I understand and I will probably upgrade at whatever price. I manly work in film now and have been doing theatre mostly for universities the last few years. My concern was that after getting these schools to move to Qlab that the upgrade was going to put you over the price of other local software in the same category. Right now for less than the cost of a textbook one can have a very capable show app (for sound). If the price is more in the $200 – $300 range then…. It becomes a harder sell. I’m worried that by making the first step up so steep you will discourage folks from moving beyond the basic (free) version. I understand your income needs and I don’t think the price is out of wack, it’s just that one could sort of build up to it before and the new model is a really big step. It’s not hard to get students to drop $50 for the added features it’s going to be a lot harder to get them to drop $200+ and it gets to be too much to require it for a class. Basically I’m worried about your making less money not about your making too much. The more I use QLab the more I like it so you have me, and I want you to stay programing and improving it. But who knows maybe I’m wrong, but I think you may end up wanting to add an intermediate step in the pricing?
Here’s hoping it all works out for everyone!

Cheers
SK

Good questions. There are a number of factors that went into the new licensing structure. For starters it’s become clear over the last couple of years that there are basically two kinds of users: audio folks and video folks. As you note not everyone in these two categories uses MIDI, but that’s how everyone can ultimately be classified. I want the licensing to reflect that simple set of options: “are you interested in audio or video?” A fair number of people get confused by which licenses they need in the current system, and simplifying the choice should help.

Beyond this, I need to find a fair price that will also sustain the company. The $49 dollar price point isn’t enough to do that when it comes to the size of this market. With all the new features on the way (including major additions for audio, video, MIDI, and other areas) I felt I needed to find a fairer balance to the pricing structure. It’s either that or stop working on QLab. :-)

I’m still committed to a very capable free version of the software, and I also have a plan for a new kind of licensing structure that I haven’t publicly discussed—one that is specifically intended to make QLab accessible at an extremely low cost for many circumstances.

At the end of the day my goal is to make a great tool accessible even to small budgets, while at the same time making sure that Figure 53 can keep writing software for you now and in the future. I think the new licensing options will achieve that balance, but of course I am always open to feedback if folks disagree.

any hope for an rs-232 / 485 comming up?

if you want help, i’d love to look at any cod esketches you might have, as i might choose to do a software solution myself anyway.

best / ole

All in all, I can’t wait for the final release!