On Mon, May 20, 2002 at 12:39:22PM +0200, Wolfgang Lenerz wrote: > On 19 May 2002, at 16:40, Richard Zidlicky wrote: > > > unfortunately your inconvenience is only the smaller problem. The > > bigger one - what happens if you are fed up and go out of business? > > There are perhaps 100s of users with your hardware without any reseller, > > so to get SMSQ updates they would have to become their own resellers. > > Of course people will be wary to buy your HW in first place unless > > they know for sure they will not be locked out like that. > > Well, believers in free market forces unite. If there still is a market, > then somebody else will step in.
and here the problems start. The people have already paid for SMSQ so the new reseller is practically only supposed to distribute upgrades and provide support. This appears even less interesting for potential resellers because they can hardly charge very much for an upgrade. So market forces would dictate someone become a reseller, quickly sell a few binaries and quit beeing a reseller. Your license doesn't say anything about how long a reseller is expected to provide support, nor whatever you consider support. Why don't you reconsider the "get support in exchange for paying binaries" in favor of normal support contracts? > Moreover, if the seller is not there any more, who will sort you the > user's hardware problem? some people on this mailing list are really great in helping such cases. Richard
