Re: [FreePV-dev] Re: License / Marketing

[Yuval L. (sf.net) <sf...@sf...>]

Bruno Postle wrote:

> I think you have said enough on this subject and are not making your 
> case any better by pursuing it.

 I think the same of your arguments. I made a proposition. You attacked 
my proposition. You think I am not making my case any better and so do I 
think of you, specifically when the discussion got into absoultes like 
"_all_ the software", "_the_ standard", "_perfect_ license" and even 
worse when it got trolling. Have these made your case any better?

I propose a custom made open source license along the line of the PHP 
license with some modifications to ensure that we can reach a large 
audience, along similar line of thinking of the Mozilla foundation for 
Firefox and Thunderbird. Why don't you make your proposition, argue in 
its favor instead of arguing against my proposition, and put both to a vote?

In the end it is up to those who will write the code under what license 
they want to release it. All I say is that in my opinion a GPL plugin 
has not many chances to make it on the hundreds of millions of desktops 
that we are trying to reach. It will go the same way GLpanoview ended, 
and the same way that the pano12.dll is going once next generation 
software such as Joost's new proprietary tools and other similar 
competitors hit the street.

While there are good people who truly believe in sharing and 
contributing, the reality is that software is a market of give and take 
where the majority will try to take as much as it can and give as little 
as it can get away with.

> By the way - I earn my living writing, selling and maintaining 
> commercial software under a variety of licenses and have many years 
> experience of such things:


These are very impressive achievements and I have no doubts you are an 
excellent programmer. Also from a business / marketing perspective the 
chosen licenses are sensible choices.

>
> Dongle protected proprietary Windows application: 
> http://www.patterner.co.uk/

 From a market perspective similar situation like PTgui. Target group: 
highly specialized, mostly with too little programming knowledge to do 
this themselves. Willing to pay for good software because they know that 
you get what you pay for. This is a situation in which a commercial tool 
has high chances to succeed, even against a free tool.

> Artistic license (BSD-like) perl libraries: 
> http://search.cpan.org/~bpostle/

Here the target group is not only highly specialized, but also very 
knowledgeable. These libraries are more or less useless to the layman 
and the expert, given enough time, could rewrite them. So it becomes the 
usual "make or buy" decision. If the price is to high, the expert will 
rewrite. This is the natural field of open source at its best. Community 
sharing among equals for the benefit of everybody.

> GPL licensed commercial application: http://www.mkdoc.com/

Two very good reasons to adopt open source here: there is so much 
competition in the content management arena that the customer can 
dictate the price (i.e. close to zero), and this is the sort of product 
that requires a lot of support. Demand for (paid) support is generated 
by giving the software away. A viable business model making money on 
service rather than product.



My experience is in marketing to the mass market. Reaching seven 
millions consumers with complex investment products (funds, stocks, 
bonds, options). Leveraging a sales force of over 1300 salespeople to 
get there. Opening up a direct channel to the consumer (online 
brokerage). A very different target group, and more similar to what 
freepv tries to reach.

The specialist is educated in his field. The average consumer has left 
school twenty-five years ago and his "education" about the products 
mostly comes from 90 seconds TV ads.

Say "pano2qtvr" to a specialist, his brain recalls all sorts of concepts 
that he knows such as equirectangular projection, cubefaces, quicktime, etc.

Say "freepv" to the average consumer and if you are lucky he will 
understand the "free".

When you can engage your target audience in a direct dialog, you can 
teach them. But when your target audience is one step away (i.e. your 
idea has to travel through a third party, whether it is an investment 
advisor or a webmaster) you need to leverage them to get your message 
through.

The licensing terms are an important tool to leverage and leaving them 
at GPL is forgoing one of the most effective ways to drive adoption.

Have you ever written a code that was adopted by a million users? freepv 
needs to be adopted by at least 100 millions users if it wants a chance 
to compete with QuickTime, Java and the other popular plug ins out 
there. I admit I have never moved in the 100+ millions range (not even 
Citibank, the world largest retail bank, has such a large customer 
base), but I believe that what I learned on the "small" scale of a seven 
million market and on a subsequent failure to replicate in selected 
European markets totalling over 200 millions consumers can be helpful to 
drive adoption of freepv beyond the limited group of a specialist community.

Yuv