X-Cart forums

[cflsystems]

That just proves that QT has to be very careful about this new licensing program especially for licenses bought before that change... If one bought an XC license last year and it did not specifically stated in the terms that it cannot be resold or that there will be fees for transferring the license...

This is very thin like...

I think it's ok to change terms like this and have some fees for license transfer or similar but not if the owner of the license is making internal changes within their own structure...

Also think about how will pay the fee - the seller or the buyer of the transferred license? You can't ask both... well you can but it won't be right

[eddy]

Surly, things were lost in the translations.

Originally Posted by xim

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.

What if I sell books and add a few T-shirts. I'm I a book store or clothing store. Then, the T-shirts out sells the books. Or I turn off the book categories? Or add coffee! What I▓m I!

Originally Posted by xim

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.

These "new" customer are mine, NOT XC. XC does not bring me any customers.

I purchased a shopping cart, not any products to add. My business plan is none of your business, nor did you ask for one. I sell products and you sell a tool. Let not confuse the roles.

Paying for license transfers and Major upgrades is understandable.

[totaltec]

I think there may be some misunderstanding, Maxim never stated that there would be restrictions on what products to sell, the way I read it he is just talking about the URL registration of the software.

When you are registering a newer version of XC for use on a new domain, then you will need to pay to transfer your license.

Personally, I think that we need to focus more on bringing in new XC users.

[xim]

Thank you for your feedback!

We definitely DO NOT WANT to control your business. Surely you can sell whatever you want using your X-Cart licenses. However, business is not only products you sell, it also includes your brand, domain name, company name, customer base and so on. Apple started as a company that created personal computers and now they sell phones. But it is still Apple.

X-Cart license provides customers with the right to use our software for one project/shop. In the most of cases changing URL after live registration means that new project has been completed and launched. That▓s why we are giving the right to change license URL once free of charge and making further URL changes payable.

So, when you are still on the same domain you can do whatever you want without any extra license charge as you did before. But when you decide to start a new project/shop on new domain using the same license for the shop, you should pay for the license renewal.

Everyone here wants X-Cart to improve, add new features into new releases, improve security and so on. At the same time community re-uses X-Cart licenses (given to built one shop originally) for new and new projects, using all our new work with no benefit to us. If we keep going like this, it means stagnation of X-Cart, which I believe nobody here wants.

We are not going to restrict licenses reselling or transferring. If you transfer a license without URL change it will not require any license renewal charge. Meanwhile, we are always ready to help with any non-standard situation, just contact us and we will find a solution for you.

PS. regarding this terms - http://forum.x-cart.com/showthread.php?t=65877 - we do not allow to use our forum as marketplace for license selling, but we do not forbid reselling X-Cart licenses at all.

[carpeperdiem]

Originally Posted by gb2world

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

The loophole for xcart: make a new product.

If x-cart releases "x-cart plutonium", this is not x-cart v4 - even if it's similar. "plutonium" would be a paid upgrade from v4. There ya go.

Some software companies release "new" products every year to 18 months and customers can choose to "upgrade" or not.

But I keep using Adobe CS4 since it works just fine, very few bugs, and I don't have to pay Adobe for every new release until I want the new features.

This method ONLY works if a product is essentially bug-free.

X-Cart should NOT add new features to incremental releases. 4.5.5 should be ONLY bug fixes. To add new modules or major features, X-cart should release the "plutonium" version and charge $49 or some inconsequential fee for the version upgrade. Had they been charging $49 for major version upgrades (and never adding new major features except for major releases), there would be a LOT of money flowing toward x-cart, and stores would not do incremental upgrades un;ess features are wanted.

By only adding "new features" in a major release, x-cart can focus entirely on bug fixes for the minor releases, and then customers will happily pay for the features they want by upgrading (or not).

I can't believe I'm having to explain this to a software company.

See: Adobe, Microsoft, Symantec, CA, Intuit (now that's a business model -- upgrade every year or else you can't file your taxes), and in my world, Avid (I know people running 6-10 year old versions of Avid software that work just fine - and there are people like me who update when there are new features that are wanted).

[eddy]

X-cart has two different end user of the software. One is the business owner selling product under one domain and the other: resellers, developer. The last are the businesses buying and selling the licenses, and transferring them to different companies. These new companies are X-cart new customers that need to pay a transfer fee or me if I sell it to a different company. It is understandable that there is a transfer fee if you to a sell the licenses to different company and new domain. I▓m thinking this is who x-cart wants to pay the fee, to a different company, and got lost in the post. But me the first end user decides to sell a different product and under a different domain is there I▓m a have a problem with. So it▓s would be a fair to say that if you transfer the license to different domain and new company there is a fee.

