Licensing updates from major software companies

[Bullit]

http://cgpress.org/archives/cgarticles/ ... g-policies

Autodesk’s recent announcement that they’ll be phasing out permanent licenses as an option for purchasing their software has caused strong reactions. The shift from permanent licenses to a rental model is a significant one and some have suggested that this is a trend that will spread to other software developers. But is this really the case? Will artists find themselves with no choice but to rent their paintbrushes? Will other major 3D developers change their licensing policies, too?

In order to help fellow artists and bring some certainty to the matter, we have asked major 3D software developers (based on the most frequent ones mentioned by comments on this site) if they plan to keep permanent licenses as a purchase option in the foreseeable future, or if they expect to move to a rental/subscription-only model.

Developers’ replies
Side Effects, developers of Houdini
“There are currently no plans to stop selling permanent licenses to our customers. Houdini and Houdini FX are our commercial versions and we offer a choice between permanent and rental (subscription) licensing. Our products under $1000 such as Houdini Indie and Houdini Engine are subscription only.”

The Foundry, developers of Modo
“Actually, The Foundry already offers rentals/subscription on some products, since way back, and we’ll continue doing so. But we also plan to keep permanent licenses as a purchase option too.”

Maxon Computer, developers of Cinema 4D
“There are currently no plans to stop offering permanent licenses. If in the future MAXON decides to make a subscription model available on a monthly basis or something similar, we will offer this as an additional option, not as a replacement.”

The Blender Foundation, developers of Blender
“Blender’s GNU GPL license firmly establishes it as a Free Software project, which guarantees that Blender will remain free forever – free as in freedom for users and developers.

That doesn’t mean we do things for free – there’s currently already 10 people working on Blender who get paid and supported by the Blender Development Fund and Blender Institute’s store and cloud services. I welcome everyone to reconsider their software budgets for 2015, and take a look at how Blender could fit in your pipeline after all. We’re open!

I would also like to add that artists should seek for software providers that share their passion for the medium. Choose to work with relaxed and accessible companies or projects who love to work with you on making awesome stuff. There’s still a healthy market with smaller parties like Maxon, the Foundry, Sidefx, Newtek, SolidAngle, and similar organizations - they deserve to be flourishing and be successful.”

[Hirazi Blue]

Of course statements like these aren’t binding and only the future will tell, if the mentioned companies will be able to continue on the path of “perpetual licensing”.
But at the moment it’s somewhat comforting that they appear to be thusly inclined.

The truly shocking thing about this affair IMHO, however, is the fact that when you look at a couple of threads on CGTalk on the subject the overall sentiment appears to be not much more than a verbal shrug. Most people do express their unhappiness, but will obviously go along with Autodesks "rent-only" scheme in the end, without further complaint, after the initial almost symbolic one. And the saddest part of all this, is that Autodesk knew this all along. They've trained their customers well, after all.

[FXDude]

The complaining (apart for the still growing almost unanimous 20 page CGTalk thread) will come when prices will start to rise.

For example, Abobe's income sharply fell the moment rental only was implemented and hasn't risen since.. while their stock price have only continued to rise.
(as well as proportions of (imposed) subs vs regular sales.)

So what do you think explains this gravity defying situation?

Like any move trying to entice bandwagon adoption or to boost popularity or sentiment, the first tastes are cheap or almost free

And indeed the initial rental prices were (and are still) almost too good to be true (which begs the question if maybe they -were-(are) too good to be true)

But you can bet your wacom tablet that the buyers remain confident for a reason, and that the whole point of this entire operation is to be able to eventually charge (who know -how much-) more for the very same thing (or for nothing for the ones not interested in say new video editing features, if they want to continue to work)

Another example is; the CS6 came with a couple of new things, but also came with (still unresolved) MUCH slower responsiveness and memory consumption especially noticeable with larger images with lots of (not that many) layers/masks/adjustment layers.

So if not interested in new bugs or shortcomings, people will also be had by the ...

[Bullit]

The complaining (apart for the still growing almost unanimous 20 page CGTalk thread) will come when prices will start to rise.

For example, Abobe's income sharply fell the moment rental only was implemented and hasn't risen since.. while their stock price have only continued to rise.
(as well as proportions of (imposed) subs vs regular sales.)

So what do you think explains this gravity defying situation?

Like any move trying to entice bandwagon adoption or to boost popularity or sentiment, the first tastes are cheap or almost free

And indeed the initial rental prices were (and are still) almost too good to be true (which begs the question if maybe they -were-(are) too good to be true)

But you can bet your wacom tablet that the buyers remain confident for a reason, and that the whole point of this entire operation is to be able to eventually charge (who know -how much-) more for the very same thing (or for nothing for the ones not interested in say new video editing features, if they want to continue to work)

Another example is; the CS6 came with a couple of new things, but also came with (still unresolved) MUCH slower responsiveness and memory consumption especially noticeable with larger images with lots of (not that many) layers/masks/adjustment layers.

So if not interested in new bugs or shortcomings, people will also be had by the ...

You can't use the stock market for reference anymore. State interventionism aka Quantitative Easing destroyed one value that market creates: Information.