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<B>On Thu Jan 8 16:24 , Patrick Shirkey <PSHIRKEY@BOOSTHARDWARE.COM>sent:<BR>
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<BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #f5f5f5 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"><A href="javascript:top.opencompose('sonofzev@iinet.net.au','','','')">sonofzev@iinet.net.au</A> wrote:<BR>
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> My own view is that the best time to do this is early on in the user's<BR>
> experience. In fact, most of the previous replies have only<BR>
> confirmed a<BR>
> point I made in an earlier post - namely that when people start<BR>
> off with the<BR>
> notion of NOT having to pay for something, they are rarely<BR>
> receptive to<BR>
> paying for it later. The best time to ask for payment is usually<BR>
> after a<BR>
> successful trial period - and the best way is either to make the<BR>
> s/ware time<BR>
> out (which isn't practical in Ardour's case) OR to offer something<BR>
> that<BR>
> isn't strictly needed but is highly desirable (such as premium<BR>
> support) OR<BR>
> to have a set of "pro" features that only work in the paid-for<BR>
> version. I'm<BR>
> sure there must be other options too - but the key is that they<BR>
> must offer<BR>
> something of value that you can't get if you don't contribute (either<BR>
> financially or technically).<BR>
><BR>
> All of these suggestions are counter to the GPL licensing and FOSS<BR>
> concepts.. to achieve these ardour would have to have a closed<BR>
> source version. <BR>
><BR>
A binary release is a closed source version except that if you want to <BR>
you can get the original source and compile it yourself. Many Mac and <BR>
these days Linux users are not interested in compiling an application <BR>
themselves.<BR>
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Cheers.<BR>
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-- <BR>
Patrick Shirkey<BR>
Boost Hardware Ltd.<BR>
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)<BR>
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Not exactly.. <BR>
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The GPL dictates that the source be available but not purely for the case of compliling but also for using the code.. if the source code is available the binary is still considered open source. I'm pretty sure to do the above ardour would need to have code elements that aren't GPL'd and only available by payment .. such as MacOSX with use of BSD code and GPL code. <BR>
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With regards to compiling though.. I'm sure many users would simply start compiling if they knew that's how they could get it for free.. and of course the binary would be up on torrents in no time. <BR>
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