DonationCoder.com Software > Circle Dock
Change of Licensing from Version 2 (Cancelled)
Markham:
Let's be very clear about something. The cold, hard facts are that almost no Circle Dock user has shown their appreciation by making a donation to help defray the development costs. In the eleven months that I've been working on this project, a total of $167.37 has been donated to me personally. Of that sum, the biggest portion didn't come from individual donors/users but from this site! Only one Circle Dock user has made a donation, the remainder came from non-users.
And yet the users demand that bugs are fixed quickly and new features implemented and, in 99% of cases, we have obliged, very often receiving no thanks for our efforts let alone a donation to help offset our costs. There are real costs involved here: the development tools (Visual Studio) is not free**, our electricity is not free and nor is our broadband internet. We are very fortunate - and extremely thankful - to mouser and DonationCoder for hosting this forum and our downloads. Just top give you some idea, that $163 I've accumulated in 11 months - that's the equivalent of 5 week's internet connection charges for me.
I am not going to force this issue and it's pretty clear what we must do. We will re-enable the downloads for Eric's last GPL version, both source and binary, and leave it at that.
Mark
** Eric Wong's releases were built using Visual Studio Express. I have been notified officially by Microsoft that software developed using the free Express editions may not be distributed publicly whether for profit or not. Hence all the versions I made were compiled using a paid-for copy of Visual Studio.
mouser:
I have learned the hard way that few people donate to support software (there are some exceptions of course).. And it can take a long time to build up a relationship with a userbase to the point where they know you are serious about working on the software and are willing to support it with their donations. And you have to be really up front about asking for donations. If you don't ask, and ask regularly, people will assume it's not something you care about.
I wrote an article touching on some of these issues here.
But the bottom line is that if you think too hard about how few people donate compared to the number that download or use your software, you are going to get depressed and you may start to feel like you are being taken for granted, etc.
The only way to go forward with this kind of stuff is to work on these things chiefly for the pleasure of working on them and the reward of having happy users. We're just not at the place yet in the software world where many people are willing to financially support projects that they don't have to. Until that changes you just have to find a way to balance the time you spend on these projects with the time you spend making a living. It can still be a very satisfying experience.
I think part of the problem that you CircleDock guys have found yourself in is that you revived this project, and the two of you got so enthusiastic and energetic about improving it and making it better and more popular, at such a break neck speed, that you've found yourself on a path where the only natural way forward down the course you were on was to try to commercialize the program. 99 times out of a hundred in such a situation, you'd have written the program from scratch and you'd have the luxury to choose how to move forward with it. It's just that Circle Dock has a history and legacy that makes that path less viable, and that to honor Eric's project you have to honor his open source license and the restrictions that places on you.
I think mostly you guys need to just pause, step back a bit, take a deep breath, and reclaim some of your time and energy that you've been just exhausting pouring into Circle Dock work. I'm constantly surprised at how hard it is to get perspective when i'm deep in the middle of a project. You just need to take a break and clear your head and give yourself some time to figure out all this stuff and how you feel once you are out of the eye of the storm.
Everyone here at DC is wishing you the best in all things and is appreciative of all the work you've put in.
Markham:
You're right, mouser, as you often are. I have put a lot of effort into getting this program where it is today and, believe it or not, there's very little of Eric Wong's original code in what would have been Version 2.
Whilst the point is now moot, I did consult with a Patents, Trademarks and Licensing lawyer in the UK regarding Circle Dock's license and whether or not it can be issued with a new, more restrictive license. I would not have gone ahead with that proposal had I not received that lawyer's advice. Since there have been objections raised, I have now decided that I will not continue with this project at all: fortunately I held-off signing a hosting contract for Circle Dock's new web site which although fully-designed, is now also cancelled.
We hid the download to Eric Wong's latest source code for one very good reason: there were unscrupulous persons (mainly in China) who were compiling it, claiming it to be their own "invention" and charging users - the cheapest I saw was $50 per copy. That source code will be unhidden on the wikidot site and available to all as will his last binary release (v0.9 Alpha 2).
As for my binary release, I will let that remain available for download until the end of this month whereupon it will be removed from the dcmembers server.
Let's just see if any of those who object to paying for software take up the challenge to improve on Eric's code knowing that they won't receive one brass penny for their efforts!
Mark
mouser:
Take a step back and take some time off and give yourself time to process everything.
You have a world of possibilities that you could consider AFTER you get some perspective and distance:
* You could decide to just stop all involvement in circledock and related projects, for the sake of your sanity.
* You could decide to embrace open source, release all your source code, and do improvements on your own time scale and when you feel like it
* You could decide that it's worth spending a few weeks rewriting the core code from scratch, cleaning up the code in the process, and re-launch a similar commercial product with a new name and new license and without any of the original code.
* etc.
Look, we are all learning how to survive and make our way in this world. Think of this as a learning experience. If all your learning experiences are this cheap in terms of blood, stress, and treasure, you should consider yourself a lucky man.
wraith808:
You could decide that it's worth spending a few weeks rewriting the core code from scratch, cleaning up the code in the process, and re-launch a similar commercial product with a new name and new license and without any of the original code.
-mouser (August 04, 2010, 12:39 PM)
--- End quote ---
I don't have a dog in this race so to speak. I've thought about looking at CD, but haven't, so take this with that in mind.
Considering all that the developers have done on CD, and if the amount of code written is as much as you say, I'd say re-brand it as something else, clean up the code and remove any references to his code, and do as you will with it. Especially as you've already consulted a lawyer on this, and I know that they are not cheap (one of the stopping points for several projects that I've considered has been legal fees).
Just my opinion. I think your license was more than fair, especially considering some of the other docks out there. I use a few, and many of them are licensed per year to give you an example of what some others do. The only change that I see that you could have made is to offer license to those that did donate- therefore anyone who was whinging after that would be people who utilized the software for free and didn't donate.
That's my .02.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version