On 06/12/2012 10:06 PM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
Hello Richard (sorry, couldn't resist). :)
Richmond wrote:
I have repeatedly raised the possibility of either a feature-reduced
version of Livecode or a re-release of an earlier version of Livecode
(say 2.0) at an extremely cheap rate if not free.
This has been ignored.
"Ignored"? On the contrary, they not only gave it consideration, but
also actually did it, as you noted:
Free RevMedia, as we are surely all well aware, lasted a very short
while........
There may be a reason for that, and I'm willing to be it wasn't Kevin
Miller stumbling into the office drunk one day raging, "Let's get
those teachers! To hell with them! Let's take away RevMedia!
That'll fix 'em! Sure, we'll lose millions along the way, but damn I
hate the education market and I'm willing to throw all that money away
just to stick it to them!"
I doubt it as well; although, to be honest, the vision you conjured up
was rather entertaining.
As RevMedia (in its last incarnation) was Free, taking "it away" didn't
lose RunRev any money, but I don't suppose it earned them any either.
However, Kevin Miller is not a fool (if he were he would not be running
a highly successful software company - at the risk of stating the
screamingly obvious).
I suspect their reasons for EOL'ing RevMedia was far less interesting,
based merely on ROI and other boring spreadsheet stuff.
If there is a compelling business case to be made which could
demonstrate their direct experience to be incorrect or incomplete,
submitting a proposal with well-researched supporting data to their
office would be more likely to get a response from them than sending
summary notes to the users here who have no control over LiveCode.
Probably, but I am just a teacher, and run a small private language
school, which, were it to be measured up against Kevin Miller's
achievement would look very small indeed. So, the idea of my coming up
with a compelling business plan is just a rather weak joke.
Even better, consider putting that effort into the folks who run
Python, Moodle, or other orgs who already depend on business models
based around free software.
If you're successful at helping those orgs make more money, we may be
able to make a case for RunRev to take LiveCode open source, which
would be far more beneficial to so many others in addition to the EDU
segment than simply a free-as-in-beer proposal.
I don't suppose any business is going to feel good about the
free-as-in-beer idea. But what RunRev have not done to my knowledge is
some sort of outreach to try to reel teachers in.
I have demonstrated RR/LC to a fairly large number of programming
teachers and heads-of-staff at school here in Bulgaria. They have all
expressed interest, great interest. But then gone back to their schools
where they teach PASCAL V ('tis free my love) or C++ (endless textbooks
on the subject).
Thus far, the best business model RunRev has been able to come up with
which lets them keep electricity coming to their computers and food to
their developers has been the one they have now. It can probably be
improved on (all systems can), but a complete change of direction
would not be prudent without diligent, detailed research.
"a complete change in direction" . . . now I wonder where that idea came
from? certainly not from me.
An idea that has come from me (as well as quite a few other people) is
that RunRev could be doing more to seduce teachers into using their
product. That would not entail "a complete change of direction", but
devoting a small percentage of their manpower to a market area which
might be
under exploited.
--
Richard Gaskin
Fourth World
LiveCode training and consulting: http://www.fourthworld.com
Webzine for LiveCode developers: http://www.LiveCodeJournal.com
Follow me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/FourthWorldSys
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