Re: [Observium] Observium Enterprise/Pro licensing
For the port-based model we would likely exclude virtual ports. It would likely only exist to catch users with 8 vss and 10k ports :-)
In terms of support and development, we would likely push all new feature development to the commercial version. Support and feature requests from licensees would be prioritised too.
This is already the case for our existing commercial sponsor. Roughly 50% of development work is directly requested features from them.
We certainly want to keep the free version usable, and we don't want to separate the code bases, as that would slow progress a lot.
I think the balance between keeping everything usable and maintaining a carrot to encourage people to license will be difficult.
Pricing is also difficult to decide on. If the majority of users won't pay, it will be higher than if we have more licensees.
If every user paid $10, we would probably be fine. I suspect not even 5% will be willing to pay, though.
Adam.
"Hibler, Florian" florian.hibler@kaiaglobal.com wrote:
Hi Adam, thanks for telling the list about your thoughts on commercializing Observium and giving us the opportunity to talk about the licensing scheme before you actually decide which way to go.
I need to agree with Nikolay, that "port-based" shouldn't be the way to go, as many devices just add tons of virtual ports. For me "host-based" sounds pretty fair.
Also I would prefer to use the "honor system" route as well. Keepeing the source code open makes it still easy for people to contribute to certain features or customize Observium for their own needs. Once a product is commercialized you will have piracy, thats what I am pretty sure of. Although I am pretty sure that this community will honor your work and what you have done. Observium is a great product and it helps me with my daily work.
Can you already outline some pricing you have in mind and/or the differences between free/pro/enterprise editions? Once there is money behind that whole thing, what would actually change? How would you deal with the support, feature requests, etc.?
Just my 2 cent and hope it was a bit helpful!
Best regards, Florian
-- Florian Hibler Chief Technical Officer eMail: florian.hibler@kaiaglobal.com
Kaia Global Networks Limited Internet: http://www.kaiaglobal.com Company No. 08257877 Registered Office: High Wycombe, UK
Notice: This transmittal and/or attachments may be privileged or confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this transmittal in error; any review, dissemination, or copying is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmittal in error, please notify us immediately by reply and immediately delete this message and all its attachments. Thank you.
On 4/15/13 24:58, Adam Armstrong wrote:
Hi All,
At some point in the future it's likely that I'm going to split Observium into free and enterprise/pro variants.
Observium has historically been developed as a fairly ad hoc project, with work being done as time permits between work projects. We've often had gaps of 6 months where there has been little work done due to other commitments.
As the user-base expands this is going to become less and less viable a way of maintaining the project, and we need to be able to devote more time to keeping on top of bug reports and feature development. To be able to devote more time to the project we need to establish a revenue stream to be able to support it.
We'd like comments from you guys about how we should go about splitting, what should be in each version, and what we should charge.
We're considering:
A hosts/ports-based licensing scheme, where you get a certain number free, and any more than that requires a license. A feature-based licensing scheme, where higher-value features such as load balancers, netapp, mac accounting, vpn tracking, etc require a license. Licensing for customer-access, where allowing customers access to the web interface requires a license.
What pricing models do you think would work?
Options for the ent/pro version include using the honour system, maintaining a separate password-protected SVN repository or distributing an ioncube-protected version.
I would prefer to go the honour system route, but I'm not sure how well that would work.
Thanks, adam. _______________________________________________ observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
Hi Adam,
Pricing is also difficult to decide on. If the majority of users won't pay, it will be higher than if we have more licensees.
If every user paid $10, we would probably be fine. I suspect not even 5% will be willing to pay, though.
People using Observium professionally surely can afford more than $10... I am just a small single person consultancy company and it would definitely be worth more than $10 to me. Surely the user base consists for more than 5% of professional users.
What about a kickstarter (or similar) fund raiser? :-) A project for developers (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andrewgodwin/schema-migrations-for-djang...) raised almost $18k, and they asked for only $2.5k. It's a one-time income though...
Cheers, Sander
On Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:29:24 +0200, Sander Steffann sander@steffann.nl wrote:
Hi Adam,
Pricing is also difficult to decide on. If the majority of users won't pay, it will be higher than if we have more licensees.
