To sell, or not to sell...?

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shobley
 
Posts: 184
Joined: Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:16 pm

To sell, or not to sell...?

Post by shobley »

OK, this is not really electronics related, but it is a question about a similar business model.

Long story short - the Parrot ARDrone is cool, but the original developers do not want to support Windows. So I, and two others have created a rather spiffing .Net library for Windows Forms and WPF that connects the drone to just about any physical control device on the planet.

We know that if we push this out as free and open source, someone will try to profit from it, as there are a slew of potential Drone customers that are just waiting for a Windows app so that they can use their laptops.

So.... how do we go about releasing this?

I don't want to stifle innovation and development but I need lunch, and I don't want someone else eating it.

What kind of license model should we use?

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Franklin97355
 
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Joined: Mon Apr 21, 2008 2:33 pm

Re: To sell, or not to sell...?

Post by Franklin97355 »

Check out the creative commons licenses. I think there is a non-commercial attribute.

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macegr
 
Posts: 293
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2008 4:46 pm

Re: To sell, or not to sell...?

Post by macegr »

It's silly to talk about licensing something as part of a money-making mechanism unless you already have enough money to hire lawyers to defend said licenses.

uhe
 
Posts: 178
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2007 4:50 pm

Re: To sell, or not to sell...?

Post by uhe »

Since the website says: It was initially designed for the Apple platforms and will be also available on other platforms in the next few months. it might rather be the question *Who is first?*...
shobley wrote:have created a rather spiffing .Net library for Windows Forms and WPF
If it's just a library I'd buy it
a) if I knew that I get support (updates/bugfixes/etc.) as long as the parrot exists or
b) I'd want the sourcecode too so that I'm independend of the developer(s).
A library is something that one needs to develop own/new products not something that's intended to be used by the common user.
In my experience for a) you need a good reputation or people won't trust you, b) seems not to be the way you'd like to go.
shobley wrote:customers that are just waiting for a Windows app
If it's an application it's different in my opinion. An application is something ready made that I can buy and just use. As long as it works, updates or bugfixes are not that urgent. Sources are not required in that case but... there is still the mentality of *sharing*.

IHMO the question is not To sell, or not to sell...? rather than Can you afford a project that might not get sold?. If no one buys you have to release it as OSS or it was a complete waste of time.

shobley
 
Posts: 184
Joined: Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:16 pm

Re: To sell, or not to sell...?

Post by shobley »

Thanks for all the input.

Personally I don't really mind releasing it all for free. But I really don't want someone else taking it and making money without actually adding any value of their own.

One interesting twist that occured within the last 24 hours - someone else tried to release a .Net re-implementation of the SDK and was made to take it down. We're currently trying to find out why.

Steve

uhe
 
Posts: 178
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2007 4:50 pm

Re: To sell, or not to sell...?

Post by uhe »

As for the money, as franklin said forbid the comercial use via a suitable license..
Maybe it has been taked down because of the developer license:

Code: Select all

ARTICLE 5 – RESTRICTIONS AND LIMITATIONS TO THE LICENSE 
[...]
Consequently, PARROT expressly forbids the Developer:
(i)  To access or use of the PARROT SDK Drone API’s from a technology or means others than those provided with the API’s;
(ii)  To market copies of the API’s, for free or against fees, and to distribute, sub-license, rent, sell, transfer, commercialize, publish or generally put the API’s to a third party disposal; 
[...]
If you didn't signed their license a release should be save. Re-implementation sounds like they signed before.

adafruit
 
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Joined: Thu Apr 06, 2006 4:21 pm

Re: To sell, or not to sell...?

Post by adafruit »

shobley wrote:Thanks for all the input. Personally I don't really mind releasing it all for free. Steve
hi steve (phil here) -

on a related topic, i've seen a lot of your posts here - over 100! great questions - you're getting great help from others, etc. you're definitely benefiting from open source, our forums, open source hardware, etc. do you plan to release your laser harp as an open project at some point? (i know you currently sell the plans).

i think it would be great to see more folks building them and if you've benefited from the open source and open source hardware world, seeing it released in that way would really cool.

cheers,
adafruit (pt)

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