yahoo chat room or something equally suitable if you must.
--
Bill
PS: An argument/discussion about improving the half-assed
implementation of File Groups (for example) would be far more
productive and interesting, and might actually lead to something
better in the next version, don't you think? That's a tease for
everyone who's been spending any time with TextMate...
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