Priest of the Order of the Butterfly
Posts: 874 from 2007/4/9
From: Kingston upon ...
Quote:
Zylesea wrote:
My suggestion to solve the license issue:
Offer two kinds of licenses
a) a MAC bound license just like it is now, but for 99 EUR.
b) a usb dongle bound key for (max) 199 EUR incl, the usb dongle.
I know at least Laire doesn't like (usb) dongles (need to check wether the dongle is present from time to time, best would be a check in random intervals and notification by Poseidon when removed), but this way could cater most ppl.
Those who accept the current model get a discount, those who want to operate diffrent maschines get that opportunity.
Would require a bit more organization and of course some rework of the key checking routine. But I guess that way would be a viable one.
My personal preference would be to keep the existing single-price structure, but allow the license to be tied to the hardware MAC of a USB>ethernet adapter (eg PegasusII-chipset-based (as supported by Poseidon)).
It's a cheaper approach than a custom ethernet dongle, and I assume (without any knowledge) that this would require minimal re-writing of the current licensing software, except to allow checking the keyfile against the MAC of a different device.
However, to maintain any revenue stream, MorphOS would simply have to have a sustainable increase the registered userbase and/or introduce more frequent "chargeable" upgrades. For example MOS 2.3>2.4 (introducing Mac-mini support) in this theoretical model would have been a chargeable update.
I think it's a reasonable compromise between single-machine license and transferable license, whilst maintaining only 1 machine in use per license sold.
It's a fine balance guys, and I would expect criticism either way. I don't envy you.
However, in the longer term I would expect that greater revenue will be generated from more-user-friendly licensing arrangements than will be lost from not selling multiple licenses to the same customer.
[ Edited by boot_wb on 2009/12/29 19:26 ]
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