- Do away with license key system entirely, go back to just asking for pure voluntary donations; this should lead to happier users but could reduce donation substantially.
- Simplify license key system: Allow anyone to get a N-month license key immediately on site without signing up. Donations required for permanent license key; do away with need to sign up and 6month renewal turning into permanent license key; This would be simpler to explain and use, and doing away with signup encouragement for non-donors would be welcome by many.
- Remove the need for license key but allow donors to download newer versions of programs; Idea here would be that donors would get the latest versions of the programs ahead of non-donors; the versions available to non-donors would always be N months behind latest release; This has an advantage of being simple to explain and offering a real benefit to donors, while still offering fully free versions to everyone and no need for free users to deal with license keys; Another advantage is the incentive is on us to keep improving our software.
- Have a page where anyone can download a full license key, and must simply state that they have considered and will consider in the future, the idea of donating to the site, but not require anything; at least this would let us have an opportunity to ask them to consider donating.
- Leave everything the way it is.
Other ideas?
- 1st idea: Like you said, this is definitely an option but will drop revenue of the site. I would hate to see advertisements on my beloved doco
- 2nd idea: Good idea, probably the best of the bunch. I think you could combine 2 and 3 and find the perfect system. The idea here is that the person gets immediate access to the newest versions on DoCo with the temp license without requiring sign-up. After that period, however, any subsequent licenses would result in "delayed" access to future versions until a sign up is done.
- 3rd idea: See above. Combined with 2, I think it could be a winning option.
- 4th idea: This could be a "sign up" form in which they enter basic info: Name, Email and receive a key right then and there. They are not put on any mailing lists, etc. But do receive a key. You would have to make sure and annotate that they will not receive emails unless they opt in (good idea for a field on the form.
- 5th idea: NO, see above.
-Josh
I think that delayed access to versions is not a good idea, since many versions are bug fixes and not feature improvements. You'd be handing out a buggy version of your software to anyone who doesn't donate. The solution for this would obviously be to maintain two versions, one with more features than the other, but both with the same bug fixes. This sounds like those "free" vs "payed" versions of the software. I'm alright with this approach, but it involves having 2 binaries for each application, and switches in the code to do this. Personally, I think is is too much of an hassle and users wouldn't get to see all the potential of the software.
I propose something similar to what we have now, but with a slight change: when the nag comes up in the app (after 1month), it has a "get your free key here" link. The user goes to the page and he gets the following message:
Hi! We are glad you are still using our application after one month!
You now have three options to register our application:
Here's your free 3-month key: khbknasnxci<insert rest of key here>
OR you can join our forum and get a 6-month free key (and a lifetime free key in 6 months)
OR you can donate any amount you like and get a lifetime key for all our apps right now!The wording is terrible, but I'm sure we could write it a bit better. The guidelines behind my idea are this:
People who don't care will just get the 3-month key and go with it. With the current model, they would only register to get the key anyways, so let them just have it and be happy with it, but make them return in 3-months to see if they have gained any interest in the forum.
People who actually read websites might be more interested in the forum (and may provide interesting contributions to the forum). These would be the ones who would register for the 6-month key.
A few more ideas that just popped about this:
1 - maybe the 6-month forum key (or the permanent forum key) could be handed out only if the user had more than 2(?) posts.
2 - better yet, maybe the 6-month forum key could only be handed out to people who wrote what they think about the application at the forum? A "Tell us what you think about FARR and get a 6-month(1-year?) key" kind of thing?
3 - maybe we could have a "why I deserve a free key" thread which could also be one of the options above for obtaining a key. Might bring good karma and more members to the forum (as it would force people to do a post). That's how you got me a few years ago, IIRC
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