If every user paid $10, we would probably be fine. I suspect not even
5%
will be willing to pay, though.
People using Observium professionally surely can afford more than $10...
I
am just a small single person consultancy company and it would
definitely
be worth more than $10 to me. Surely the user base consists for more
than
5% of professional users.
What about a kickstarter (or similar) fund raiser? :-) A project for developers
(http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andrewgodwin/schema-migrations-for-djang...)
raised almost $18k, and they asked for only $2.5k. It's a one-time
income
though...
I considered kickstarter, but I think our relevance to the general public is so low that we'd be unlikely to reach a goal.
You're also kinda screwed on kickstarter if you can't make a flashy video...
adam.
I second this. If a kickstarter for free CCNA classes can get funded, why not a project like this? As long as the right people see it, it will get funded.
As for editions, my vote would go to pricing based on the amount of devices monitored (<50 = free version, >50 paid, Plus direct support, API, More features?).
As the prices, I have no clue what would be good. To me personally, I use this to monitor my home lab (about 10 items), and I would have no problem paying $20-30 yearly. I know that's a low price, but then again I have very few devices, and anything more would push me away. If I feel this way, chances are others do as well, and this is why I think pricing should be based on the number of monitored devices.
On Mon, Apr 15, 2013 at 5:03 PM, Adam Armstrong adama@memetic.org wrote:
On Tue, 16 Apr 2013 00:29:24 +0200, Sander Steffann sander@steffann.nl wrote:
Hi Adam,
Pricing is also difficult to decide on. If the majority of users won't pay, it will be higher than if we have more licensees.
If every user paid $10, we would probably be fine. I suspect not even
5%
will be willing to pay, though.
People using Observium professionally surely can afford more than $10...
I
am just a small single person consultancy company and it would
definitely
be worth more than $10 to me. Surely the user base consists for more
than
5% of professional users.
What about a kickstarter (or similar) fund raiser? :-) A project for developers
( http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/andrewgodwin/schema-migrations-for-djang... )
raised almost $18k, and they asked for only $2.5k. It's a one-time
income
though...
I considered kickstarter, but I think our relevance to the general public is so low that we'd be unlikely to reach a goal.
You're also kinda screwed on kickstarter if you can't make a flashy video...
adam. _______________________________________________ observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
Pricing is also difficult to decide on. If the majority of users won't pay, it will be higher than if we have more licensees.
If every user paid $10, we would probably be fine. I suspect not even 5% will be willing to pay, though.
$10-15/month per instance is realistic in my opinion. When you put in the balance the time lost to diagnose bandwidth issues, customer complaints and when you know you only have to log into your Observium instance to have all useful data from your devices right at your fingertips, such fair prices matter less...
homelabs/test instances are a different problem, you should not prevent new users to evaluate all observium features.
Maybe support tickets for paying customers would be helpful, it's easier to anwser silly questions already explained in the FAQ when the other side pays to be silly :-)
-- Sebastien
I'd go with annually payment or half-annually. So up to 100$ per year seems fair.
We already paying per quarterly when possible ;)
On 4/16/13 1:45 AM, Adam Armstrong wrote:
For the port-based model we would likely exclude virtual ports. It would likely only exist to catch users with 8 vss and 10k ports :-)
In terms of support and development, we would likely push all new feature development to the commercial version. Support and feature requests from licensees would be prioritised too.
This is already the case for our existing commercial sponsor. Roughly 50% of development work is directly requested features from them.
We certainly want to keep the free version usable, and we don't want to separate the code bases, as that would slow progress a lot.
I think the balance between keeping everything usable and maintaining a carrot to encourage people to license will be difficult.
Pricing is also difficult to decide on. If the majority of users won't pay, it will be higher than if we have more licensees.
If every user paid $10, we would probably be fine. I suspect not even 5% will be willing to pay, though.
Adam.
"Hibler, Florian" florian.hibler@kaiaglobal.com wrote:
Hi Adam, thanks for telling the list about your thoughts on commercializing Observium and giving us the opportunity to talk about the licensing scheme before you actually decide which way to go.
I need to agree with Nikolay, that "port-based" shouldn't be the way to go, as many devices just add tons of virtual ports. For me "host-based" sounds pretty fair.
