Licence doubt

[Uonze]

Hello

I'm sorry but the licences description confuses me and I need to be sure what type of licence I need to use.

Ok, so I'm developing a tool in witch a user can go and upload a PDF, then the PDF will be converted to individual swf for each page,
and the XML file will be generated automaticly.

Then a the user will be provided with a link to view the flip page.

By calling the same link, the Megazine will be loaded with a dynamic XML file witch path is passed by GET within the link

I need to modify the Megazine engine, mainly the GUI (ASUL files) and then develop new plugins to integrate with Megazine.

What type of licence I need?

[Hans Nücke]

Hi,
sorry if not everything is already that clear; we're learning day by day...
All that is also pretty new for us; v2.0 and the new license model had been released only 2 weeks ago.

We expect that the existing license model already covers many use cases, but are also aware that not everything is and probably never will be fully addressed by such general approach.
We plan to adjust and extend the model, after we gained more experience in those cases, when we can generalize the not yet covered needs.

In all other cases we suggest to contact us and discuss the special needs and circumstances. And we are confident we will find a fair solution, at least in most cases ;-)

To judge on your business case we need more data to better understand the model:

• do you plan to host the flipbooks for your clients?
• will you let your clients download the megazine.mz3  and *.asul files you created; and they than will use it under their own responsibility, e.g. publishing it on their own servers?
• Do you plan to deliver complete packages that could be published on media like DVD, USB stick, ...?

Depending on the answers different models and compromises/approaches are possible.

E.g.:

• Commercial Hosting
  The standard approach would be that each hosted customer needs one license.
  As a reseller with a MZ3-RL-P200 package this is about 8 Euro per customer. Unlimited use in time, no limits in number of pages.
  And with the option to re-use the same license for another client, if one client stops using your service.
  This would work for commercial, long term customers, where your services have a higher value and cost than just the one time cost for the license
• Hosting for private users
  You know that private use is offered for free. So even if you might and should have your private customers pay for your service, this is a business we would not see without your services. So I am willing to allow you to host the books for private use for free (your obligation to get confirmation from your customers it is for private use), as long as you are covered by a reseller license (which is 350 Euro / year, and with the November 2009 start-up discount of 20% only 280 Euro)
• Selling the MZ3 and modified .ASUL files and/or your own plugins only
  If you create those XML files and new plugins and do not touch our sources, you need no license for that. You should make your private or commercial customer aware about the license situation, i.e. tell him explicitely that for commercial use he will need a license. You could sell him such commercial license in case you are a reseller and purchased OEM licenses from us. But you also can leave that up to your customer.
• Books on Media
  This is similar to hosting, with the differnece it is a permanent and final sales. I.e. a license sold and used for media is linked to that media; and consumed. You cannot "recycle" and use for other customers later. The rest is similar as before: you can sell a license as reseller if the customer plans commercial use, or send him to us.

This is just to show the general approach.
If your case is covered, you might have the answer. If not, please contact me: VservU Email

And if the solution we work out can be generalized later, we will publish the results on our website via the price list and license overview paper at www.VservU.com, and probably also under this post.

Thanks for asking, and loking forward to hearing back from you ;-)
Hans

[angang]

The V2 seems really good,
but hey what a price jump betwen the free Gpl and the 50€ per book !

Is it possible to buy an unlimited lifetime licence ?


Just for example, if there is no way to have a great independance option, i will sadly pay for this :
http://page-flip.com/order/#html-edition
Corporate  Unlimited websites
€299

Thank you for your efforts in the light way

[MPete]

what a price jump betwen the free Gpl and the 50€ per book !

Is it possible to buy an unlimited lifetime licence ?

Just for example, if there is no way to have a great independance option, i will sadly pay for this :
http://page-flip.com/order/#html-edition
Corporate  Unlimited websites
€299

The license and terminology is greatly misunderstood with MegaZine3, I made the same mistake. Depending on your set up, usually the €50 is the main license you'll require which isn't "per book". Book is relating to a product or collection of products with similar content. There is also a slight variation with periodicals. So it will only ever cost €50 including upgrades which from memory IS a lifetime license for unlimited books, pages etc.

In terms of page-flip HTML edition, I did purchase this about a year ago not knowing about MegaZine3 and I would strongly advise against it - MegaZine3 are flexible in discussing a license agreement and the pricing is extremely reasonable at only €50 (not per book, per subject/topic/client/domain).

MegaZine is extremely competitive in the feature rich options it provides, HTML Edition doesn't support liquid scaling, page flipping while zoomed in along with a lot of other limitations and at 5 times the cost! It also doesn't have a flexible plugin infrastructure.

