X-Cart v4 licensing and it's reusing in new businesses
 

Hi, there!

I want to inform you about some changes in X-Cart v4 licensing.

As you may know, X-Cart license is lifetime and when you purchase it you can use it for all your life. It was the case from the beginning and surely we want to keep this rule for X-Cart v4.

However we believe that this lifetime license should be used for one business. Owner can change design, update functionality or stock, sell the business, change domain name for marketing purpose, but it must remain the same business it was in the beginning.

However, it became common practice that a license is purchased for one business (selling books, for example), then in one year the books store closes and merchant decides to sell clothes (and he still uses the same license). And then he can close this business and re-sell the license to someone else. The new merchant downloads the newest software version and starts new business. All these based on one license.

As a result our company provides software, new features and updates for these new customers for free. This point harms for the platform development and evolution. We believe that it’s not a fair play, since we have done a lot of improvements last year and are planning to do more. We have no control over this point yet, but we plan to fix this omission.

So from Feb 16 2013 we plan to apply the following changes:
- license URL can be changed only once after live registration (no limitation limitation before live registration);
- every additional domain change requires license renewal at $95.00 (changes to subfolder or subdomain are free);
- if you are in line with ‘same business’ rule and need to change the domain for some reason (marketing, etc) - contact us and we will do it for free.

So, while the copy is not registered you can change URL as many times as you want. When you are ready to go live and start selling, set the right URL and register the license. After that you will have the right to change the license URL free of charge once more.

License renewal will be valid for all existing packages (Gold, GoldPlus, Platinum, Pro) and will cost the same for all of them - $95.00

Also, please, pay attention for new terms & conditions of the “Professional Help Services - Offers” section here:
http://forum.x-cart.com/showthread.php?t=65877


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===============================[UPDATE 22-OCT-2013 by xim]===========================================
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We reviewed the community feedback thoroughly and decided to apply some corrections to our decision. Even though we are very confident in our right to charge for URL-change (due to the "one license for single shop" rule from the terms& conditions) we develop the software for you guys and cannot ignore your feedback.

So, this rule takes effect for X-Cart version 4.6.0 and higher (as the changes to policy had been announced before this release). It means that if you installed v4.6.0 or higher, you accepted the updated licensing agreement in which this rule was specified. So you have to pay if you assign the license to a new domain name.

The URLs of the other versions (up to 4.5.5) can be modified without limitations according to the previous version of the licensing agreement. So, if there's no option to change the URL of the store of an old version, feel free to contact us for help.

Also this rule will NOT work for X-Cart 5 licenses. For version 5 and higher, merchants can use the software on any domain.

http://forum.x-cart.com/showpost.php?p=365501&postcount=77

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===============================[UPDATE 22-OCT-2013 by xim]===========================================
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Re: X-Cart v4 licensing and it's reusing in new businesses
 

Personally I agree this. But please take in consideration once you make this our expectations from your company will change. Ok, you can solve a money problem you still have from the very beginning. And there is not secret other companies offer updates for money, generally 1 time per year, but for this these companies offer features and a much better support for solving bugs & issues. I am not including in my point of view any paid technical support - just what customers get for giving money at a due date.

I was disappointed how the things were going inside your company, about XC future. I decided to give you one more chance. Hope to see in 2013 a brand new XC, even on v4 platform, but in a better shape. To see bugs solved in time, "must have" features. And everyone being happy for choosing X-Cart.

Re: X-Cart v4 licensing and it's reusing in new businesses
 

This seems very fair to me. I think that you should consider that the URL can change, it is the domain that must stay the same. For instance changing by moving the cart to root, or in a subfolder.

Really this is great news. I have always worried about the abuse of X-cart licenses, the free lifetime updates are great for us but bad for Qualiteam.

Re: X-Cart v4 licensing and it's reusing in new businesses
 

Maxim,

I have a problem with this...

When I buy (license) a tool, the license is to the original purchaser (licensee) to use however I (original licensee) wants.

Your problem is that you permit license transfers, for free.

