New license model and options
by Ulrich Strauss (comments: 11)
With release of SPAD.neXt 0.9.5 the licensing options and model will be changed, but before getting into the details, let me explain, why a change in license model is necessary.
I never expected SPAD.neXt to attract more than a handful of people, as it was mainly designed to suit my own needs and it is generally a good thing that so many flight simmers think I created something useful, but this also has a drawback.
In the past 12 months, since public release of SPAD.neXt, the amount of time that needs to be spent to keep SPAD.neXt up to date and providing the best possible support to you has been constantly growing. And there are still many things that have been neglected, e.g. documentation and the website.
SPAD.neXt is a one-man-show and up to now everything is done as a double challenge to my 8-10-hrs full-time job, which results in another up to 8 hours a day to be spend for SPAD.neXt. I did this for a while but have reached a point now, where it’s about time to make a decision about the future of SPAD.neXt. In its present state it seriously influences my health, my family and my job and I can feel how I start losing my motivation because of this.
This way I reached a point where I had to decide either to quit development of SPAD.neXt or to find a sustainable pricing model to continue development.
While a lot of options have been evaluated over the last weeks (e.g. Crowdfunding , Donations, Venture Capital) I have decided to give the product itself a chance to evolve into my main-job.
To support this and to give everyone the opportunity to choose the option that suits best, SPAD.neXt has been split up into editions.
The SPAD.neXt complete edition will include
- all addons available now or in future with a price below 40 € (without VAT)
- exclusive special deals and features (e.g. customizable fip splashscreens)
- early access to new features
- priority support via ticket system/email
You can see this as an investment into the future of SPAD.neXt.
If you already own a license of SPAD.neXt nothing will change for you, apart from that you need to renew the update subscription once it expires. Remember that you receive one year of free updates.
Please also note:
If you own more than one SPAD.neXt license:
- Upgrading one of them will upgrade them all (open ticket to upgrade the additional licenses)
- One update subscription will be valid for all your licenses
The update subcription fee is not yet determined, but it will be well less than the license fee. It will be announced latest before the first update subcriptions run out ( November 2017 )
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Comment by dean robinson |
dear Ulrich, i was overjoyed to hear that you have made a spad next for x-plane. i used to rely on it for P3D but since i switched to x-plane i've struggled to get my Switch and Radio panels properly working despite various plug-ins tried. as a software developer i understand the stress and the need to get the annual subscription model working, it should change your life for the better.
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