[danopolitan]

I wasn't sure where to post this question, so I thought General would do.

Has anyone here ever had a company want to have a license to use a program you have made?
I have a fairly simple yet dynamic agenda program that is freeware for personal use, and has been discovered by a Dutch company who wants to use it for their employees. Of course, they're asking me what kind of licensing fee I'd charge them. They'd also like me to make some minor changes so it is integrated with their business.

I've always been a programming hobbyist, not really out for money, but I have a chance to get a little reward for my long hours of work. I don't want to scare them off, and I don't want to ask for too little - does anyone have an idea of what I should charge? Again, the program is just an agenda, nothing too special about it, but they just really like how I put everything together. What do programs like that usually go for? Even a range would help.

Thanks for any help,
Dan

[reboot]

For whatever my opinion is worth.... Charge very little for the software, but charge them an annual licensing/maintenence fee, per seat. Steady income. Hard to say what you should charge, as I know virtually nothing about the software. Whatever you decide on the price, raise it by at least 50%, then if they blink, you can lower it.

With regards to corporate licensing: in the UK, and I suspect there are similar organisations worldwide, we have an org called FAST who go round and check your company is not using illegal copies of software (they also dislike MP3s and stuff), and they tend to want a license for software a company is using.

On the flip side, companies will often ignore software if it is low priced as, in their ignorance (usually the finance boss who knows zilch about computers) they assume a product must be expensive to be any good. One experience of this is a guy who posts on the board of a UML design software package I use called Enterprise Architect, he wrote a program for commerical use, and had a personal and corporate edition that were exactly the same, but the corporate issue was far more expensive. When asked about this, he quite rightly pointed out that the company would not have bought the software if it was low priced.

Back to your question though, you don't mention where you are from, but EA costs $95 (compared to MS Visio and Rational Rose which cost about $600 and do the same thing) and that is a fully functional drawing program. I would suggest finding out how much in Euros say $30 is, probably about 50, and charge them that, they will probably find that acceptable, perhaps a little less but make sure you keep it updated and offer bug testing and support for say a year included in that.

[chris00]

Originally posted by Lewis
With regards to corporate licensing: in the UK, and I suspect there are similar organisations worldwide, we have an org called FAST who go round and check your company is not using illegal copies of software (they also dislike MP3s and stuff), and they tend to want a license for software a company is using.

There is no such thing in the US.

[JDT]

chris00

We do have private squeeler companies. They put adds on the radio asking you to do some whistle blowing on your employer. I think they get a cut of the fines or something.

[chris00]

Thanks for letting me know. What # do I call ?? My school uses the same CD for over 500 computers (I wouldn't do that, unless I need money of course)

BTW: Lewis is that a goverment thing ???

[Spike]

Originally posted by JDT
chris00

We do have private squeeler companies. They put adds on the radio asking you to do some whistle blowing on your employer. I think they get a cut of the fines or something.

Where i work, we were hit by one of these places. Everything personal on the computers had to be stripped out, nothing except things for work were alound. Even a simple wallpaper had to be taken out.

[JDT]

chris00

Your school has a site liscense. I am 99.9% sure of that. That means, MS (or whoever) allows a certain number of install for an organization. It can be from one disc or several. For example, A company I work for has a site liscense for Win2k. They gave us one disc and allowed us to install it on 36 computers.

FAST is a government created (but independent??) body. They are basically useless though as they tell you about 3 weeks in advance when they are coming, giving you plenty of time to strip off anything illegal in advance ;/

They do let you report the piracy anonymously and I believe companies get fined £1000 per illegal software application.

Site licenses suck though, as you do only get 1 cd to install on all the computers, and should that CD break you're screwed until you can get a replacement sent out, sucky more so if you're half way through 500 computers and they have to be ready for the start of term in a weeks time. Glad I'm not responsible for all that

[Banjo]

Actually, FAST was setup by the British Computer Society and has no official powers what so ever. Although they do request an audit on your software licenses, they have no power to force entry to your premises if you do not let them in.

