[Glass] Changes to terms of Free for Commercial Use license for 3.2 and beyond

[Dale Henrichs]

Hello all,

For the GemStone 3.2 release and beyond  we are considering tweaking the
terms of the Free for Commercial Use license. For reference, the current
terms are available here[1].

No changes will be made to the current terms of 2.x, 3.0.x, or 3.1.x Free
for Commercial Use licenses. I repeat, no changes to license terms for
3.1.x and earlier!

Moving forward with 3.2 and beyond, we feel that the current license is too
generous with respect to repository size and we also feel that the prices
for upgrading the SPC size and/or purchasing technical support are too
expensive.

With regards to technical support we will continue to provided free
technical support via this mailing list, but as you may have noticed in
recent years I have not always been quick to respond to issues and that is
probably not acceptable if you are trying to run a business:)

We are considering making changes to the SPC size and/or the maximum disk
size, but before finalizing any changes we want to get feedback from the
community. We are hoping to provide more balanced and affordable options
across the board but achieving a balance will involve changing the terms of
the Free for Commercial Use license.

We realize that many of you may be  affected by a reduction in the maximum
repository size (currently unlimited) and/or reduction in the maximum  SPC
size (currently 2Gb), so we plan to introduce one or more low cost license
options that will allow you to continue to run your business using GLASS.
We are thinking in terms of price points for annual subscriptions with and
without technical support to fill in the gap in the current licenses
between the Free For Commercial Use license and the $7k/core perpetual
licence[1].

As it stands today we have no way to gauge the impact on you of any changes
that we might make to the license, so before finalizing any plans we want
to understand how you are currently utilizing the Free for Commercial Use
license. We do not want to impact any of you, but we do feel that some
tightening of the license terms moving forward is called for.

We would like you to answer the following questions as best you can and
send your answers to glass-keys at gemtalksystems.com.
glass-keys at gemtalksystems.com is a private mail alias that we have set up
so that  the information you share with us will be kept in complete
confidence. Norm Green and I will also use this mail alias for any
follow-on questions we might have for you.

  1. Number of repositories in production.
  2. Number of repositories in development.
  3. Number of GemStone developers.
  4. SPC size per repository (production/development).
  5. Max size per repository in GB and OOPs (production/development).
  6. Number and types of gems  used in production (i.e., seaside
      servers,service gems, maintenance gems).
  7. Any thoughts comments that you may have in terms of desirable
      products and/or pricing options from your perspective.

If you have any concerns, please contact us via the
glass-keys at gemtalksystems.com mail address.

Also feel free to ask any general questions about this process on this
mailing list (glass at lists.gemtalksystems.com).

We hope to start finalizing the changes to the license terms during the
week of March 10th, so please get your feedback to us before that date.

We do not intend to disrupt anyone's business moving forward and the best
way to ensure that is for you to provide us with feedback.

Thanks,

Dale
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