Even the PDF Publisher is tempting but this has no JavaScript API for developers to extend in any way, no interactivity tracking and no community user base/backing.

[Hans Nücke]

Thanks for highlighting my confusing and "fuzzy" wording!

In personal emails I had been very explicit and already prepared and updated a license overview. So what you will find below is based on that ;-)

You also will see some very detailed use cases with our suggestions on what will be the best approach for typical use cases on our VservU.com website soon... I simply have to find the time ;-)

Let me try to clarify things now:

Commercial License MZ3-CL

Book/Website
A "Book" at the end is represented  by one megazine.mz3 file and the related content. Even up to ~25% changes of content are OK to allow updates over time.
That "Book" can be copied without limits and published on whatever medium: DVDs, CDs, USB-Sticks, Memory Cards, you name it.

Also in parallel! And even in parallel to a website with the same content!

No limitations in time, unlimited free updates/upgrades (no maintenance or service contract needed), no future costs!

One MZ3 File - One License

No development costs: Plugin Interfaces are free. You can develop your own Plugins without any further costs.
You even can modify our sources (with very little restrictions defined in the license agreements) and use it with your license without additional costs.

Periodicals
If you want to publish eJournals, eZines, eCatalogues, ... that are pusbished regularly, like evey month, quarter or even day (newspapers)
ALL such editions for a period of 12 months (that's why still a "Maintenance Period" is defined and tracked) are covered by one license.

Book/Website	unlimited pages	one content (MZ3)	unlimited time	free updates/upgrades
Periodicals	unlimited pages	unlimited editions	new editions for 12 months	free updates/upgrades

Reseller License
A Reseller license is only requested if you want to resell Modified Sources, like a modified standard Plugin.
We do not expect this to happen often; it is more probable that you will develop your own and new Plugin to cover features not (already) available in the standard product.
We also strongly suggest to NOT modify the core MegaZine3 sources so you without pain and effort can participate in future updates and upgrades.
With the new plugin concept of v2.0 you are on the safe side; only with a major version change there could (but not must) be changes in the APIs.

A Reseller License also is of interest if you have customers you e.g. create a book for and sell that added value together with a license.
Packaged MZ3-OEM Licenses come with individual Public AND Private Keys and can be resold one by one to different customers.
Whereas  a MZ3-CL package comes with the number of Public Licenses ordered, but only one Private key.
One customer - one private key

The Private key is your prove of ownership and entitles you to purchase future licenses or other products we will offer in future (e.g. hand books, special plugins, ...) with a discount.

Additionally OEM packages come with interesting discounts for Resellers.
The Reseller status is granted during the Maintenance Period of 12 months (from the day of purchase on) and can be extended by another 12 months for actually 70 Euro.

Depending on your specific and personal situation you can freely pick whatever model best fits your needs.

Special Arrangements
Even if we hope (and have seen so far) that this license model covers most needs and IS attractive, we know that there will be special use cases not covered.
And we never will cover all possible use cases.
In such case, i.e. when you feel you have speical needs and our standard model does not satisfy your needs, feel free to contact us.
We e.g. had such kind of special arrangements for customers intending to offer services to create and host books; for private people also.
For this kind of business requirements we can negotioate specific contracts.


Free Licenses
For Schools, Universities and Charity Organizations we offer free licenses on request, becasue we want to support young or disabled people best we can.
And not to forget: we still offer the "old" MegaZine3 v1.38 version, licensed under GPL. Which can be used also for commercial use without any license costs!

Site and Corporate Licenses
We also offer Site Licenses and Corporate, worldwide Licenses. Those have to be negotiated individually. The general terms and ideas can be found in the respective license agreements, already available on our VservU Website

[cedric]

Hello,

I changed the MegaZine3 v1.38 version, licensed under GPL into a component for an application. And I'd like to know if I can sell the component that I developed.

Thank you for your reply
Cbc.

[Hans Nücke]

I suggest you double check and read the GPL carefully.

To my understanding you can change and modify, but had to make your changes publicly available (free, under the same GPL conditions). And document the changes.
You then could sell that same software (available for free download), to cover your distribution and service costs.
But the basic idea is that the software is open and free.

That's my basic understanding and quick summary of what I remember is the core intention of GPL.
Links to the original GPL text are provided with the software.

Before we started the new version (which still is open source and free for private use, but no more for free for commercial use) we sold some few LGPL licenses, but stopped that because we felt it was not along the intended lines of GPL.

If you think what you developped could be of interest for v2.x also, than we should talk.
There we are much more flexible; but not to the extent to give it away ;-)

Hopefully this answers your questions?!?

