I understand that open discussions mainly concern those who write code for a living.
but there are also amateur programmers, with only a limited knowledge of C++ and a great passion for music.
and with the juce7 personal license we were motivated in small individual projects even without an economic return, just out of passion, on the weekend.
now this possibility has been completely eliminated.
the cost of an indie license is not impossible, certainly.
or it’s always possible to do something in anticipation of making it open source, certainly.
but this has nothing to do with amateurs like me.
I spent years playing with juce in private, and for that I am grateful.
but if there isn’t a rethink on personal licences I no longer have real reasons to stay on a niche framework like juce.
and I say this with regret, I am not looking for controversy.
it’s not a big loss for your company, people like me will never bring money to juce.
therefore we are a useless ballast, to be removed. (?)
I am out of any commercial discussion, and I don’t know the many implications of your problems.
but really, throwing ourselves into the sea in this way … I didn’t expect it.
Completely understand your concerns and thank you for sharing. As we’ve said elsewhere we are evaluating our options.
We certainly had no intent of discouraging use cases like this. On the contrary the intent of the personal tier in the JUCE 8 EULA was to remove the requirement for the splash screen and any personal income requirements to expand the number of users that can take advantage of it.
I disagree, having passionate individuals like yourself in the market makes for excellent junior hires for companies looking for JUCE developers, we all have to start somewhere!
Definitely not useless, and we are not trying to remove anyone.
As I said we are listening and considering our options so we really appreciate the feedback.
I am also new to audio development and feel the same. I don’t want to commit to a framework where I feel like I immediately need a lawyer to make sure I am not getting played. To be precise, I’m talking about the part of the new license that states that I will need a license for someone not doing JUCE code (like a web dev who exclusively works with javascript). I have asked people if that’s legal, noone has been able to confirm that it actually is and the Juce team has not answered similar questions in the other thread. I don’t expect anyone to answer that question here either - I just want to make clear how bad it actually is if several people think it’s even relevant to discuss the legal status of your activity. This is not the reputation you want.
You really ought to think this over seriously. While the OP referred to us as people who won’t bring money to the framework, that is not true if you ask me. JUCE will need to keep attracting new devs, otherwise the framework will simply vanish over time.
Your reputation has already been quite damaged, which is an issue you will have to sort out somehow. The framework seems amazing so I really do hope you will somehow clear this fog. Best of luck.
There is a clause in the license that simply says that local laws apply, so let’s not accuse them like that - it’s just trash talk at that point, and that is not constructive.
However, laws about things like this are complicated and I would still not feel comfortable with these terms without professional legal advice.
Thanks Anthony, I know you all are evaluating your options and listening. And removing the requirement for the splash screen and any personal income requirements is indeed a welcome change.
But this change only benefits those who want to publish projects which are both non-commercial and closed-sourced. How many users are in that situation? My guess is that it’s not that many and that the number of those who, at some point, would want to release a commercial product, is much larger.
Hopefully the JUCE team is not underestimating the latter. It can be a very considerable chunk of the userbase considering that, according to the latest survey, more than a third of all JUCE users are using the free license.
And hopefully the JUCE team is likewise not underestimating how painfully high the Indie license fee is for most of us “amateurs”.
I was thinking about this ‘pre-indie’ tier. With JUCE 6 & 7, you could actually release a product and see if anpone buys it before spending anything. Now, you have to pay for a couple of months of subscription to test the waters. This doesn’t seem outrageous to me, but definitely a big consideration because there are already a few upfront costs to consider before you can release a cost and it feels like everyone wants a piece of the pie you haven’t even baked yet. Do you guys with no previous releases feel like a few months of JUCE subscription before making any money is a deal-breaker?
I think the problem is that most people do not know how successful their product is going to be, if at all. So the perpetual license will seem like too big a gamble. The alternative is, as you say, to “test the waters” with a subscription. But then, when to quit? The prospect of putting a product out there, which has cost perhaps thousands of hours of work, and paying a substantial fee month after month, to then slowly see the product not get anywhere, is quite depressing, to say the least. Quitting after some months would mean, apart from the financial loss, either shelving the project indefinitely or giving it away for free. Or one keeps going until things -hopefully- pick up. At that point it will make sense to buy the perpetual license, but one will have already spent a considerable amount of money on the subscription.
These are all very uncomfortable and frustrating questions, which I don’t think we should be forced to make at all. JUCE should support us by only taking a piece of the pie if we are successful in creating something with their tools. That way JUCE “aligns” its interests with our own, in that it is successful in the extent that we are.
I think that either an additional “starter” tier would make sense, or, perhaps even better, making license fees due only after a certain amount of revenue has been reached.
They’ll be adding a “Starter” tier with free license for up to $20000 revenue from JUCE work for individuals. That sounds very good, you can develop your first product under AGPL and start selling under the Starter tier, when you reach the $20K annual, you consider switching to Indie or Pro.
I would like to publicly thank the team for listening patiently and understanding the reasons of non-professionals.
As it is now proposed, the “Starter” license motivates those who already know Juce and in my opinion it greatly attracts those who do not yet use it.
I use JUCE for a FLOSS project (under AGPL).
I never considered to make money with it.
But at the same time all that mess is very unpleasent.
In theory i don’t have to be worried ; but the poison is in my head again (the FUD!).
Since 3 days i’m evaluate the cost (in time) of an alternative.
It’s not reasonable at all ; but i can’t stop!
Even for free users, you should care about the impact of untransparency.
Glad to see that the latest proposed terms have solved most of the issues, this makes JUCE a reasonable alternative for newcomers again.
I think it’s important that you reflect closely on what went wrong with the original announcement, since it contained some very troubling ideas. It should have been obvious from the start that the original iteration of the EULA would’ve put many professionals out of business, and stop some of us from even getting started.
I’m agree ; i think most of issues raised has been fixed. And to be fair ; after the initial fiasco, IMHO the crisis has been well managed by the JUCE team.
