Marielle Lange wrote:
You have two products for two different markets. We educators/hobbyists
would like dreamcard to be distributed for free across the world.
Professionals like Richard, Chipp and Ken and others are worried
about keeping their competitive advantage and have the tool remain
expensive and relatively unknown (at the very least maintain the
existence of a cost of switching via the license fee and time to learn).
I can't speak for Ken or Chipp, but I would like to clarify my own position:
IF I *acquired* the product, I would charge $5k for it with $1k
annually, and would continue to sell it but not bother spending much
money advertising it. I make applications for a living, and feel the
engine is worth many times that for the sort of work I do. That amount
of money would allow the engine to be enhanced in perpetuity without the
need to become distracted from my work making consumer apps to become a
vendor of development tools. My clients simply wouldn't allow it, and
making dev tools is a hard business.
IF I was *given* the product, I would make it open source. As a
consultant that would benefit me tremendously, as it would many of us
(except for those who've invested in it).
But fortunately neither of those IFs exist.
I don't own the product, nor do I intend to, and I certainly don't
believe RunRev will give it to me.
In brief, I don't matter.
I don't run Kevin's company, and he doesn't run mine, and we both have a
good time doing our own thing. Kevin gets advisement from people like
Mike Markula; I don't presume his success is dependent on mine as well.
Instead, I fully recognize that RunRev's business model is based on very
different needs than mine: while I make end-user software they make
development tools. Having committed to that market their priorities are
very different, and I have had just enough experience in the dev tools
market to understand just how difficult it is. I'll stick with the much
simpler world of end-user software.
So I'm not all that worried about "keeping my competitive advantage",
though I have joked about that once, and believe all of us who work with
Rev professionally understand just how powerful an advantage it is.
On the contrary, I've demonstrated my support for RunRev's plans by:
- maintaining and enhancing revJournal.com
- publishing Rev articles on the web and in print
- preparing and presenting sessions on working with Rev at
every conference that's been held (SF, Monterey I, ERC in
Malta, Monterey II, and am going back to Malta for ERC II).
- hosting meetings of a regional Rev user group
- distributing free Rev tools
- contributing to the maintenance of the Metacard IDE so
users of that environment can continue to enjoy the
ever-expanding power of the Rev engine
- contributing code and tips to this list
I'll try to do a better job of adding smilies when I joke about the
competitive advantages Rev affords me and my clients.
But in the meantime, I'd like to believe my actions clarify my support
of RunRev's mission.
With all that I've put out into the public, it's difficult to understand
how it could be mistaken for trying to keep Rev a secret. :)
--
Richard Gaskin
Managing Editor, revJournal
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