The restriction to prevent me (owner, original purchaser of license) from shutting down a book store and opening a vitamin store should not be ANY of your business. I am only permitted to use your software on one URL at a time -- so it is meaningless to you if I shut down the vitamin store and decide to sell insect repellant.

What you can do without pissing me off, is restrict the license transfer to a new owner.

THAT is what most other software does. License is to the ORIGINAL purchaser and then charge a fee for license transfers -- but if you tell me that I personally can't decide what kind of products to sell, you crossed over my line of reason -- and if your business was in the US, you would probably asking for a lawsuit as well (don't knwo about EU). Remember, the license for the product that I purchased is the license that you must respect forever. If you do this for new licensees, that's your choice (and the new customer), but if you sold me a license in 2006, I expect the terms of the license to be our binding contract. I can't change it on you, and you can't change it on me.

But you CAN change your fees for license transfers or support.

But you can't tell me what kind of (legal) products I can sell.

I think you should re-think your proposed license change and try again. Restricting transfer of ownership is one thing -- restricting the legal business use of the software by the original and legal owner of the license is the most idiotic thing I've ever heard.

Re: X-Cart v4 licensing and it's reusing in new businesses
 

I am with Jeremy on this. You cannot tell a store owner what products/services to sell on their site. It is already stated that one license is per one domain only and it cannot be used on more than one domain. What if I have a domain called books.com and sell books and one year later decide to sell bikes instead without changing the domain name (I know it's not right but still...) - are you going to check products and tell me I cannot change product line even though domain name is the same?

You can charge a fee for license transfer but you cannot charge a fee just because the same business changed product line.

You can go so far to exclude license resell if you want to even though this can also get you in trouble ... (refer to the case when an eBay seller sued Autodesk... not exactly sure how it ended - just one of the posts about this - http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070913/110424.shtml)

Anyway - read Jeremy's post again as this would be your starting point for these changes

Re: X-Cart v4 licensing and it's reusing in new businesses
 

Steve, funny you should use this analogy -- Amazon.com did exactly this. Amazon started out as a book store. Now books are but a small part of their business. Luckily for Amazon, they didn't build their business on X-Cart, else they may not have been able to add product categories without paying $95 for each new type of product. (obviously in jest)

Re: X-Cart v4 licensing and it's reusing in new businesses
 

I'm leaning to agreeing with carpeperdiem and cflsystems on this. We have purchased blocks of licenses for customers then later transfer individually out of our account to their own. Would hate to get charged for this or reissuing a license to a new store.

Re: X-Cart v4 licensing and it's reusing in new businesses
 

Google: "Right of First Sale"

Firmly part of US case law.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091001/1805496397.shtml

Wanna bet that's what is chasing more developers into SaaS products? Not good for customers who want to "own" their software. Ask Adobe...

Re: X-Cart v4 licensing and it's reusing in new businesses
 

First sale doctrine is also part of recent EU case law.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregvoakes/2012/07/03/european-courts-rule-in-favor-of-consumers-reselling-downloaded-games/

http://www.dw.de/oracle-loses-court-fight-over-software-resale-rules/a-16069323-1

You can kiss "owned" non-SaaS software goodbye.

Re: X-Cart v4 licensing and it's reusing in new businesses
 

QT did similar with X-Payments - why not just make the license non transferable (no re-sale)? I see from the sticky posted in Pro Help services forum that you will no longer allow license re-selling posts, so that is where you are headed anyway.

I used to do similar to what Cheri describes, sometimes keeping multiple clients in one account since I was managing it for them and it was easier for me, but since X-Payments, I've mostly been keeping all client accounts separate. (See http://forum.x-cart.com/showthread.php?t=54481 There were many people who managed multiple clients from single accounts, and what happened with X-Payments burned us.)

You could apply the restrictions to the account and the license (by making them non transferable), instead of trying to monitor the domain name and the business purpose. You might also consider having special accounts for developers who are making purchases in support of multiple clients. Or - provide some advise, like"Create accounts for individual clients, and licenses are non-transferable to other clients".

Don't know if you can do this for already purchased licenses, however, and stay within the original purchase contract.

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