[shipoopi]

I hope this is not a dumb question, but will your prices remain competitive?  One of the great benefits of the older version was that it was free, but of course if others make profit from your product and you make nothing that does not seem fair.  It is my hope that you will not follow the path of others who begin to sell at very high costs.  This is the main reason people make hacks and cracks because of software being insanely expensive (like Photoshop for example).  Thanks for your help!  I love Megazine and have for well over a year!

[Hans Nücke]

Not a dumb question at all ;-)
During the last almost 9 months we are in business now we modified our license model and prices about every 2 months; but this was mostly to adjust them to the customer requests (easier, better to calculate and predict, ...).
In general they did not change much. It mostly depends on your business model what license type is the best fit; and you can choose and combine at will. And usally you can find a combination that perfectly addresses every business case. Or you can talk to us ;-)

We believe in a simple model, even if it might sound stupid:
If we are open and fair with our (potential) customers, they will also play fair.

Our actual business model is not to maximize our short term revenue, we want to establish a stable and hopefully growing group of users. And we want to encourage start-ups to sell their capabilities and use our tools for that. Therefore we do not ask for any development costs and allow full and unrestricted tests (neither time nor feature wise).
We in turn need the support of our users to spread the word. And we need happy customers for that; kind of "safity belt" for you also.
Our expecation is that this will work out and become a healthy balance - for all parties. But future will tell.

So... even if a bit lengthy (that's one of my weak points ;-), I wanted to present our philosophy or "mission"; as our US friends would call it.
And fair prices are an important part of that strategy. I have no ideas where we all are in two years from now, but there are no plans for any big changes in price politics.
And as you know: The FIX and FLEX come with unlimited Life Span, so future cost is 0; what should give sufficient security ;-)
At least today. This is a point I am not 100% sure, if we can grant that forever. But those who buy now will have free future updates/upgrades for MegaZine3; including major version changes!

Does this address your question?

And BTW: the "old" v1.38 version still is available; and still under GPL. And free for commercial use also!
You can find a link under the "downloads" tab at vservu.com

[vitto32]

I'm planning to buy a commercial license but I have to say the license system is a little hard to understand for me.
So, I'll explain our situation please give me some hint to which license can suit our needs:

A. We have one main client (an edu-book publisher for young students) but we'd like to be able to use Megazine3 for other spot projects.

B. The main client needs few on-line integrations to paper books. This integrations can include flipbooks but the quantity is hard to predict:
es.1: for 1 illustrated paper book they need only 1 or 2 online flip-book (50 pages with extra illustrations)
es.2: for one literature book they need 15-20 very small (from 3 to 10 pages) flipping books with extra narrative stories.
sometimes those books are also made available on cd-roms or usb keys for the teacher.

C. We need to be able to develop our plugins (obviously sharing them to the community when ready).

Is there a license that covers all this needs?
Especially for case A.2, one virtual book splitted in many small flip book, is there a sort of multi-books license?

Thank you very much

PS: what about the ASUL license? I'd like to include-extend this library in a project I'm developing.

[Hans Nücke]

I fully understand that you're having problems to identify the correct license! Your needs are somehow special and not "mainstream"; I think.

Here my thoughts; which you should correct if I'm making wrong assumptions:

• You have seen our new license model, presented with the new web presence we kicked off yesterday at http://www.megazine3.de?
• Your client is a publisher (of edu books) and not a school/university; so the MZ3_EDU license does not apply.
• The size of the books is small and even very small (less than 50 pages).

Option 1: MZ3-FREE
For books with less than 50 pages you can use ths software without paying for a license; also commercially. But our logo (the 'powered by MegaZine3' logo) must stay.
Unlimited copies on CD/USB

Option 2: MZ3-STD
This new license is less than half the price of a MZ3-BOOK and limited to 100 pages; what would fit your needs.
Unlimited copies on CD/USB

With 20 licenses you will get a 50% discount, what makes it affordable also for small books. With 100 licenses price goes down to 5 Euro per book (without tax).

You also could mix: MZ3-STD for "real" books (50..100 pages), and MZ3-FREE for smaller books (<50 pages). Then you can have your own loge for the bigger books, and the smaller (teaser) books come with our logo.

You can create your own plugins for all licenses, also the MZ3-FREE one. Those must have a different name than our original ones; and as long as you use our API (what you really should!), they are "isolated" from the core software; also license wise.
Your customer must download the MegaZine3 software as MZ3-FREE from our server; unless you re-sell a MZ3-STD license.