Also I would prefer to use the "honor system" route as well. Keepeing the source code open makes it still easy for people to contribute to certain features or customize Observium for their own needs. Once a product is commercialized you will have piracy, thats what I am pretty sure of. Although I am pretty sure that this community will honor your work and what you have done. Observium is a great product and it helps me with my daily work.
Can you already outline some pricing you have in mind and/or the differences between free/pro/enterprise editions? Once there is money behind that whole thing, what would actually change? How would you deal with the support, feature requests, etc.?
Just my 2 cent and hope it was a bit helpful!
Best regards, Florian
-- Florian Hibler Chief Technical Officer eMail: florian.hibler@kaiaglobal.com
Kaia Global Networks Limited Internet: http://www.kaiaglobal.com Company No. 08257877 Registered Office: High Wycombe, UK
Notice: This transmittal and/or attachments may be privileged or confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this transmittal in error; any review, dissemination, or copying is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmittal in error, please notify us immediately by reply and immediately delete this message and all its attachments. Thank you.
On 4/15/13 24:58, Adam Armstrong wrote:
Hi All,
At some point in the future it's likely that I'm going to split Observium into free and enterprise/pro variants.
Observium has historically been developed as a fairly ad hoc project, with work being done as time permits between work projects. We've often had gaps of 6 months where there has been little work done due to other commitments.
As the user-base expands this is going to become less and less viable a way of maintaining the project, and we need to be able to devote more time to keeping on top of bug reports and feature development. To be able to devote more time to the project we need to establish a revenue stream to be able to support it.
We'd like comments from you guys about how we should go about splitting, what should be in each version, and what we should charge.
We're considering:
A hosts/ports-based licensing scheme, where you get a certain number free, and any more than that requires a license. A feature-based licensing scheme, where higher-value features such as load balancers, netapp, mac accounting, vpn tracking, etc require a license. Licensing for customer-access, where allowing customers access to the web interface requires a license.
What pricing models do you think would work?
Options for the ent/pro version include using the honour system, maintaining a separate password-protected SVN repository or distributing an ioncube-protected version.
I would prefer to go the honour system route, but I'm not sure how well that would work.
Thanks, adam. _______________________________________________ observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
I would very much like if home installations (to toy around) would remain free or donation based. I wouldn't have any problems with licensing or buying in a commercial environment, but I would like to continue using this at home without being a pirate (especially since I donated). I don't think it's fair to link this to calling this a homelab (linking it to a commercial license), since not everyone can influence what is used at work. In my case I can't, I do promote it heavily though..
Just my two cents!
2013/4/16 Nikolay Shopik shopik@inblock.ru
I'd go with annually payment or half-annually. So up to 100$ per year seems fair.
We already paying per quarterly when possible ;)
On 4/16/13 1:45 AM, Adam Armstrong wrote:
For the port-based model we would likely exclude virtual ports. It would likely only exist to catch users with 8 vss and 10k ports :-)
In terms of support and development, we would likely push all new feature development to the commercial version. Support and feature requests from licensees would be prioritised too.
This is already the case for our existing commercial sponsor. Roughly 50% of development work is directly requested features from them.
We certainly want to keep the free version usable, and we don't want to separate the code bases, as that would slow progress a lot.
I think the balance between keeping everything usable and maintaining a carrot to encourage people to license will be difficult.
Pricing is also difficult to decide on. If the majority of users won't pay, it will be higher than if we have more licensees.
If every user paid $10, we would probably be fine. I suspect not even 5% will be willing to pay, though.
Adam.
"Hibler, Florian" <florian.hibler@kaiaglobal.com**> wrote:
Hi Adam,
thanks for telling the list about your thoughts on commercializing Observium and giving us the opportunity to talk about the licensing scheme before you actually decide which way to go.
I need to agree with Nikolay, that "port-based" shouldn't be the way to go, as many devices just add tons of virtual ports. For me "host-based" sounds pretty fair.
Also I would prefer to use the "honor system" route as well. Keepeing the source code open makes it still easy for people to contribute to certain features or customize Observium for their own needs. Once a product is commercialized you will have piracy, thats what I am pretty sure of. Although I am pretty sure that this community will honor your work and what you have done. Observium is a great product and it helps me with my daily work.
