Question for buying Juce

General JUCE discussion
1

Hi!

I really want to start testing my software with Alpha users now, so I need to get a Juce license.

Unfortunately I don't have the money for a full desktop license at the moment, and, to avoid taking a loan, I thought I'd look at the subscription license. I read the agreement, but I still have questions before I commit:

Ok, I agree to commit to pay the fee for 12 monts, that's fine. But what happens after that?

It seems I am commited to either pay a subscription fee forever, or, lose the above money completely, no?

I see no option to, at some point in the future, buy a "Pro" license, to crossgrade from the subscription.

I remember in an old thread that you mentioned that such an option would be created, but that was long ago, and I really want to make a decision ASAP...

If you can promise there will be such a possibility (and a price quote on that would be helpful), then I can make an informed decision on the subscription license.

If there will be no such possibility, I'd much rather borrow money somewhere (assuming they want to lend to me :)), and get a fixed license, since then, the subsription seems like a worse deal.

Honestly, I really do not plan to start another thread with 100 posts whining about the license, I just want to make an informed decision!

 

Thank you!

 

2

Hi Onar3d,

Thank you for this. Unfortunately, we don't offer a crossgrade to the Pro option from the subscription. 

What happens after 12 months is that it is automatically renewed. You then have a choice between:

- continuing the subscription

- buying a Pro license, at the full price

- stop paying altogether, and following the GPL licensing, you would need to release the source code of your applications, or retire them from the market

I hope this helps.

 

3

Following the many responses from JUCE users about the new licencing scheme, there have been various hints from ROLI that changes to the pricing structure are imminent. Is this the case, and if so when can we expect to see them implemented? 

4

Hi Adamski,

Yes, we are changing the licensing slightly, and are also automating the upgrade process. We expect to roll over the changes within 6-8 weeks.

5

So there's no crossgrade now, but will there be in the upcoming "slight licensing changes"?

I'm in the same position as Onar. I'm working on a small project where it would be difficult to come up with the 999 one-time license. The monthly license is doable, but then I'm in the position where if I'm successful I end up paying more than if I just bought the one-time license.

 

At one year, I've paid $588 with the monthly license. Say I'm successful and I want to upgrade. There's no crossgrade, so I end up paying an additional $999, which comes out to $1587 total.

If I stick with the monthly, then at two years I've paid $1176, and I need to keep on paying.

To be honest, at this point I'm far enough along in development that I can't easily switch away from Juce. So I'll pay what it costs. But the monthly license is really a bad deal. Maybe the monthly license can automatically upgrade to a permanent license once you've reached $999. Otherwise the "true" cost of the monthly license is at least $1587.

6

Yes, this is exactly what Jon Racz pointed out in "the other licencing thread":

 

It's impossible to tell whether the Indie license, which is $50/month (but secretly only available as $600 a year via small print) is a better deal than than the $1000 lifetime license with $600 upgrades because there's absolutely no timetable for when the version number will be arbitrarily increased to 5.0 and invalidate the lifetime license.

And well:

 

Honestly, I really do not plan to start another thread with 100 posts whining about the license

That's inevitable... It already starts to look like one :-)

7

You’re not calculating in the upgrades to the next JUCE version… So the monthly subscription may work out cheaper than upgrading to the next full version annually.

Rail

8

Well, I got my answer, thanks! A bank loan where I live has a total cost of 10-12% on that sum paid over a year, which is a lot better a deal than the indie...

I have applied for a start-up grant, for which they unfortunately are taking a very long time to decide, if I don't the grant I'll get a bank loan!

Whatever new features juce has the coming years I don't imagine that they are so amazing I cannot do without them, there is always the choice of not upgrading if you can't afford it, and still keep your program on the market.

So, as I understand it now, by far the better deal over subscribing for me!

I can imagine that if your product is a quick gamble which, if it fails you will throw away, the indie may be a good idea, since then retiring from the market is not a great loss, but if the codebase is several years in the making retiring from the market is unthinkable...

9

It's generally not my habit to upgrade immediately when a new version of a library comes out. Juce for example: Juce 3 suits my application's needs perfectly. There's absolutely no need for me to upgrade at this time to Juce 4. The things that I would wish for in Juce haven't been addressed in version 4 anyway. Don't get me wrong: I like Juce very much, and I'm glad I chose it for my project, but version 4 (for my particular project) doesn't really offer me anything over version 3.

In fact, I've seen a few threads about bugs in 4 that don't exist in 3. Sometimes it's better to work with a known state, rather than introduce a new version of a library into a product that is nearing a release.

