I do believe that very much I'm afraid...Do you really believe that?
Not because serious developers would do this; and even though I'm not a professional developer I certainly wouldn't; but precisely because LiveCode openSource favoured many - shall we say - less regimented developers?
I'm fairly certain I've seen talk of something like this a while back (perhaps with version 6? predates my involvement with LC which started with version 9) and certainly LiveCode ltd seem to think it's an issue and they are the only ones who know their numbers.
And again to be clear, I would not dream of doing this even if I was creating opensource freeware - but some obviously have.
And yes, I agree with you on many points.
Personally I think they missed a big trick 10+ years ago. Looking at python - is it really a better language/environment? is it really easier to use? more capable? In itself, no. In many ways it's kinda lame. Of course it also is more digestible to C-style language developers and worshipers of OOP.
But a whole industry has sprung up around it and made it what it is because the engine was available freely.
One can only speculate, but not releasing the engine as a free/opensource runtime and allow coding from any IDE but also sell a premium IDE commerically as the main moneymaker might have made LC a python-killer. But that's pure speculation that can never be proven now...
Having said all of that - the pricing structure seems to be changing back to more reasonable levels (albeit with a royalty fee) and I think there will be free tier for the online version of LiveCode Create. And while LCC is a bit different it is still LiveCode and with the right incentives, could be an attractor for new users.
But it would have to be a tasty hook to catch those fishies...
Statistics: Posted by stam — Wed Oct 09, 2024 6:33 pm