Can you already outline some pricing you have in mind and/or the differences between free/pro/enterprise editions? Once there is money behind that whole thing, what would actually change? How would you deal with the support, feature requests, etc.?
Just my 2 cent and hope it was a bit helpful!
Best regards, Florian
-- Florian Hibler Chief Technical Officer eMail: florian.hibler@kaiaglobal.com
Kaia Global Networks Limited Internet: http://www.kaiaglobal.com Company No. 08257877 Registered Office: High Wycombe, UK
Notice: This transmittal and/or attachments may be privileged or confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this transmittal in error; any review, dissemination, or copying is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmittal in error, please notify us immediately by reply and immediately delete this message and all its attachments. Thank you.
On 4/15/13 24:58, Adam Armstrong wrote:
Hi All,
At some point in the future it's likely that I'm going to split Observium into free and enterprise/pro variants.
Observium has historically been developed as a fairly ad hoc project, with work being done as time permits between work projects. We've often had gaps of 6 months where there has been little work done due to other commitments.
As the user-base expands this is going to become less and less viable a way of maintaining the project, and we need to be able to devote more time to keeping on top of bug reports and feature development. To be able to devote more time to the project we need to establish a revenue stream to be able to support it.
We'd like comments from you guys about how we should go about splitting, what should be in each version, and what we should charge.
We're considering:
A hosts/ports-based licensing scheme, where you get a certain number free, and any more than that requires a license. A feature-based licensing scheme, where higher-value features such as load balancers, netapp, mac accounting, vpn tracking, etc require a license. Licensing for customer-access, where allowing customers access to the web interface requires a license.
What pricing models do you think would work?
Options for the ent/pro version include using the honour system, maintaining a separate password-protected SVN repository or distributing an ioncube-protected version.
I would prefer to go the honour system route, but I'm not sure how well that would work.
Thanks, adam. ______________________________**_________________ observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/**cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/**observiumhttp://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
______________________________**_________________
observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/**cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/**observiumhttp://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
______________________________**_________________ observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/**cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/**observiumhttp://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
______________________________**_________________
observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/**cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/**observiumhttp://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
Steph,
I'm very much a home tinkerer myself, and am running a variety of Observia (ehh, is that a word?) for different purposes etc. Including my home network.
Keeping a free version is certainly the main goal, going commercial only would be definitely the least favoured option.
Hence the community dialogue - we'd hate to lose you all ;-)
With regards to "paying members get extra rights and decent support", this is certainly the goal. BOFH-replies on the mailing list will stay for the community support though ;>
Tom
On Tue, 2013-04-16 at 09:46 +0200, Steph Janssen wrote:
I would very much like if home installations (to toy around) would remain free or donation based. I wouldn't have any problems with licensing or buying in a commercial environment, but I would like to continue using this at home without being a pirate (especially since I donated). I don't think it's fair to link this to calling this a homelab (linking it to a commercial license), since not everyone can influence what is used at work. In my case I can't, I do promote it heavily though..
Just my two cents!
2013/4/16 Nikolay Shopik shopik@inblock.ru I'd go with annually payment or half-annually. So up to 100$ per year seems fair.
