Filling the CodeGear license gap

Question

I have a discussion point about Codegear's licensing.

Delphi 2009 is sold (more correct: licensed) under two different types of licence:

1. Commercial license
2. Academic license

The Commercial license (full and upgrade) is much more expensive than the academic one!

The commercial license has the drawback of the higher price, but its advantage is that commercial applications can be made.

The acedemic licence has the advantage of the low price, but there is a catch: you have to prove that you are a scholar, student or a teacher! Or else you won't obtain your license! The non-commercial nature of this license is a non-issue!

I'd like to see a third one:

-- Non-Commercial license

This license should be as low in price or somewhat higher and the license cannot be used commercially. The license should be tied to the person who purchased it like the already existing types of license.

Does this license have advantages:

1. Hobbyists have access to Delphi, C++ Builder and other Codegear software.
2. Illegal usage might be decreasing due to the more affordable pricing.
3. It's an ideal license for creating and maintaining opensource software with the latest Delphi.

What do you think about this matter?

Answer 1

Turbo Delphi is free to use.

Answer 2

What do you think about this matter?

1) Open Source is commercial. You can sell open source software.

2) Hobbyists can sell software too... and I can't see why hobbiysts are willingly to spend lots of dollars for a camera, a guitar, a bike, whatever you like but can't spend $450 for an IDE - just because you can't copy a camera or a bike??

3) Most people would buy the "non-commercial" version and develop commercial software anyway - how could CodeGear track it? Tracking costs money, and can offset any earning.

4) Illegal usage won't decrease but for 3) - people using illegal software don't like to pay even $30.

Answer 3

There previously was a Personal license that fit that niche. Also the Turbo and Turbo Explorer versions fit that niche. The issue is there are 4 groups:

1. Buys based on features first, price second (enterprise, etc.)
2. Buys on price not features - needs to be cheap, preferably free (hobbiest, etc.)
3. Only for free, with no qualms about licensing (pirates.)

The 3rd group is characterized by the fact the pirate the Architect version when they are only using features in the Professional version (or free version if one existed). They will never convert to a paying customer, although may convert to a free version if it has all the features they want (although unlikely.)

The issue with trying to maximize the 2nd group (turn all of them into customers) is you don't want to move people from the 1st group. If someone is buying based on features, and you offer a lower featured version for less money, they may be happy with that version and just buy it. Why not save money?

Non-Commercial is too nebulous of a license as has been pointed out by others. If you cripple the features too much then it is a wasted effort to make the offer since no one will want it and reflect poorly on the professional version. The only thing that would work is a nag-screen, but that would be really annoying too, and by the very nature of the users would be easily bypassed.

So the bottom line is the money that keeps a company afloat is in maximizing the 1st group. Attempting to appease the 2nd and 3rd groups can actually result in lost money. Although I agree that if they want to target more hobbiests then they really need a free / low-cost offering (an updated Turbo and Turbo Explorer).