[totaltec]

Originally Posted by carpeperdiem

The loophole for xcart: make a new product.

If x-cart releases "x-cart plutonium", this is not x-cart v4 - even if it's similar. "plutonium" would be a paid upgrade from v4. There ya go.

And that is what X-cart Next will be. It's just a monumental effort to get it up to speed with XC.

[ADDISON]

I am pretty sure most of you agree we cannot interfere in a company business. I am glad X-Cart CEO Maxim Vydrin explained to the Community his company intentions. When there are issues maybe he should let us know before taking actions. I am glad all of you told your honest opinion but let's not argue only what is good for us.

Personally I don't see any problem to pay for major upgrades a reasonable fee (e.g. X-Cart Next). I agree for 1 license bought = 1 site, no transfers at all. But once this becomes reality I would like to see facts, a better software and support. Imagine you could get X-Mobile in your distribution only for a fee around xx USD, filtering and so on. QT will be very happy their work has a value in money.

Qualiteam could take in consideration our opinions, but once again we are not in charge to set up company's direction because we are not shareholders or the ones who pump monthly money in this company.

This type of licensing "for life, no matter what happens" was a pain in the ass for Qualiteam from the very beginning. It was a time when a license was around 150 USD, extremely cheap. I am one who's reporting lots of bugs, ideas, issues in functionality. It is sad to see unfinished products because the engineers decided to cut some functionality just because a license is for life. There are no excuses when QT will make more money and things will be the same like today.

We cannot have the best shopping cart on the market, or at least one from top 5, without supporting him (money, reports, idea, ...).

[totaltec]

Originally Posted by ADDISON

We cannot have the best shopping cart on the market, or at least one from top 5, without supporting him (money, reports, idea, ...).

I wish I could hit the Thanks button twice. It is refreshing to hear such a good attitude on this forum.

[cflsystems]

Yes I agree - we cannot interfere with someone elses company business. Same applies to QT - they cannot and should not even tr to interfere with other businesses. So yes lets be fair. IF QT is heading to this changes:

Is XC cheap? YES it is. Even with the new product/price line it is still cheap.
Does QT offers life time license and free upgrades? YES it does.
Should QT offer lifetime license with free upgrades? NO it should not.
Should QT ask for a fee just because your business changed? No it should not - it is up to your business to decide what the business will be or how/when to use the business resources.

New versions are released with bugs, old bugs - reported - are not fixed in new releases or are fixed but break something else... QT sells the core software for very little hoping to make money out of support and new development - XC as rich as it is of features still cannot fit in the business model of everyone (as it is with all other software and that is normal).

My opinion - yes charge a fee for license transfer, charge a fee for an upgrade, charge a fee for license change - from Gold to Gold+ for example, but you cannot charge a fee because the licensed domain changed within the business - Business entity A bought that license and it belong to them so they should be allowed to change the licensed url as they please for no fee - the url will be registered and the old one un-registered so what's the difference? Simply saying - contact us and we will fix it for free - doesn't see like the right way to do it. I have many clients which do not know they are entitled to free upgrades - they think they should buy new XC copy if upgrading from 4.1.12 to 4.5.4 for example... The same will happen with that url change - many will not know they can do it for free and just need to ask you to do it for them...

The model of upgrades is a littbe bit broken as well -the way I see it:
Let's say latest release is 4.5.4 and new release is in the way - if the new release is bugs fixing and/or security fixes then it should be 4.5.5 but if you introduce new features it should be 4.6.0. What you do now is to call it 4.5.5 no matter what and it has bug fixes + new features. WRONG. If the new release is only bugs fixing it should be free - don't charge to fix bugs. If the new release introduces new featrues (of course bugs fixes will be included as well) - charge a fee for the upgrade. Plain and simply. Let the client to decide if they want to go to the next version and pay the fee or not but the least they will do is to apply the bug fixing upgrade which will be free. It is also normal for new releases that introduce new features to be 6-7 months apart even a year. The bug fining releases can be 2-3 months apart. Right now we have new release every 2-3 months with bugs and new features and it doesn't help anyone. By the time I upgrade a cart from say 4.3.x to 4.5.4 we already have 4.5.5. or even 4.5.6 out with features not included in 4.5.4...

Bottom line - you are right to want to charge a fee for licensing and upgrades but do it right. If I want to stay on older cart version I shoudl have the option to apply bugs fixes free of charge - and I am not talking about the bug tracker at all...