Are you getting the most from your LiveCode License?

Has your business grown this year? Has your development needs changed? Are you getting the most from your LiveCode License? LiveCode Community, Indy and Business are designed to meet specific development needs and come with their own terms of use. One of the commonest queries received in support is “What license type should I be using?” Here are the things you need to bear in mind and the benefits of each license.

LiveCode Community – Open Source Edition

What is LiveCode Community, why is it open source and what is it for?

Our mission is to bring coding to as many people as possible. Open Source allows us to do that. It has many benefits, allowing users to share their code and help each other. More LiveCode  “in the wild” helps to spread the word and share the benefits its unique very high level coding across so many platforms brings. We are seeing LiveCode adopted more and more widely in education as open source removes barriers for teachers and students.

Great news: this license is totally FREE! It falls under the GPL license. All apps and stacks that are created using this license must be open source. If you’re not a natural geek you may still be wondering what does that mean? Open Source?

When you distribute the app or even the LiveCode stack you must share the source code along with the distribution of it. Anyone can see your code that you spent so many hours over, you cannot protect commercial secrets or your intellectual property using this license. Of course, in an educational setting or when you are sharing your work with friends, sharing your code may be exactly what you want to do! In other situations you may need a commercial license. So if for example you are connecting to a database of confidential records, you would be advised not to use the Community edition of LiveCode because your code will be exposed and access to that database will not be secure.

Additionally, as your stacks and applications must be open source you cannot include any closed source libraries within them. Your GPL app cannot use as an integral part of itself anything that is not also open source. You cannot use commercial libraries or addons that are not themselves GPL licensed.

Community is great for hobbyist use and stellar for Education. Anywhere you don’t need to protect your code, you can use and enjoy LiveCode Community. If you want to support Open Source and help the world to learn to code, this is the ideal license. If you’re not sharing your apps or LiveCode stacks with anyone and they never leave your computer, Community is fine. As soon as you share them, even for testing, they are considered “published” and the terms of the GPL apply.

LiveCode Community has virtually all the features of Indy, with the unsurprising exception that it does not understand password protection or encryption of any kind. You also cannot connect to Oracle databases from it as this required a closed source library, and there are some advanced Camera support features that require Indy and above.

If you need to protect your code, want to use closed source libraries, or want the fancy Camera footwork of Indy, then you need to upgrade to a closed source license. You can upgrade to LiveCode Indy here.

If you are unsure, take the license quiz below or email support@livecode.com for personalized advice.

LiveCode Indy

Unlike the open source version, LiveCode Indy allows you to distribute closed source apps and include closed source libraries within your app. You can protect your intellectual property.

LiveCode Indy is designed for the independent developer (yes, Indy is short for Independent rather than Indiana even if you do feel you are the Jones of the developer world!) requiring a single user license for their development. As such it is priced as low as we can make it for you, with an easy entry ramp of monthly licensing at only $49. To benefit from this license you need to meet these criteria:

You or your company has a complete annual turnover of less than $500k. Please note that this is not per app or per department, this is for the entire company. If your company is turning over more than $500k per year then you must upgrade to a business license in order to meet LiveCode license criteria.

Your LiveCode Indy license also has an employee limit attached to it. If your company hires 5 or more employees then you are no longer meeting the criteria of the Indy license and should upgrade to a LiveCode Business license.

LiveCode Indy is a singe user license (except for educational licensing). This means that only one user within your organisation can hold an indy license, you cannot have multiple copies of LiveCode indy and you cannot have multiple developers using LiveCode Indy. If this is the case then you must upgrade to LiveCode Business where you can purchase multiple seats for all developers using LiveCode.

Indy gives you the following benefits:

• You can protect your valuable source code
• You can integrate closed source libraries and addons, saving you valuable coding effort and time
• You get advanced Camera features
• You can connect directly to Oracle databases (desktop only, not supported on mobile)
• You get full access to the App Building Course – build 8 apps alongside our experts
• You get full access to all our video Academies, covering topics from ebooks to the cloud
• You get technical support from our team via a dedicated forum

If you need more, your business turns over more than $500,000 a year (a nice problem to have!), you employ more than 5 people, or you want multiple seats, then LiveCode Business is where its at for you!

LiveCode Business

Our top level license. A LiveCode Business license allows you to build closed source apps, it comes with no revenue limits and it allows for multiple developer seat purchases per organisation. A business license is also available with dedicated customer and technical support options and access to the Business Application Framework.

We’ll really go to town for you. Get direct technical support from our team. Get your developer team working together using the BAF. Ask us for help with application design and architecture. Learn more about the Business license here.

Still not sure which license is right for you? Drop us a line on support@livecode.com.