"Theoretically" also a MZ3-FLEX (old license type) could be used for many smaller titles, since that license only is limited by the number of Online pages at a time.
The 500 pages (+ 50% tolerance with the first license) would be good for 50...75 titles @ 10 pages.
If you're interested in that option, you should hurry ;-) We'll stop offering that license end of July 2011.

Hopefully this helps. If you still have questions, please let me know.

Regarding your ASUL license question we'll contact you personally. I like your idea; it shows that you understood the value ;-)

[vitto32]

Thanks for the answer

Option 1: MZ3-FREE
For books with less than 50 pages you can use ths software without paying for a license; also commercially. But our logo (the 'powered by MegaZine3' logo) must stay.
Unlimited copies on CD/USB

I'm afraid that is not an option for our clients. We can use it for demos but not for the production version. Maybe I can ask.
Anyway, it's interesting as it's free; but even if we have very small budgets I think megazine3 is one of those open source projects that worth to be paid.

Option 2: MZ3-STD
This new license is less than half the price of a MZ3-BOOK and limited to 100 pages; what would fit your needs.
Unlimited copies on CD/USB

That license fits very few of our use cases. At the moment I can't even predict if they would have single mz3books with more than 50 pages.

I found the description of the FLEX license and the item in the vuservu site, is the old license shop of megazine3 isn't it?
It seems to fit our main concern: flexibility. As long as our client has very different products and a single book can need multiple different flip books es:
-1 for the teacher with exam tests and hints (20-30 pages)
- 3 with mp3 lectures (10-15 pages each)
- 10 small with extra readings (4-5 pages to 10 for longer readings)
and they have to stay separated as the common scenario is a paper book for 10-12 years old students and they need different content for each class (10y, 11y, 12y).

It seems more reasonable for us buying flex licenses than a stock of mz3-std, as it give us more freedom in splitting contents and maintaining the licenses.
5 euros per book is quite expensive if we have 10 mz3books of 5 page each. A common use can be a single folder for "extra readings" and a single megazine.swf loaded with different mz3 files to filter content. Maybe a similar result can be obtained building a "filter" plugin to show only certain chapters, but I think it's an unnecessary work and leads to some limitation (es. we want to show a slightly different ui as hiding a button). Dealing with smaller books content preloading can be forced and page indexing, linking etc.. would be easier to manage.

Why are you planning to stop selling this license? Would be interesting to keep having such a choice (maybe limited to one domain).

I'm sorry if I'm asking stupid or unreasonable questions

Regarding your ASUL license question we'll contact you personally. I like your idea; it shows that you understood the value ;-)

Yep! I love the idea of the an xml driven gui, I think it would need a little improvement on the child-oriented layouting (I'll work on that). Send me an email.

[Hans Nücke]

Tjose ansolutely are no stupid questions! ANd I am always interested in feed back. This helps me adjusting the license model.

My goal is to make it fair, flexible and easy. It is like squaring the circle ;-)
The MZ3-FLEX license did confuse many customers,  and most people found it too difficult to track.
If there's a real need for small booklets/teaser papers, I'd prefer offering a MZ3-MINI-Pack. Like 10 licenses for 10 pages max for the same price as a MZ3-STD.

We are planning to offer an option for our customers to manage the license keys directly in a secured area by customer on our website; in a manual and automatic way.
This will allow to request and register single license keys out of a pool of licenses purchased. And using an API (program interface), this management could be automated.
We have customers who build books automatically (PHP program on their server). And with this API they will be able to fully automate the insertion of book specific license keys.

With that option also a single key for a small license with e.g. up to 10 pages could make sense.

As I said; if there are many others with the same need, we'll consider that.

For the moment I suggest you order a MZ3-FLEX, which should satisfy your needs until we are ready to handle the interactive/automatic license managment...


And I still owe you an answer on the use of ASUL:
AUSL is OpenSource and licensed under MIT; so you have all options along that very relaxed license. THere is no need to purchase anything.
We of course would like to get seom feed back, once you have something to share...

[vitto32]

Thank you for the answer.
We'll certainly buy 1 or more FLEX license that should be enough for initial needs as you suggested, and in the future we'll try to shift to the mz3-std / mz3-mini system.

about the ASUL I'm trying to understand a few of its mechanism. At this very moment I'm trying to figure out if/how it is possible to have both childlayouting (resize/flow) and selflayouting (anchors) on the same object but on different "directions" (width vs height). I've just created a topic in the Tech forum.

regards

[Hans Nücke]

I created an answer inour FAQ list about the license topic:
FAQ section: license questions

I also introduced a new license tpye: MZ3-MINI