We already paying per quarterly when possible ;) On 4/16/13 1:45 AM, Adam Armstrong wrote: For the port-based model we would likely exclude virtual ports. It would likely only exist to catch users with 8 vss and 10k ports :-) In terms of support and development, we would likely push all new feature development to the commercial version. Support and feature requests from licensees would be prioritised too. This is already the case for our existing commercial sponsor. Roughly 50% of development work is directly requested features from them. We certainly want to keep the free version usable, and we don't want to separate the code bases, as that would slow progress a lot. I think the balance between keeping everything usable and maintaining a carrot to encourage people to license will be difficult. Pricing is also difficult to decide on. If the majority of users won't pay, it will be higher than if we have more licensees. If every user paid $10, we would probably be fine. I suspect not even 5% will be willing to pay, though. Adam. "Hibler, Florian" <florian.hibler@kaiaglobal.com> wrote: Hi Adam, thanks for telling the list about your thoughts on commercializing Observium and giving us the opportunity to talk about the licensing scheme before you actually decide which way to go. I need to agree with Nikolay, that "port-based" shouldn't be the way to go, as many devices just add tons of virtual ports. For me "host-based" sounds pretty fair. Also I would prefer to use the "honor system" route as well. Keepeing the source code open makes it still easy for people to contribute to certain features or customize Observium for their own needs. Once a product is commercialized you will have piracy, thats what I am pretty sure of. Although I am pretty sure that this community will honor your work and what you have done. Observium is a great product and it helps me with my daily work. Can you already outline some pricing you have in mind and/or the differences between free/pro/enterprise editions? Once there is money behind that whole thing, what would actually change? How would you deal with the support, feature requests, etc.? Just my 2 cent and hope it was a bit helpful! Best regards, Florian -- Florian Hibler Chief Technical Officer eMail: florian.hibler@kaiaglobal.com Kaia Global Networks Limited Internet: http://www.kaiaglobal.com Company No. 08257877 Registered Office: High Wycombe, UK Notice: This transmittal and/or attachments may be privileged or confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this transmittal in error; any review, dissemination, or copying is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmittal in error, please notify us immediately by reply and immediately delete this message and all its attachments. Thank you. On 4/15/13 24:58, Adam Armstrong wrote: Hi All, At some point in the future it's likely that I'm going to split Observium into free and enterprise/pro variants. Observium has historically been developed as a fairly ad hoc project, with work being done as time permits between work projects. We've often had gaps of 6 months where there has been little work done due to other commitments. As the user-base expands this is going to become less and less viable a way of maintaining the project, and we need to be able to devote more time to keeping on top of bug reports and feature development. To be able to devote more time to the project we need to establish a revenue stream to be able to support it. We'd like comments from you guys about how we should go about splitting, what should be in each version, and what we should charge. We're considering: A hosts/ports-based licensing scheme, where you get a certain number free, and any more than that requires a license. A feature-based licensing scheme, where higher-value features such as load balancers, netapp, mac accounting, vpn tracking, etc require a license. Licensing for customer-access, where allowing customers access to the web interface requires a license. What pricing models do you think would work? Options for the ent/pro version include using the honour system, maintaining a separate password-protected SVN repository or distributing an ioncube-protected version. I would prefer to go the honour system route, but I'm not sure how well that would work. Thanks, adam. _______________________________________________ observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium _______________________________________________ observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium _______________________________________________ observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium _______________________________________________ observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
With regards to "paying members get extra rights and decent support", this is certainly the goal. BOFH-replies on the mailing list will stay for the community support though ;>
The day Adam answers politely about nginx problems will be the sign of severe mental illness :-)
-- seb
On Tue, 2013-04-16 at 11:58 +0200, Sebastien Guilbaud wrote:
With regards to "paying members get extra rights and decent support", this is certainly the goal. BOFH-replies on the mailing list will stay for the community support though ;>The day Adam answers politely about nginx problems will be the sign of severe mental illness :-)
For extra fun, add in PostgreSQL and Ruby. Maybe Lighty?
Tom
The BOFH replies are at least one reason to follow this mailing list. The general interest for this nice project is second :).
Nice to hear your vision on this. I really feel companies will be very glad to pay for support. For the company where I work goes the same: We don't need free stuff. We need tooling to rely on, with support. Free is evil, it doesn't help the professional environment we have to rely on.
Thank you!
2013/4/16 Tom Laermans tom.laermans@powersource.cx
Steph,
I'm very much a home tinkerer myself, and am running a variety of Observia (ehh, is that a word?) for different purposes etc. Including my home network.
Keeping a free version is certainly the main goal, going commercial only would be definitely the least favoured option.
Hence the community dialogue - we'd hate to lose you all ;-)
With regards to "paying members get extra rights and decent support", this is certainly the goal. BOFH-replies on the mailing list will stay for the community support though ;>
Tom
On Tue, 2013-04-16 at 09:46 +0200, Steph Janssen wrote:
I would very much like if home installations (to toy around) would remain free or donation based. I wouldn't have any problems with licensing or buying in a commercial environment, but I would like to continue using this at home without being a pirate (especially since I donated). I don't think it's fair to link this to calling this a homelab (linking it to a commercial license), since not everyone can influence what is used at work. In my case I can't, I do promote it heavily though..
