Hussein Shafie wrote:
> [1] We, XMLmind, don't know how to make money with Open Source software.
> [2] We, XMLmind, don't know how to manage Open Source software (e.g.
> contributions, access to CVS, etc).
If you ever figure out how to make money on XXE as OpenSource, could you
please tell me? Being a semi-pro FLOSS programmer, I can very well
understand you ;-)
> --> Why replace Standard Edition by Personal Edition?
>
> We feel that a substantial number of Standard Edition users are using
> XMLmind XML Editor *very*, *very*, professionally, that is,
> - they heavily depend on it for their work,
> - they do very complicated things with it,
> - they do not hesitate to *flood* xmleditor-support at xmlmind.com with
> hard-to-answer questions and hard-to-reject RFEs.
>
> These users were welcome to do so because Standard Edition allowed this
> behavior. In fact, we *liked* very much everything about this kind of
> demanding users, except the fact that they didn't buy even a single $220
> license from us.
>
> But these advanced Standard Edition users cost us too much time and
> effort and therefore, this has to stop. That's why we have decided to
> replace Standard Edition by Personal Edition.
You're absolutely right. And on your service: when I decided to convince
my project partners to pay for 5 licenses, it wasn't so much the quality
of your product (besides, the only non-FLOSS product we're using) but
the level of support. 220$/copy is a bargain for a turnaround time of
normally well below 6 hours for any question asked.
> --> But many people will simply stop using XMLmind XML Editor, people
> will stop recommending XMLmind XML Editor, your sales will drop, you'll
> go out of business, you are doomed, etc. What about that?
>
> If this has to happen, well, let it happen and let it happen *fast*. We
> are very small company, very agile. We'll develop another product (or
> we'll take the time to learn how to make money with Open Source ;-) )
Your concept of having two licenses for basically the same editor,
one professional paid-for and one personal unpaid ("free" or "open" are
the most abused words of our time ...), are perfectly ok with me, and I
even think with the rest of FLOSS programmers. You never started out as
an OpenSource project, anyway.
Best wishes for the future of XMLMInd, which IMHO will be bright!
--
klaus e. werner
