open source license for editor

sozin

hi - I write and manage a nascent open source website for the x-wing miniature combat gaming community (url: http://lists.starwarsclubhouse.com/tourneys ; github: https://github.com/lhayhurst/xwlists ; public notice: http://teamcovenant.com/sozin/2015/01/03/introducing-x-wing-list-juggler/ )

I'm using your excellent datatables software for the website. recently I've received a feature to allow manual entry of tourney results, and your Editor package is perfect for it. sadly, the cost of the Editor license ($119) is simply out of my price range for a project that I myself am doing for free.

Have you guys considered doing something similar to the intelij team and offering an open sourced version of the license for a reduced fee? if it were in the $10-$20 range I'd fork out the dough without thinking, but as it is the software is simply priced out of range for me.

As a professional software dev, I totally appreciate that you guys need to charge out for awesome software like for the editor (and that I'm getting great value for the stuff you already provide for free), so please know that I am not undervaluing what you guys are doing :-)

Either way, thank you for your great code.

Cheers
Lyle Hayhurst

allan

Hi Lyle,

Thanks for your message and thoughts - this is obviously an important topic for me! Fundamentally the income from Editor drives the rest of the DataTables software suite's development. My little company is fully focused on DataTables and its software components only, and without the income from Editor that simply wouldn't be possible and DataTables development would stall.

That is why at this time there isn't an open source version of Editor available - for the good of the project overall.

The licensing is of course always under review, so I can do what is best for the project, and one day I hope to be able to create a 'lite' version of Editor for a lower price, but at the moment I'm focusing on adding some new, much needed features to improve the core software.

Regards,
Allan

sozin

Hi Allan! Appreciate the response, and understand completely. I've implemented a solution using something much less sexy than Editor :-(

sozin

It took a couple of weeks, but I successfully raised the funds from the xwing gaming community to purchase the $100 license. (http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/130950-x-wing-list-juggler/page-3#entry1401610)

should another open source developer join the team, though, I'm going to be in an unfortunate predicament of having to get more licenses (several have already offered, so this could happpen). I am hoping should that happen we will be able to work something about, because it will be quite unlikely that I will be able to go successfully back and ask for a second helping of donations - this one really only happened because, after several weeks, one guy threw in $80.

please feel free to reach out to me at sozinsky at gmail dot com to discuss if you like.