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Small annual license fee
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Peter Jaquiery |
Saleae do a great support job, especially with the current 2.x development. Paying a small annual license / support fee would help keep the doors open and continue the great r&d and excellent support.
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R
This would kill the 2nd hand market for Saleae devices. And probably any loyalty - I hate my electricity and gas providers.
Hans
No please No!
Saleae analyzers cost a fair amount of money compared to most competitors. (I always assume that covers the software development as well)
The main reason why I would advise these analyzers instead of others is because the great software suite and the lack of hassle.
Please do not introduce hassle with managing licenses that expire, dongles or anything else.
Also for us usage on a PC without internet is sometimes required.
However actively detecting if the analyzer was bought from Salaea and not a knock-off is perfectly understandable.
Peter Jaquiery
I think perhaps you didn't have time to read the rest of the replies in this thread. I'll leave you to do that when you have time. But there are two important points I should reiterate:
1/ I'm not connected to Saleae in any way except as a satisfied customer.
2/ The annual license / support fee would not impact the operation of the hardware or software that you have paid for in any way - non dongles, no calling home, no license management.
As a little background: I work for a company that makes a life sciences (medical) data acquisition and analysis system that has many of the same problems to solve that Saleae does with their product. We have been around for a lot longer, but I've been around for most of our company's growth. After a while it becomes clear that no market sector has infinite sales capacity. That is why many large software companies are switching to a "software as a service" model. If Saleae eventually come to that, then there will be hassle. Heading that day off, or at least delaying it seems like a good option to me, even if I am in some fashion subsidising other users.
As an aside, I'm interested to know what you consider Saleae's competitors? The competitors I am familiar with are the big brand Logic Analyzers from companies like Teledyne LeCroy, Keysight, Tektronix and so on. In that context Saleae devices have a great price.
Neel
Status changed to: Open
Mason
While I don't disagree with the notion of paying for a software license in general, periodic license validation over an internet connection could very well turn some Logic devices into paperweights. Either by design or by choice, there are computers out there that have no way to connect to the internet. Logic users in such situations shouldn't have to work around a licensing scheme that could potentially inhibit (Or prevent) the use of a product they have paid for.
Peter Jaquiery
I didn't make my intent sufficiently clear. The scheme I have in mind does not prevent any current or future form of use of any part of the system. It does not generate nag dialog boxes or cause any other impediment to use. The only user facing operational change (aside from any system to facilitate support payment) would be adding the text ", unsupported" after the word "Connected" in the main window caption where a support payment hasn't been made in the last year.
Please note that none of this idea comes from Saleae. Note too that my only association with Saleae is as a very happy customer. I don't know what Saleae may do with this idea, but I trust their vision for their product and their company such that they won't damage that trust through a draconian implementation of this idea.
Peter Jaquiery
I think the (probably optional) payment management could be a lot simpler to the user than Morten suggests. Saleae provide a really neat USB dongle with each sale they make. In addition Logic already knows how to "call home". That means a simple process where Logic checks to see if the dongle has had a support payment made against it within the last however long is pretty simple to set up.
There are lots of possibilities for what that process does. My starting suggestion is that a modest annual support donation is optionally made and that the only down side for people who don't donate toward support is the window caption text includes the word "unsupported":
Logic 2 [Logic Pro 16 - Connected, unsupported]
If Saleae already has a customer database it is easy to match dongles against customers and apply a single support donation against all the devices a customer owns.
In this scenario the donation works across as many (internet connected) computers as the dongle is used on. It requires no user interaction to make happen, aside from internet connectivity at some point. It doesn't impeed the use of the system in any way when "unsupported".
Morten
I like to pay to support great development, but with a license fee the backside is that it usually gets harder to use the products.
For example, right now it is easy to move a device between different workstations, but with a license fee, does that mean that you have to pay for each workstation? Or do you have to pay for each device, so if you buy multiple devices you cant just replace one with the other in lab and have access to the same software, unless you continuously pay fee for all bought devices ?
I must admit, that sometimes I prefer to use free tools just to avoid the hassle of license management, and not because I wont pay for tools. It sometimes makes work more difficult if I just cant install and use a tool on a new workstation or bring on my laptop to a customer site. Usability counts.
Please consider the idea of a license fee very carefully. Maybe it is better to generate more revenue by growing the customer base, than by getting a license from existing customers.
Saleae
Status changed to: Under review