I thought I would put in some facts and suggestions on this activation issue which is basically the topic of how best a software company should guarantee they make some money.

I am not sure about laws controlling how companies should charge. These facts suggest otherwise.

FACTS:

Multicharts. I have a life time license for Multicharts. It pays for support and upgrades. It was suppose to be until their gold product but they keep extending it. I use to be on their forum daily and support was fast. It has slowed a bit since I am almost never on there now. I can reinstall as much as I want. I can run two versions on the same machine. I can only run live trading on one machine (it shuts down anything on another machine because it calls home to mamma via the internet constantly). I can run offline on as many machines as I want for as long as I want.

MS-access 64 bit. I bought it outright last year. It has zero support and zero upgrades. I can report bugs. I paid about $150 Canadian. I can format my machine as much as I want and download my copy from their website. I can run it on-line or off-line. However this software only runs on one machine. If I buy a new machine I have to pay the $150 again. Expensive. I might not bother. I am to busy with music :-)

I have some smaller softwares that use a key. Purchase prices in the $50 range. I can install them on multiple machines (no limit). I get zero support and zero upgrades. One of these is my web page programming software.

My web programming. (Xammp, Netbeans debugger, mysql workbench, notepad++). All public license free. unlimited installs. unlimited machines. Great software. Amazing debugger.

OBS studio and MS movie maker. Free. Great combination for creating software tutorials.

OPINIONS:

I do not think it is wise for a software company to restrict installs. People have the right to control their machine to clean it of all the internet junk that tends to get on it or nasty viruses out there thus they for good reason tend to get very annoyed when you try to take this away from them. Software companies are much smarter to follow the path taken for Multicharts and MS-Access 64 bit or something similar such as I describe below.

Here are ideas which make sense to me. The basic idea is to provide a lot of different options to please as many customers as possible yet make money in each situation.

All these options should be controlled by a key and also by user info stored on the software manufacturers file so customers can be identified just like a bank identifies them. Charge by number of machines with 1 desktop and 1 notebook being the starting standard. BIAB has to run off-line in order for my Jams to run. The restaurants and clubs tend to not have internet unlike the coffee shops these days. Within that also charge this way.

Have a life time license with year by year support as an extra package if they choose to get it. They may eventually decide to drop their yearly support charge. So this is the highest price purchase and gives you zero upgrades. You can install on one machine as much as you want. Maybe keep a copy if their version so they can download it if they have a fire (copy MS-access 64 bit and MultiCharts).

Also have a series of 3 upgrade packages (2 versions back, 1 version back, beta). These get cheaper as the risk of bugs increase. So you pay less than the life time package but you keep having to upgrade at a cost to pay for the programming. Let me repeat you have to upgrade. Maybe there is a package which is more expensive where you have the option to upgrade at a cost but it is not as expensive as the life time package. The upgrade should be a complete reinstall and it can be done after a format of the drive of course.

In all these situations (much like the bank asks additional security questions if you log in on-line on a new machine) keep track of exactly what machine they are using. Limit them to specific machines but allow them to change the machine. Again, whatever the machine is they should be allowed to fully reinstall as often as they like.

So within these parameters the company sets a price for each. A full feature demo with time limit makes sense. I was thinking of upgrading my Comparator software that is very old and freeware. It would have cost me $50.00. They had a restructured feature demo. The very feature I wanted they had restricted. I decided not to spend the $50.00 because I don't trust them and they lost the sale. It was just as easy for me to put up with the missing feature. Trust works both ways.

I have learned about 17 programming languages to varying extents but I do not know any ms-windows programming at all except MS-Access. I gather there is always a way to hack windows. However most do not know how and I am not even the slightest bit close to knowing. I have better ways to spend my time (music and market trading). If a user is getting good value most do not want to steal. I am just amazed at BIAB and I often state that in my emails to my jam group. I don't mind paying for it for this reason. Both it and Realband have way more than I need. I put my final BIAB Video Tutorial on Youtube to reduce the cost of learning for my jam group members that have thought that they might buy BIAB. My guess is 50% have BIAB already. Maybe 1 to 5 might watch my video and buy BIAB. I just put my Website/BIAB video link in the two ads (Kijiji and CraigsList) I run constantly to get new members. So PgMusic gets some free advertising and a basic intro tutorial to help.





Last edited by bowlesj; 12/01/18 11:14 AM.
John Bowles
My playing in my 20s:
https://www.reverbnation.com/johnbowles