you want to charge for your indie product that noone has ever tested or even tried for size, pretty much the same amount of money (or considerably more given that annual subscription extra) that PB Inc. charges for its own pro-grade product field proven over the decades of intensive utilization by thousands of people -- both hobbyists and professionals -- all over the world.
Hello Mike, PowerBASIC is $ 100 USD, unless you want the classic version which is $ 75.00 USD
I have posted some of my tests, benchmarks and even size comparisons. I know i am only one guy but its is not fair to say "noone" has tested even for size. Even you saw my benchamrk posts.
I think you are missing how programming works. The price of a software is not based on how long you have been on the market, nobody has to "earn" the right to price their products beyond the quality and usefullness of it. Simply, if a tool is useful, and solves an important issue, or something like that, i think it is fair to price the product with a price that at least covers the time worked on it.
Would it be fair if i charge every user for the time I invested in it? Of course not. Some times when i work with Shawn, he pays me up to 300 USD for the work i can make in a few hours. Would it be fair that since i can make that ammount per hour... i charged my customers for all the hours i put into PluriBASIC? Of course not! Imagine if i charged 1 cent per test compilation i have invested in PluriBASIC? The count would be more than $ 8,900.00 USD.
That said... I understand what you are saying, but try to be on my place. I dont plan to get more than 20 or 30 sales. Probably much less. Look around, its dessertic! Imagine i go for the best and get 30 sales at $ 50.00 USD each. Now consider i have been working on PluriBASIC 6.0 for 4 years now. Would it be fair to get $ 1500.00 USD for 4 years of work (sometimes working 12 hours a day for months)?
But im not complaining. What i said was that i had something similar in mind. Not that i was going to charge that for it. Actually i secretly had that price because i was planning to share a % of the sales with Charles. I think it is apropriate.
True, the 64 bit part of PluriBASIC is built on top of Oxygen... but you do not notice that it was build on top of the already tested features of it. You have no idea how much effort has been put to avoid the (natural) issues of newer features.
For instance, my own enthusiasm about PB dates at least 30 years back to the times of Iron Curtain and a pirated copy of Turbo Basic that used to beat its closest competitor, MS QB4.5, in all respects.
Good for you. And for every enthisiasts out there. But i cant pay the gas bill on enthusiasm. As much as i would like to. And note that im not trying to be rude or passive aggressive. Im trying to be realistic. Why didnt an "indie" company like PowerBASIC (compared to the titans like Microsoft) continued working on developing PowerBASIC? Because it was not worth it anymore Mike. It wasnt profitable anymore and it wasnt worth it. sadly... If you want a compiler to flourish, everybody has to make it for them selves, for free, or make it worth for companies to continue working on them.
I cant afford to work on it for 1500 a year. Being "indie" and that.
Your product is in fact an alpha of indie PB-to-O2 translator with an open-source back end. If it proves to be worthwhile at all, how long do you think it will take a 3rd party clone of same (or better) quality to appear completely free of charge, out of pure sporting interest of blocking your meager money inflow out of existence just for the hell of it?
Probably much less than a loner like me. Why dont you try it? Try making it, lets see if you can afford to make it free for everybody simply because it was built on top of Oxygen. Be realistic.
John's suggestion of free unsupported release with unhindered base functionality and additional very fairly priced annual subscriptions seems much, much more feasible to me than your Napoleonic plans to conquer the business world by a cavalry hurdle. That way you're at least going to have a chance to promote your raw alpha-stage intermediate first to a beta, then to a release candidate, and finally to a first stable release worthy of being paid for.
Where did you get that idea that i want to conquer anything? Mike... you sound a bit jealous. You know, i havent told you anything, but every time you post something like that aimed to me, i get emails (im not telling from who) about you being jealous... that you also wanted to do the same but you couldn't. Please dont force me to believe that those comments are true.
No need. If you want, you can help me. Or even... if you make your own, i can help you. Im sure that you could make very good stock code for PluriBASIC or even your own comverter or compiler.
Not trying to break rules... but PluriBASIC is already being tested by a group of testers. It has been for a while now (granted we haven't been active in the past few months because of side obligations). You dont know it all Mike. Not all news have to pass through you to be approved.
People would also need to see what level of support you're physically able to provide to back up your maintenance promises and their own expectations in this regard.
Well, again i ask for your (and everybody else's) understanding. Since the income im probably going to get from it (shuld i release it) is probably not going to be enoughto pay the bills for a year, i think it will be understandable that im not going to be able to give support 24/7 or something like that, let alone hire staff for support.
I will be able to fix problems reasonably. I respect my customers. But i also expect respect from my customers. I appreciate a $ 50.00 sale, but its unreasonable to be ensalaved for hours to each one responding questions indefinitely because of it. The key is being reasonable. Both parties.
Once you get your first buck ever for your PB6, failure to provide what you're now promising so eagerly will be fraught with legal persecution. Are you prepared to face that?
Come on Mike, dont be childish. Now you sound like you are scared about me releasing PluriBASIC... what have i promised? time after time i have stated that i there is still a lot of coding required in order to aciheve what i would like (not what i have promised!). I even started replied to John's question with
"What do you guys think? Should i release it like this?". Again... being reasonable is the key. Also... Haven't you heard about TOS?
Besides a few odd ones, everyone i have ever talked to, sold to, or made bussiness with around the PowerBASIC community are completely amazing folk. I would not expect less from them but being resonable.
I may be sounding harsh but that's the way things work in real business where my own personal service record amounts to 25 years.
I started at 11... now im 38... True... i started with PowerBASIC in 2010... but i already had a programming history since 1994. Then when i was 15, i used to sell POS applications made by myself to local bussinesses.
Lets be cool mike. You seem to always assume im am a noob. Im not. You seem to expect from me to offer my product dirt cheap, give outstanding support, base my price on factors unrelated to the usefulness of the product like charge less because "anybody can do it"... be reasonable. Not everybody can do it. Not everybody has. I did.
I can of course offer it for a $ 50.00 USD annual subscription, because i think most guys in this community are cool... all i expect back is the understanding that although i will put effort in helping others I may not be available instantly, or solve issues (when/should they arise) promptly because i will probably working a side job. Is not rocket science.
About PowerBASIC, how many new users in 7 years, and how many formal users that have moved for ever.
Hello Patrice. yeah... It was not profitable anymore.
Who will learn the limited proprietary DDT syntax nowdays.
Probably just a handful. What i am aiming is to support older code, not (all of the) legacy syntax. In fact, PluriBASIC supports writing code in a c++ style. Mixed with BASIC. In the future it could even support other syntaxes like swift (i like swift).
I would be happy to be your first annual subscription customer if you offer it at $49.99.
Thanks John.