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Hi Ken... everybody... (Happy New Year btw)
This sometimes becomes a fairly complicated issue so if after reading
this you are still not clear don't be afraid to ask again...
First of all... It is the intention that CSuite will always be available
"without charge" to organizations that operate a community network _AND_
which "present no barriers to access, financial or otherwise."
There is a simple test for this particular requirement... basically
if you have a membership or user fee and someone comes to you and says...
"I can't afford the fee." ...that you will not deny them service.
Chebucto has accomplished that by including (several years ago) a simple
"or what you can afford" on the membership fee schedule.
**It should be noted that the licence will have other restrictions /
requirements but they should not relate directly to this topic (CSuite
Licence Fees).
Secondly... if your community network ...for whatever reason... cannot
meet this test you can negotiate a custom licence which _may_ include a
licence fee. It is intended that the custom licence will reflect the
situation, policies of (your) organization and it is likely that "or
whatever you can afford" will apply to the licence fees. (Barter should
not be excluded ...but we don't need any more National Geographic Magazines!)
Thirdly... it is likely that there will be several "value added" options
including a packaged CD-ROM distribution, several levels of technical
support(*), added documentation, etc... for which there will be a fee
schedule. These fees will be used to continue the development of CSuite...
(*) You will not be required to pay a fee to receive basic technical
support but if you opt for one of the fee services you can expect a
different (better) level of support, including in some instances and
depending on the option: site customization, etc., etc...
Fourthly... it should be noted that there are, potentially, other uses
for CSuite (besides community networks) ...and a licence to use CSuite
for other purposes will almost certainly involve licence fees and
will probablly _NOT_ include an "or as much as you can afford" option.
To continue the development and provide support for CSuite it is
necessary to develop both income sources and additional volunteer
resources... any ideas/suggestions on how either of these can be
advanced would be welcomed.
"This is not an official reply." ...for an official reply please insert a
quarter... ;-)
david potter
On Fri, 9 Jan 1998, Ken McCracken wrote:
> {On Tue, 6 Jan 1998, Ken McCracken wrote:
> {
> {> >From recent comments it seems csuite is destined to become a fee-licensed
> {> product. At one point there was talk of csuite being developed as GNU-like
> {> sw supported by community nets with distributed revision control.
>
> {I'm not sure to which recent comments you refer, but there is no intention
>
> The comments I can remember were relating to what people would be willing
> to pay for in the CD distribution wrt documentation. I guess then that was
> referring to a package for commercial release to non community networks.
> There is becoming a bigger grey area as to what is a commercial site and
> what is a community site these days. What body would define that and by
> what process would it be defined? Or has this been talked about yet? It
> might sound like I'm being snarky here; no; I just want to clear the air
> on this issue, so that people cooperating around community networking in
> the Toronto area can proceed.
>
> Ken McCracken (board member at TFN) aa175@torfree.net
>
> {for CSuite to become a fee-licensed product for community nets. Free
> {licensing to community nets, with paid licensing by commercial operations,
> {is definitely a viable option.
>
> { David Murdoch
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