Method for providing a trail period on a program

[Ben Finney]

On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 15:40:25 -0500, Larry Bates wrote:
> I find the idea that you can give the software away and charge for
> support an interesting one.

So interesting that many 21st-century companies are doing just that.

> If you write REALLY good software with REALLY good documentation that
> provides REALLY good tracing and debugging support (so users can track
> down their own problems), what are you going to charge for?

That is indeed your dilemma.  What are you going to provide to the user
that they will want to pay for?  They will *not* want to pay for "usage
license", despite the current copyright law.  To expect that they will
is to treat them as fools or slaves.

When someone already has the software in their hands, what value are you
going to add that they should pay for?  Some existing suggestions:
installation assistance, customisation, integration with other systems,
printed documentation and so on.  You can probably think of others.

> The reason I wanted to put a trial period on
> my software was that I may have the opportunity
> to place it on the CDROM with a hardware device
> that is being sold.

You may want to treat the hardware as a value add for your software, and
charge a royalty for each bundle sold.

> I would like every end user to have the opportunity of trying out my
> add-on package.  I am however, not prepared to let them run it forever
> for free.

You wish, in short, to tell them what they can do with what they have
legally purchased.  Would you want others to do this to you?

> If it provides value to them, I believe they should purchase a
> license.

If you legally mandate this, you will simply motivate them to find a
replacement, or crack whatever protection you put in place, or not
purchase in the first place, depending on their technical ability or
respect for copyright law.  Why not allow those who want to pay, do so,
without demanding it?

The principle here is: think of things users would *want* to pay for as a
user of that software, and find a way to provide that.  If they can see
the value of paying for something, they'll be much more motivated to do
so than being forced by some intentional flaw in the software.

-- 
 \          "I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate |
  `\          those who do. And for the people who like country music, |
_o__)                     denigrate means 'put down'."  -- Bob Newhart |
Ben Finney <http://bignose.squidly.org/>