Hi Thomas
As you probably know, the uTasker project is offered for personal (hobby, education, and other non-commercial) use and for commercial use.
Non-commercial use is free. The reason for this is to promote its use. The more users there are, the more it is tested and the better the project becomes. Also the feedback from the educational sector helps define trends and steer the direction for further development. Users are the driving force and the development tracks user wishes - the more users shouting to have a certain new feature, the faster this will be made available. Non-commercial users have also a license (the educational license which regulates responsibilities concering the use and disclosure of code, which is basically fully open-source).
Commercial users are different to non-commerical users in that there is a commercial product at the end of the day which is (potentially) sold by the licensee. The commercial license (either project or full) includes in addition the right to use the code and all uTasker resources in the process of development a product (or products) and also to supply uTasker code as an integral part of the product. The license is 'royalty free' which means that there are no fees depending on the quantity of devices actually delivered. The commercial license has a price which is not very high. Even if a small part of the uTasker code is used as is, it should represent a cost effective investment (an equivalent development from scratch will take many months even if the processor, driver, programming and networking experience is already available) and even saving a day or two of development effort of one software engineer [at least in the western world...] will make it worth while. In addition, there is a support period agreed on where preferrential personal email support is available.
The commercial license fee helps to finance the continued development and support of the project and is a recognition by the licensee of the investment which has already been made and in the advantages that the licensee has when utilising this as a part of (hopefully..) profit making products.
Bug fixes and service packs are always available to all users.
Non-commercial uses never need to pay a fee for their use of the uTasker although they are welcome to make a contribution in the form of a donation if they feel that they have been able to profit from their experiences and would like to 'contribute' something back.
Commercial users also receive unrestricted access to service packs to the specific processor and release. Since service packs represent further features (and not only bug fixes) it is requested from commercial users that they consider extending their support period if this has expired - this is not checked and there is no requirement to adhere to this, but it is seen as a token of appreciation if the new features can be utilised for further gains. In any case support extensions are moderately priced and extend the 'official' email support by a further 6 months each time.
Commercial license holders are always entitled to purchase a second license at a 50% reduction. This second license is for a new processor.
Project version V1.3 will continue development in form of service packs. If major features are added which require a new release (eg. V1.4 or V2.0 etc.) all users with a valid license have the possibility of moving to the new release. The previous release will be maintained in case of bug fixes but not for further developments. In this case, commercial users will be expected to have a valid support license to be entitled to the upgrade - which means possibly extending the period to qualify. No such release is foreseen at the moment.
Note that the uTasker project is an 'as is' project. Its suitability is not guaranteed for any specific purpose and the user has the free choice of using its present capabilities or chosing from a number of other possibilities which are available on the software market - ranging from unsupported free packages through to high end solutions. The high end solutions are usually more complete in the breadth of processor support and also in the features available. The uTasker's goal is however to offer an 'alternative' solution which is not only attractive as a complete solution for a variety of typical projects, but also one which continues to be further developed based on user experience, feedback and requirements.
Regards
Mark