So, persoanlly I wouldn't assume that I'd upgrade to a new version anyway. Eventually, yes, but on my own schedule, which may have nothing to do with Juce release dates.

10


Great, another thread about that :)

personally I don't see any point of having a per month option (with 1 year min) for juce. That would only make sense if there was no other option, but then I would run away from juce.

To be honest, at this point I'm far enough along in development that I can't easily switch away from Juce. So I'll pay what it costs.

That is the reason why many of us really feel like hostages!
But you have to take into account that if you plan to eventually release a mobile app one day, and hope to grow and get a second dev by your side, then that will cost you 999*3*2 = ~6000$
and ~3000$ more each time you get a new dev working on it.
So alternatives may worth it.

But that "per single developer" don't make any sense to me, and actually I'm not sure how it applies.
While we work on a product and keep it close source within a company, there is no need to pay anything, that is fully covered by the gpl right?
Only 1 actually have to pay to release the product publicly no?

11

While we work on a product and keep it close source within a company, there is no need to pay anything, that is fully covered by the gpl right?
Only 1 actually have to pay to release the product publicly no?

That is an interresting question actually. I am currently developing a support tool that will (assuming I am able to solve the licencing in a way that I'm not paying more for the licence then I get for my work) be used only within the company. The tool is not going to be sold anywhere. But it's still a commercial product in a way as it is used in a company and the use of it actually increases it's productivity (or that's the plan).

 

Great, another thread about that :)

Yes, the problem is that we get answers only to SOME kind of question whereas the rest is left unanswered and thus the discussion still continues in whatever the thread. For example you asked this question twice actually in the main licencing thread (http://www.juce.com/comment/316707#comment-316707) and then once in the old licencing thead (http://www.juce.com/forum/topic/new-licensing-options?page=11) :

 

Could you please give us the upgrade prices to the Professional license?
 - for someone that has a v3 ?
 - for someone that has a v3 that is including v4.x?
 - from an indie license to a professional one?

... and as far as I know, we still don't know the answer. I have asked a similar question (http://www.juce.com/comment/317012#comment-317012) in the first licencing thread.

12

The things that I would wish for in Juce haven't been addressed in version 4 anyway.

Hey Lost Marble, would you mind posting a concise list of what these things are for you?

I know that's a bit off topic but such feedback is really valuable to us. Thanks!

13

Sure.

Honestly, I don't want to come off as whiny - overall Juce is working great for me. I think I'm in the minority in that the project I'm working on is not audio-related at all. That's why the Juce 4 features that I've seen don't really appeal to me. Not that they're not valuable, but just not for my application.

The main thing I'd really wish for is a higher-level GUI layout system. I really don't like positioning components one-by-one via pixel coordinates. I'm starting to build my own utility functions, like "DistributeComponentsHoriontally" that takes a list of components and spreads them horizontally with a given spacing inside their parent component. I'm too busy with my actual application to build a higher-level system, but things like horizontal/vertical layout, grid layout, stuff like that would be lovely.

14

Off topic as well but I feel I need to agree with that. Since you began to target mobile platforms with JUCE, you might want to consider some GUI layout system. E.g. QT and it's quick module has those GridLayout, ColumnLayout and so on... Or in Marmalade, you can specify the GUI element coordinates in % of the horizintal/vertical space, which is really helpful for targetting wide range of devices (diferent resolutions, aspect ratio and so on...)

15

But that "per single developer" don't make any sense to me, and actually I'm not sure how it applies.
While we work on a product and keep it close source within a company, there is no need to pay anything, that is fully covered by the gpl right?
Only 1 actually have to pay to release the product publicly no?

You are covered by the GPL while you work on a not yet released product, that's correct. But once you release the product as closed source, you need to pay a license for each developer working with JUCE. 

 

 

16

Great feedback, guys - we hear you!

Unfortunately a proper GUI layout system is a surprisingly hard thing to implement. But we hear this request quite often now. It also makes a lot of sense to do that. So please believe me we will do our best to try and come up with something great for the next major JUCE version.

17

Yes, it is a challenge. Having chosen JUCE for my mobile app development, I need to implement this on my own and I can already see the obstacles. Though you have just announced some cheaper prices for mobile platforms, you still need to tackle this problem at some point, as it is essential to the mobile app development and as a framework that is separately sold for mobile platforms JUCE really needs this feature.

 

Anyway thanks for all the great work, we can see JUCE mobile platforms taking huge leap last months...