<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-size: 14px; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; "><div>It is difficult to <b>sustain</b> a <b>major</b> release cycle of 6 months and have any significantly new capabilities at each release cycle. Easier at the beginning as you're ramping up but once you have a mature product it strikes me as incremental. The low hanging fruit has been built, new capabilities will require more baking. Your time expectations seem out of whack. Id's 5 year cycle seems much more representative. </div><div><br></div><div>In any case, unless the cost is trivial I'd likely just wait 9 months and stay one rev back for free which is Mr Moglen's point. And you better be giving me a stable version X.0.1 with bug fixes for free whatever else you do. </div><div><br></div><div>You make the sale to me because you have a time release and your close competitors don't. All else being more or less equal I'll buy your product because I like the concept. Not because I'm going to sign up to pay for what your competitors give me for free. I bought pixelmator a while back for $40 back on rev 1.4 or something. They're at rev 2.2 four years later and I still get free updates via the app store. That's what I expect from a software product these days.</div><div><br></div><div>With regards to a FOSS drug database the software itself strikes me as mostly straightforward. It's the data that is of great value. You could easily open source the software and sell a subscription to database updates.</div><div><br></div><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"><div style="font-family:Calibri; font-size:11pt; text-align:left; color:black; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; BORDER-TOP: #b5c4df 1pt solid; BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; PADDING-TOP: 3pt"><span style="font-weight:bold">From: </span> fred trotter <<a href="mailto:fred.trotter@gmail.com">fred.trotter@gmail.com</a>><br><span style="font-weight:bold">Reply-To: </span> License Discuss <<a href="mailto:license-discuss@opensource.org">license-discuss@opensource.org</a>><br><span style="font-weight:bold">Date: </span> Thursday, August 15, 2013 3:52 AM<br><span style="font-weight:bold">To: </span> Eben Moglen <<a href="mailto:moglen@softwarefreedom.org">moglen@softwarefreedom.org</a>>, License Discuss <<a href="mailto:license-discuss@opensource.org">license-discuss@opensource.org</a>><br><span style="font-weight:bold">Subject: </span> Re: [License-discuss] Open Source Eventually License Development<br></div><div><br></div><div><div><div><div class="gmail_quote"><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
This clearing price is too small to be profitable except at very high<br>
volumes or in other extraordinary circumstances. </blockquote><div><br></div><div>These extraordinary circumstances are fairly easy to contrive. </div><div>For instance, the current natural rhythm of software development is something like</div><div><br></div><div>1. Release stable version X.0 </div><div>2. Create new version X.1 with lots of new untested and unstable features</div><div>3. Test, Release, Repeat as needed, incrementing minor versions</div><div>4. Stable version incremented. X+1.0 is released</div><div><br></div><div>Most users hop from stable version to stable version, which which keeps switching costs very low, and making your economic assessment correct. But under a time delay model you might shift to a development cycle like so.</div><div><br></div><div>1. Release version X for sale under a 9 month timer</div><div>2. Release version X.1 under a FLOSS license, totally unstable but presently Libre</div><div>3. Test, Release, Repeat as needed incrementing minor versions for 6 months</div><div>4. Release version X+1 for sale under a 9 month timer. There is no stable version available under FLOSS, but there are two stable versions under a timer. </div><div>5. Users must choose between a purchasing a stable version that will be Libre in 3 months or paying the same thing for an improved version that will be Libre in 9 months. </div><div> </div></div></div></div></div></span><div><br></div></body></html>