And have you never heard to making backup copies of your CDs? I know that if I had to install 500 computers, the original would be duplicated and stored away safely.
And I'd much rather have a site license and one disk than 500 individual licenses and 500 identical CDs stacked in the corner.

[davie]

Originally posted by Lewis
They are basically useless though as they tell you about 3 weeks in advance when they are coming

That is the same with most UK government set-up agencies.

Originally posted by Lewis
I would suggest finding out how much in Euros say $30 is, probably about 50, and charge them that,

$30 is about €30 give or take a few cents, the euro was modelled on the US dollar.

I don't mean you should get 500 cds, but say 5 would be better than 1. As for copying the cds, inexperienced tech people, say a primary school teacher who has the ECDL and sets up the computers for the school isn't going to want to copy the cd as they may not know the legal right to back up your cd once.

That's by the by really, the problem is, that the BCS themselves believe approx. 26% of software in use is illegal. As software designers, surely we should all be behind FAST, and should support their lobbying of parliament to get better laws and more power to enforce the law?

It is admirable that a company would like to pay for someone's software, but how many others would just take it and use it anyway?

[Banjo]

Well, an inexperienced teacher should not be administering a large network.

Most businesses will not pirate software anyway because the risks are not worth the cost of being properly licensed. The vast majority of pirated software is used by home users for the simple reason that MS prices its products to squeeze as much money as possible out of businesses. This puts the cost of software at a point that is unjustifiable to most home users.

[Cogen]

This might be a bad thing, but I'm not sure if I care very much about software pirating.
On one hand, I don't think it's fair for a company to make a product for retail and then have computer users "crack" or "pirate" it for free.
On the other hand, many home users simply can't afford the big bucks that some programs cost. If I go over to a friends house and find out that they have a pirated copy of Adobe Photoshop, then it doesn't really bother me. After all, I'd be lying if I said I never installed a pirated program on my computer before.
The only thing that bothers me is when a "company" is pirating software, or if an individual that is dependent on a program for their career pirates software. For instance, if my friend was a professional graphics designer, then I would hope he/she had valid graphics programs.

Edit:
I'm not saying I'm in favour of pirating software, it just doesn't bother me that much (except for businesses as stated above).

[JDT]

It would bother me if a company or a home user pirated software that I wrote...

Edit: fixed typo

If you can't afford it, you don't need it. If you want it, get a job. Period.

[chris00]

Originally posted by Banjo
Well, an inexperienced teacher should not be administering a large network....

Saddly that the way it is at my school.

and I know they don't own legal right for every copy, becouse the tech guy told me and they have Home version of everthing.

If you consider though, that 26% of softare in use is pirated (FAST figures), think of the losses to the software companys. If MS Win XP has 100,000 users (example) and it costs £100 a time, 26,000 of those users haven't paid for it, that costs MS 2,600,000. Now obviously MS are big and can ~afford~ to lose that, but for a small company, like Sparx Systems who wrote the UML software I use, £2.6m is a huge sum, and pirates are ruinign them.

Personally I buy all my games legit, both PC and XBox, same with all my DVDs, and I don't have a need to use software like VB at home, and at work we have legit copies of it all, but I can see why people are tempted to use illegal copies when a full copy of MS Office Pro is over £400, even the student edition (with only word/excel and something else) is over £100. Derek Stone said: "if you need it, buy it", but that's hardly going to stop kids downloading illegal software, and with nothing to enforce the copyright, short of getting caught out by chance, it's not going to stop.

[Banjo]

I think that the big problem is that there is no distinction between usage levels. If MS offered a cut down version of the office application suite for £40-50 then piracy would drop significantly.
It would also be to their benefit by further increasing their market share. In the computer industry, market share is everything.

Hence my switch to OpenOffice.