I just installed 6.2.1 and the new per-domain licensing is now front and center. You've yet to really clarify what your special arrangement is going to be for early adopters that started developing with your framework before all these changes. Am I still grandfathered in? For unlimited domains and NOT just ONE domain? I'm assuming I'm grandfather in for unlimited since per-domain did not come up till recently. A simple question, it would really be nice to have an answer.

My single biggest headache is your navigation tabs control. You've moved it into a per-domain fee library. Such a HUGE leap. From free to per-domain for a basic navigation control.

Please clarify your licensing for early adopters.

Hi Guys,

Thank you for your question and it is a real a good question since we did not publish the entire licensing policy for our "premium-products". I will try to light some shade on the subject in general:

The DHTML version
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The basic SDK of 58 out-of-the-box controls using the DHTML runtime presentation layer is LGPL so that in case you don't extend the library or you keep sharing the code with the community - you can keep on using it as much as you want.

Deployment-wise - using the LGPL entitles you of free usage as long as you are good with open source and ready to share your code with the community with one server. However in case you would like to get a standard commercial license you will need a per development seat license according to the number of developers - then you do not need to share the code and can sell a non LGPL commercial products.

The Silverlight Version
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The Silverlight presentation layer is exactly the same as the DHTML only with the GPL license - which is less permissive, so that in order to be able to sell your products you will need to purchase a commercial license anyway.

Premiums
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Server extensions will be charged on a per CPU basis; some examples for server extensions:

Scalability Server - This enables scaling the system in a web farm using a floating session and gaining support for redundency.

Communication Server - This enables realtime communication between clients and server push capabilities.

Mash-up server - This enables using VWG as the glue between more than one web applications of any technology.

(And some others...)

SDK Extensions will be charged on a per domain (URL) basis; some examples for SDK extensions:

Office pack - This presents a set of office like controls such as the ribbon-bar and the schedule-box.

Chat controls - This will present a set of controls to enable chat capabilities (using the communication server above)

Charting pack - which presents a set of charting capabilities using a 3rd party controls library as VISIFIRE.

(And some others...)

In addition, OEM (meaning that you embed VWG within a shelf product you sell to more than one customer) is charged on a per volume basis (you should contact us if you need this one, so that we will be able to compile you a reasonable price according to your usage volume).

In summary, there are premiums that Gizmox is about to charge separately according to the package's deployment relations, however the deployment of any open source supportive applications using the open source basic SDKs is free of charge until you decide not to continue sharing with the community or your clients do not approve usage of open source infrastructures. Note that currently, any of the premiums is a pre-release version so you can evaluate it completely. And in the future, even when those premiums will be released we will keep on providing them within the basic SDK available for local development - so that you will be able to develop your products and evaluate VWG completely including all of the premium capabilities according to your needs without having to pay even one dollar before you can sell your product and earn money on it.

I sure hope that this clarifies some of the un-clear issues...

Kind regards,
Itzik Spitzen

Ok, I understood the DHTML deployment under LGPL with the exception of one item here:

Although we were going to purchase a commercial license thereby removing the LGPL restrictions, I am also curious about the "share your code" phrase. What exactly are you referring to? Are you referring to whatever changes a developer would make TO THE CORE VWG SDK? Or are you referring to a product that I created which is USING THE VWG SDK?

It also looks like purchasing a server extension is not a requirement for deployment.

It is good to see that we're not being charged a deployment license fee for the 58 bundled standard controls. However...my worries are validated with the response on the SDK extensions, where we would have to purchase some kind of "deployment license" per URL. I've been down this road before years ago with another development tool that we were using for designing windows based applications. In an upgraded version of their tool, we were slapped across the face with a deployment license fee per client and my boss told me to find an alternative. At that time we were already playing deployment fees per client for other 3rd party controls/drivers, we didn't need to pay any more. Numbers have a nasty tendency to add up and we didn't like the number of zeros tacked on. Currently we are in the process of phasing out the usage of the 3rd party software/drivers that require a deployment fee.

At any rate, I'll tell my boss the news about this. Hopefully no stop signs will come up. I was looking forward to purchasing Visual Web GUI and the the SDK Extensions built by you. So far from what I see with Visual WebGUI, this product is excellent and shows great promise. But deployment fees are a major turn off for me.

Also, when do you plan on releasing a "pricing model" for the SDK Extensions?