Just my two cents!
2013/4/16 Nikolay Shopik shopik@inblock.ru I'd go with annually payment or half-annually. So up to 100$ per year seems fair.
We already paying per quarterly when possible ;) On 4/16/13 1:45 AM, Adam Armstrong wrote: For the port-based model we would likely exclude virtual ports. It would likely only exist to catch users with 8 vss and 10k ports :-) In terms of support and development, we would likely push all new feature development to the commercial version. Support and feature requests from licensees would be prioritised too. This is already the case for our existing commercial sponsor. Roughly 50% of development work is directly requested features from them. We certainly want to keep the free version usable, and we don't want to separate the code bases, as that would slow progress a lot. I think the balance between keeping everything usable and maintaining a carrot to encourage people to license will be difficult. Pricing is also difficult to decide on. If the majority of users won't pay, it will be higher than if we have more licensees. If every user paid $10, we would probably be fine. I suspect not even 5% will be willing to pay, though. Adam. "Hibler, Florian" <florian.hibler@kaiaglobal.com> wrote: Hi Adam, thanks for telling the list about your thoughts on commercializing Observium and giving us the opportunity to talk about the licensing scheme before you actually decide which way to go. I need to agree with Nikolay, that "port-based" shouldn't be the way to go, as many devices just add tons of virtual ports. For me "host-based" sounds pretty fair. Also I would prefer to use the "honor system" route as well. Keepeing the source code open makes it still easy for people to contribute to certain features or customize Observium for their own needs. Once a product is commercialized you will have piracy, thats what I am pretty sure of. Although I am pretty sure that this community will honor your work and what you have done. Observium is a great product and it helps me with my daily work. Can you already outline some pricing you have in mind and/or the differences between free/pro/enterprise editions? Once there is money behind that whole thing, what would actually change? How would you deal with the support, feature requests, etc.? Just my 2 cent and hope it was a bit helpful! Best regards, Florian -- Florian Hibler Chief Technical Officer eMail: florian.hibler@kaiaglobal.com Kaia Global Networks Limited Internet: http://www.kaiaglobal.com Company No. 08257877 Registered Office: High Wycombe, UK Notice: This transmittal and/or attachments may be privileged or confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this transmittal in error; any review, dissemination, or copying is strictly prohibited. If you received this transmittal in error, please notify us immediately by reply and immediately delete this message and all its attachments. Thank you. On 4/15/13 24:58, Adam Armstrong wrote: Hi All, At some point in the future it's likely that I'm going to split Observium into free and enterprise/pro variants. Observium has historically been developed as a fairly ad hoc project, with work being done as time permits between work projects. We've often had gaps of 6 months where there has been little work done due to other commitments. As the user-base expands this is going to become less and less viable a way of maintaining the project, and we need to be able to devote more time to keeping on top of bug reports and feature development. To be able to devote more time to the project we need to establish a revenue stream to be able to support it. We'd like comments from you guys about how we should go about splitting, what should be in each version, and what we should charge. We're considering: A hosts/ports-based licensing scheme, where you get a certain number free, and any more than that requires a license. A feature-based licensing scheme, where higher-value features such as load balancers, netapp, mac accounting, vpn tracking, etc require a license. Licensing for customer-access, where allowing customers access to the web interface requires a license. What pricing models do you think would work? Options for the ent/pro version include using the honour system, maintaining a separate password-protected SVN repository or distributing an ioncube-protected version. I would prefer to go the honour system route, but I'm not sure how well that would work. Thanks, adam.
observium mailing list observium@observium.orghttp://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
_______________________________________________ observium mailing list observium@observium.orghttp://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
_______________________________________________ observium mailing list observium@observium.orghttp://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
_______________________________________________ observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
observium mailing list observium@observium.org http://postman.memetic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/observium
participants (7)
-
Adam Armstrong -
Chris Blake -
Nikolay Shopik -
Sander Steffann -
Sebastien Guilbaud -
Steph Janssen -
Tom Laermans