[Drawkit] DrawKit licensing hassles

[Steve Weller]

On Sep 10, 2008, at 4:56 PM, Graham Cox wrote:

> However, there's another thing. I have spent a huge amount of time  
> on this, time which not only have I not earned a penny from, but  
> which actually costs me money. So if Microsoft or some other rich  
> corporation wanted to use DK I don't see why they should do so for  
> free when they can spend more money from petty cash in half a day  
> than I could ever hope to earn in a lifetime. Does that seem fair?  
> So what I'm trying to achieve is to share the wealth with other  
> "little guys" like me, commercial included, but for those that can  
> easily afford it, to get some return for my effort. The problem is  
> how to tell apart one corporate user from another. There's no way to  
> do so except to take each case on its merits - I can't say, well, if  
> your gross income is this much DK costs x, if it's this, DK costs y.  
> So if you're a commercial developer, all you have to do is contact  
> me and find out what the "fee" is. Chances are it's zero, but if you  
> happen to be Microsoft, I'll probably expect you to pay something  
> because you can, and morally, you *should*, and we can negotiate  
> what that is.
>
> If you can think of a better way to resolve this I'd be very happy  
> to hear it, I don't like the added complexity either. I guess what  
> it amounts to is that there is a limit to my generosity - for over  
> twenty years now I've seen numerous people get very rich indeed from  
> software I've written for them, yet here I am wondering (literally)  
> whether I can afford to go to the supermarket this week. I just feel  
> it's time some of my efforts benefited me in a slightly more  
> tangible way than having a warm fuzzy feeling. Is that wrong?

One way out of this is to charge (greatly) for customization and  
support.

As you develop DK, you will break implementations, create features  
that don't jog with the applications it is being used in, fix bugs in  
ways that cause incompatibilities etc. Since you control the codebase,  
and hence the spec of the package, you can take it where you want it  
to go and everyone else either has to keep up, pay for your help, or  
pay for the privilege of having their implementation respected.

This won't protect you from the Microsofts of the world, but then they  
are not your target market and you are too small even to consider  
fighting them.

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