Die Entwicklung geht weiter! :-))

Heute hat David Harris auf der PMNEWS-Mailingliste folgendes gepostet:

—CUT—
This is necessarily a very long message – I apologize for that now. If you
don\’t want to read it in its entirety, then here is an executive summary:

* In response to overwhelming feedback, I have decided to restart
development of Pegasus Mail and Mercury.

* Pegasus Mail will probably become \“donationware\“ with a regular
reminder to donate (you can select the period – 1 month, 3 months, 6
months or 1 year). There will be no obligation to donate. Sites will
be able to pay a small amount for a special license that suppresses
the donation reminder. Donations will be by PayPal (including credit
cards), and will have a minimum of US$10.

* Mercury will become free for a certain base number of mailboxes
(my current thinking is 1-10 users). For more users than this, a
license will be required. License prices have not been formally
determined, but will be something like US$100 for 11-25 users, US$200
for 26-100 users, US$300 for 101-500 users and US$500 for 500+ users.
The licenses will last forever, but only for the minor version of the
program for which they were issued.

* Constructive feedback is welcome – post it here and it will filter
back to me. Negative feedback is welcome only if politely phrased:
given the amount of work I have done for the community, I feel I have
earned the right to at least a little courtesy.

Now, for the full version: if you\’re interested, read on.

On January 3rd, I announced that development and distribution of
Pegasus Mail and Mercury would cease because of funding problems.
This was, in part, due to some very negative feedback I had received about
the idea of making Mercury a licensed product, but there were other
reasons as well.

Since that time, I have been inundated with mail, faxes and phone
calls – some people simply expressing sorrow for the decision, but
accepting it, others trying with varying levels of desperation to
persuade me to change my mind. To be honest, the level of
outpouring has rather surprised me: I had presumed that the
progressive dwindling of financial support meant that there simply
wasn\’t a need for the programs any more, but that seems not to be the
case.

On the basis of the torrent of feedback, and due to persistent efforts by
my beta test team, I have decided to restart development of both
products… But this does not mean that the funding problems are solved –
only that I am ignoring them for now. I still need to find some way of
raising the very modest levels of financial support I need to keep this
work going.

It has become increasingly clear to me recently that what has failed here
is not the software, but the business model behind it – the Internet has
changed, and most people no longer actively think of supporting the
developers who serve them. The number of messages I have received saying
\“I never bought manuals because I didn\’t need them\“ seems proof of this to
me: fifteen years ago, people would have supported the program because
they found it valuable, not because they necessarily got something extra
for making a payment. Now, I stress that this isn\’t a criticism – it\’s
just the acceptance of a fact, one I probably *should* have faced a number
of years ago.

Which brings me to the main question: how can I raise the funds I
need? I *did* receive a few queries about sponsorship from the
posting I made on the web site, but none of them followed through.
This accords with my previous experience – in seventeen years, only
one organization has ever willingly offered me sponsorship as such.

Some numbers might help explain the levels of support I\’m looking for. The
minimum I need to carry on is US$30,000 per annum. This would allow me a
minimal living and pay the most basic costs of development, but leaves no
margin for anything. US$75,000 is the magic number – it would allow me to
live a satisfactory lifestyle, pay for hardware and software upgrades and
development expenses, and would leave a small margin for upskilling, or
outsourcing work that is beyond my own personal skills. These numbers are
intended to give you some background to the way I am thinking when I
consider funding. Obviously, the more the better, but let\’s start by
thinking \“need\“ rather than \“nice\“.

If I could find a sustainable, reliable source of income at $75,000 or
more, I would be willing to make the programs open source. The idea of
Open Source is one that appeals to me in almost every respect, but it is
only a direction I can go if my long-term financial security is assured. I
have no idea how that might be achieved, but I mention it as a statement
of my current personal preferences when it comes to the idea of
development.

When I think of funding, I have to say that I no longer believe it is
possible to sell an e-mail client package – I suspect companies that have
staked their survival on doing this are in serious trouble. The primary
culprit for this is Microsoft – why would people pay for a utility that
comes \“free\“ (yeah, right) with the operating system? It\’s very hard to
escape this logic, since only people who are genuinely dissatisfied with
the built-in offering will even go looking for alternatives. Then there\’s
Thunderbird – a good and pretty, if slightly basic package, also free.
It\’s clear that the only way you can go up against these two titans and
expect to be able to charge for doing so is by having something that is
both vastly better and vastly prettier than they are… Now, I\’m willing
to back Pegasus Mail on its abilities (and just wait until you see some of
the new things I\’m planning!), but I\’m never going to be able to compete
on looks with projects that have *entire teams* of graphic designers. The
reality is that Pegasus Mail is never going to look as pretty as the big
two, and since people base a huge amount of their judgment on looks these
days, that makes things difficult to begin with.

Oddly enough, Pegasus Mail is still my passion – of the two programs, it\’s
the one for which I have the most ideas and the most desire, even though I
no longer believe it is financially viable. Historically, though, Pegasus
Mail was never about making money, so it\’s almost poetic that I plan to
take it back to being a completely free product.

