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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