4 ms·

Considering it's per-developer: Imagine an enterprise of 20 devs hacking away at various Xamarin projects with one dedicated "deploy" person. They'd get away w

by kerbs 12y ago

Considering it's per-developer: Imagine an enterprise of 20 devs hacking away at various Xamarin projects with one dedicated "deploy" person. They'd get away with not paying licenses for 19 of those devs.

benologist 12y ago
They could do that right now anyway with a single license and a shared computer if they were really interested in circumventing the licensing. I think a much larger issue is the current (and onwards) generations of indies, enthusiasts and kids who are actively prohibited from trying Xamarin.
- Aldo_MX 12y ago
  For "non-enterprise" developers, I would suggest Corona instead, restricting in-app purchases and adding a revenue limit for the free/cheaper tiers feels like the best model in my opinion. It doesn't compromise at all the experience for developers: http://coronalabs.com/products/corona-sdk/faqs/ http://coronalabs.com/products/corona-sdk/faqs/
  - octopus 12y ago
    Except that you need to use Lua (and most Xamarin customers are C# shops) and you don't have any control on the build process of the app. I hate waiting for some cloud service to send me back a binary version of my app. A slightly better alternative for Lua coders is to use Corona Cards (you do the building on your own machine) but this doesn't have a free version.
wvenable 12y ago
That's a good point but really this just punishes honest developers for the potential lost of income from dishonest developers. It's really no different than any other tool being installed by 20 developers using the same license key. Most software firms take licensing very seriously. I'm not sure it's worth crippling their trial offering just to try and deal with the ones that do not.
supermatt 12y ago
Which would be breach of terms, resulting in unlimited civil penalties. It should be pretty easy for Xamarin to track that kind of behaviour. If said enterprise was so inclined they could share a valid license, or simply create new trial accounts every 30 days. Organisations I have worked for tend to be pretty hot on their licensing obligations. Fines can be pretty steep.
- migueldeicaza 12y ago
  That assumes that we want to spend our time tracking down infringers (hard to do) and litigating (slow and expensive)
  - supermatt 12y ago
    Well, thats your choice, but the duration of the trial doesn't affect that (given the 'workarounds' mentioned).
  - wvenable 12y ago
    The assumption is the risk is high enough that firms will not infringe. You're assuming that current overly crippled evaluation model is good enough to show off your product -- I think the overwhelming consensus is that it is not.
bachmeier 12y ago
And while they're busy stopping that one enterprise from using their software without paying (which probably wouldn't have happened anyway) they're going to lose 100 potential customers. Not the best strategy.

by kerbs 12y ago

benologist 12y ago

They could do that right now anyway with a single license and a shared computer if they were really interested in circumventing the licensing. I think a much larger issue is the current (and onwards) generations of indies, enthusiasts and kids who are actively prohibited from trying Xamarin.

Aldo_MX 12y ago
For "non-enterprise" developers, I would suggest Corona instead, restricting in-app purchases and adding a revenue limit for the free/cheaper tiers feels like the best model in my opinion. It doesn't compromise at all the experience for developers: http://coronalabs.com/products/corona-sdk/faqs/ http://coronalabs.com/products/corona-sdk/faqs/
- octopus 12y ago
  Except that you need to use Lua (and most Xamarin customers are C# shops) and you don't have any control on the build process of the app. I hate waiting for some cloud service to send me back a binary version of my app. A slightly better alternative for Lua coders is to use Corona Cards (you do the building on your own machine) but this doesn't have a free version.

wvenable 12y ago

That's a good point but really this just punishes honest developers for the potential lost of income from dishonest developers. It's really no different than any other tool being installed by 20 developers using the same license key. Most software firms take licensing very seriously. I'm not sure it's worth crippling their trial offering just to try and deal with the ones that do not.

supermatt 12y ago

Which would be breach of terms, resulting in unlimited civil penalties. It should be pretty easy for Xamarin to track that kind of behaviour. If said enterprise was so inclined they could share a valid license, or simply create new trial accounts every 30 days. Organisations I have worked for tend to be pretty hot on their licensing obligations. Fines can be pretty steep.

migueldeicaza 12y ago
That assumes that we want to spend our time tracking down infringers (hard to do) and litigating (slow and expensive)
- supermatt 12y ago
  Well, thats your choice, but the duration of the trial doesn't affect that (given the 'workarounds' mentioned).
- wvenable 12y ago
  The assumption is the risk is high enough that firms will not infringe. You're assuming that current overly crippled evaluation model is good enough to show off your product -- I think the overwhelming consensus is that it is not.

bachmeier 12y ago

And while they're busy stopping that one enterprise from using their software without paying (which probably wouldn't have happened anyway) they're going to lose 100 potential customers. Not the best strategy.