Pegasus Mail will become completely free, manuals and all. It will be
possible to donate to support it, though – and indeed, the program will
issue gentle reminders to do so. 30 days after you install it, it will pop
up one small dialog pointing out that it survives on donations and
offering to take you to a site where you can make a small donation.
Naturally, you won\’t *have* to donate – it\’s just an option, in an attempt
to make the process as simple and painless as possible for those people
who *want* to support development.

The same dialog will have options to issue another reminder in one
month, three months, six months, or a year. Many people have told me that
they would like to make small donations regularly – the reminder is
intended to assist them in doing so. Some people are probably going to
start shrieking \“nagware!\“ about now, but frankly, if you think that one
reminder each year constitutes nagging, then nothing is going to satisfy
you.

Donations will almost certainly be done via PayPal (which includes
both PayPal accounts and credit card payments). You will be able to
donate a minimum of US$10, or more if you wish. The payments will
be completely secure and private (we will not retain any credit card
information here at all). We will probably look at making PayPal\’s
\“recurring payment\“ options available as well.

For sites that don\’t want their users to get the donation reminders, it
will be possible to pay a very small annual fee (US$75 is the initial
amount we\’re thinking about) for a license certificate that will suppress
the reminder warnings. Sites using these certificates will have an \“X-
Licensee\“ header added to their messages to deter \“sharing\“, and may
qualify for some level of technical support (we\’re still sorting through
that part).

Frankly, I am personally unsure how well donations will work. Don\’t
take this the wrong way, but I believe that whilst many, many people have
the very best intentions, only a few actually carry through on them – it\’s
simply human nature, especially in a world as cluttered and busy as this
one. Maybe I\’ll be proven wrong – I would like to hope so.

As an aside, any site wishing to donate US$1000 or more will get
\“sponsor status\“, entitling them to unrestricted licensing for both
products, unlimited personal technical support from me, and a small
logo-link on the front page of the Pegasus Mail web site identifying them
as a sponsor. I have no real conception of how well this idea might be
received, but there seemed no harm in making it available.

—

While I don\’t think it\’s possible to sell mail *clients* any longer, I
feel that mail *servers* are a completely different matter. Where client
programs are typically used by end users, mail servers are most commonly
used by businesses, who don\’t mind paying reasonable fees – and indeed,
often even expect to do so. That said, I accept that there are quite a
large number of small sites, charities and advanced home users running
Mercury to handle their mail. For this reason, I have decided that Mercury
will remain free and unrestricted for a certain base number of users – my
initial thinking is 1-10 users free. A useful side-effect of this is that
it means the program will remain easy to try out.

For user numbers above the base, a licensing certificate will be
required. The initial ballpark thinking here is that we\’ll be looking at
something like US$100 for 11-25 users, US$200 for 26-100 users, US$300 for
101-500 users and US$500 for 500+ users. The certificate will never
expire, but will be tied to the minor version for which it is issued…
So, if you purchase a certificate for v4.51, it will work if you upgrade
to v4.52 or v4.53, but not if you upgrade to v4.6 or v5.0. The reason for
tying it to the minor version number is because Mercury\’s update cycle is
typically quite a lot longer than Pegasus Mail\’s. The Mercury installer
will warn you before proceeding if an upgrade is going to invalidate any
existing certificate. Upgrading a certificate will cost half the price of
the original issue. To prevent \“sharing\“ of certificates, we\’ll either
write an X-Licensee header into outgoing messages, or else will tie the
certificate to a specific machine (with a simple mechanism to get an
updated certificate from us if the hardware changes).

Sites who purchase a certificate will be entitled to some specified
number of technical support questions each year.

The \“number of users\“ will probably be based on user mailboxes and
mailing lists, with a mailing list counting as a single user for licensing
purposes. We\’re still sorting through this one, though.

The licensing process will be flexible: say you are a site that has
thousands of lists but no users, or if you\’re a home user with lots of
mailboxes for some reason (perhaps you host them for your friends), then
you can come to us explaining your situation and we\’ll do our best to
help, either by reducing the cost or even by making it free. We will do
our best to assist charities and non-profit organizations in the same way.
No matter how difficult the financial situation might be, I am not willing
to compromise my personal convictions for a few bucks.

—

Well, that\’s about the state of the play as it stands now. I really *want*
to keep these programs alive, but it\’s going to depend on whether or not
we can come up with a workable business model. Because you\’re the people
with the wallets, though, I\’m not making any final decisions until you\’ve
had a chance to discuss the proposals I have outlined above: any
reasonable suggestion will be considered – just make a posting here and it
will filter back to me as necessary.

Constructive criticism is welcome, and even negative comments will
be treated with respect and consideration PROVIDED they are done in
a courteous manner. I\’ve been doing this for a long time and have
seldom asked for very much, so requesting a little basic courtesy
doesn\’t seem like a big ask.

Pegasus Mail has been in service for 17 years now, and Mercury for
14 – let\’s see if we can come up with something that will allow them to
get to twenty, and beyond!

Regards to you all,

— David —

David Harris
Owner/Author, Pegasus Mail and Mercury Systems.