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Re: [Wrapper-user] Licensing Comments
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From: <mc...@gm...> - 2008-04-21 22:48:41
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Thankyou for your detailed reply Leif. I have sympathy for the arguments you put forward, and as I said, I don't have a problem with actually paying a license fee to use JSR. My issue is that the license stratification, rules and pricing that you have established just don't work for me, and I suspect won't work for a large number of others. Put simply, host-based licensing is a complete pain in the behind, and you can imagine how completely impossible things would get if we had to manage this for every piece of Open Source code we used in the same application. The only model that makes sense in my view, is developer-based licensing. But in this case, you have to have license fees that are reasonable. You would do really well, I'm sure, to have a simple developer license where the price tag was in the order of a hundred dollars or two. I'm sure you would get almost universal uptake from everyone using it for commercial purposes....it would be a no-brainer. But as things stand, a large number of users will actually have to think about their options...their packaging/admin/management overheads are going to far outweigh the actual cost of the host-based license. And if you're worried about the small number of product companies who might be selling thousands of copies of a commercial product that includes JSR, the solution is simple. Have two tiers of developer license...for the simple reason that numerically, most users who are using it commercially will not have the thousands of sites that might justify the cost of the your dev license. So you set an arbitrary threshold, say 1,000. If you have more than that many separate host installations, you need an add-on license that takes you from 1,000 to 10,000 sites. Maybe that one has the pricetag you have currently set. My twenty cents. I'll take any further discussion with you off-line. Kind regards... Leif Mortenson wrote: > Milton, > Thank you for your honest feedback. We realize and > expected that not all users would be initially positive about > the changes to the Wrapper's License. But we feel that in > the long run, this will make the Wrapper a much stronger > product both for our Commercial and Open Source user > base. > > The Wrapper has from the beginning been open source > and the Community Edition will continue to be so. We > appreciate your kind praise of the Wrapper and will make > every effort to continue to live up to your expectations. > > 1) License > > Older versions of the Java Service Wrapper were released > under a very liberal license which placed no restrictions on > how the Wrapper was used by our users. > > Tanuki Software has always treated the Wrapper as a core > technology and done our best to support, document, develop, > and test it as we would a commercial product. This has > resulted in a stable and flexible tool which has gained wide > acceptance. > > As you are surely aware, providing any quality software > product comes at a significant cost in both time and money. > The Wrapper is a culmination of several years of work. With > the Wrapper remaining a purely open source product, Tanuki > Software was not receiving near enough revenue to justify a > high level of new development. > > In the interest of continuing to improve the Wrapper to meet > the needs of our large user base we decided to offer commercial > Editions in ADDITION to the community Edition. This new > revenue stream has enabled us to directly fund Wrapper > development. Which will result in a much more vital application. > > We realize that the change to a GPL2 license for the Community > Edition has added restrictions to how and where the Community > Edition can be used. While the GPL is not perfect, the goal here > is to provide a solution that will enable open source projects to > continue to use the Wrapper, while at the same time allow for a > viable business model and thus support its development. This > is a model very similar to what MySQL has done. > > We have not yet implemented a FLOSS license like MySQL has > which enables MySQL to be used with many non-GPL OSS licenses, > but we have no intention to encumber purely OSS projects and > will work to come up with a fair solution to this problem. > > 2) Community Involvement > > You are correct that we did not make a wide spread > announcement of these business plans to the Wrapper community > at large until just before the 3.3.0 release. However we have > been communicating with several of our long time users over the > last year attempting to get a feel for how these changes would > affect their businesses and projects. > > 3) Feature Set > > When we designed the 3 Editions of the Wrapper we were > very conscious of our long time user base. The 3.3.0 > Community Edition of the Wrapper contains ALL of the > features that were available in the 3.2.3 release. Plus a > number of new features and bug fixes. > > The Commercial Standard and Professional Editions of the > Wrapper contain all of the features available in the Community > Edition plus several additional features that are completely > new to 3.3.0. > > Once again, there were NO features removed from the > Community Edition of the Wrapper as you claim. > > We will be continuing to implement features in the Community > of Wrapper, but will of course also be adding features that will > be initially available to the commercial editions. > > Any patches or code which is submitted by the user base and > accepted by Tanuki Software will of course be available in the > Community Edition. > > If you have any concerns about specific features, please feel > free to contact me directly or on list. > > 4) Pricing > > The Pricing for the Wrapper is something that came out of > analysis of our costs to maintain the product, the market for > similar tools, and feedback from users. The development > licenses are extremely flexible and unrestrictive to allow our > customers to use the Wrapper at will within their products. > If the current pricing does not fit into your business model, > for example if you sell to a very small number of customers > and provide a low cost product it may be possible to > arrange a restricted version of the development license to > meet your needs. Please feel free contact > sa...@ta... to discuss those terms. > > 5) Branching > > Branching the Wrapper has always been possible, though > the license and code do require that relevant copyright > notices always be made available in any such branches. > > It is very rare however that an OSS project is successfully > branched unless the goals of the two projects each satisfy > respective divergent needs. > > The Wrapper also continues to be actively developed and is > offered at a price that is much less than the resources that > would be required by any 3rd party to duplicate these > efforts. > > As stated above, we have also made every effort to come up > with a solution that is fair to our OSS user base while at the > same time providing the funding required to maintain the > project's vitality. Efforts by the OSS community in effect take > advantage of the OSS licenses to work around our business > model would have the obvious and unfortunate effect of > discouraging companies like Tanuki Software from continuing > to invest in OSS. > > We have of course always been aware of this possibility, and > will rely on our continued development and support efforts > to continue to provide value to you and the rest of our users. > > We look forward to any further feedback you might have. > > Sincerely, > Leif Mortenson, > Tanuki Software, Inc. > > > Milton Taylor wrote: > >> Q. So when is Open Source not open source? >> A. When the copyright owner changes their mind! >> >> From the Tanuki JSR web-site, and still on display: >> /"The Wrapper, being an open source application, is free and will always >> remain free. "/ Cheap words in hindsight? >> >> I like many others use the Tanuki Java Service Wrapper because it is a >> great solution to a common problem. >> >> I actually don't have a problem with paying some sort of license fee for >> is use, but for something like this, I need to be able to build it into >> my installer, and I'm not going to go to the bother of creating a >> different installer for each target host etc, hence the only version of >> JSR that appears relevant is the Developer version. There is no way I >> can justify paying thousands of dollars for a developer license for this >> piece of work, as useful as it is. Nor could I justify the hassle of >> administering a per-host/per-customer license. Sorry! >> >> What I really object to is the fact that features that were previously >> part of the (true) Open-Source version have now been classified as >> "Professional Features", i.e. the free version is now the functionally >> crippled one. I also think you have done yourself a great dis-service by >> not consulting with your users about what you planned to do. (I don't >> see any prior discussion about this in the mail archive) >> >> So, I guess we're either stuck with version 3.2.3 - unable to >> legitimately obtain the fixes available in 3.3.0 - or we switch to >> something else. >> >> Or, someone creates a true open-source fork as of 3.2.3 and we all carry >> on from there. >> >> Yours in disgruntlement... >> mctozzy >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------- >> This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference >> Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100. >> Use priority code J8TL2D2. >> http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone >> _______________________________________________ >> Wrapper-user mailing list >> Wra...@li... >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wrapper-user >> >> >> > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by the 2008 JavaOne(SM) Conference > Don't miss this year's exciting event. There's still time to save $100. > Use priority code J8TL2D2. > http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;198757673;13503038;p?http://java.sun.com/javaone > _______________________________________________ > Wrapper-user mailing list > Wra...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/wrapper-user > |
