A strange software marketing model
One of my current tasks is to determine whether a software toolkit called Kakadu is suitable for our needs in processing JPEG2000 files. At first I had a hard time making sense of their licenses. We can obtain the software for free indirectly by getting an open source package called Djatoka which incorporates it; the Djatoka people paid for a license which lets them distribute the binaries for free. After a while I figured out that Kakadu is, in effect, giving away the software but selling the documentation. Only after we get a license do we have access to the full documentation.
To make things more confusing, an evaluation license costs $500, but a full license will cost us only $250. The reason for this is that the evaluation license is priced for for-profit users, and we qualify for the cheap license as an academic library.
This strikes me as a dubious marketing model. It means that we can't really tell if the software is suitable for us till we buy it. This isn't all that big a deal at the price, but I've been getting third-party reports about what it can do that seem inaccurate and unfavorable to Kakadu, based on the limited documentation they've made public. By not letting the API be public, they've invited evaluation by rumor.
I'm inclined to recommend Kakadu anyway, but my job would have been easier if they hadn't gone about selling it the way they did.
Update: Making things more confusing, the description of the "Non-commercial, Named User Licence" says, "This licence can only be purchased by individuals, Academic Institutions, not-for-profit organizations and libraries which do not gain financially by using this software." However, the actual license text says: "Licensee means the individual single end-user that has purchased the KAKADU Software and is granted the non-commercial license under this Agreement." There's no mention of institutional licensees. The license is sloppily written in other respects as well, and Kakadu has been unresponsive to our queries.
To make things more confusing, an evaluation license costs $500, but a full license will cost us only $250. The reason for this is that the evaluation license is priced for for-profit users, and we qualify for the cheap license as an academic library.
This strikes me as a dubious marketing model. It means that we can't really tell if the software is suitable for us till we buy it. This isn't all that big a deal at the price, but I've been getting third-party reports about what it can do that seem inaccurate and unfavorable to Kakadu, based on the limited documentation they've made public. By not letting the API be public, they've invited evaluation by rumor.
I'm inclined to recommend Kakadu anyway, but my job would have been easier if they hadn't gone about selling it the way they did.
Update: Making things more confusing, the description of the "Non-commercial, Named User Licence" says, "This licence can only be purchased by individuals, Academic Institutions, not-for-profit organizations and libraries which do not gain financially by using this software." However, the actual license text says: "Licensee means the individual single end-user that has purchased the KAKADU Software and is granted the non-commercial license under this Agreement." There's no mention of institutional licensees. The license is sloppily written in other respects as well, and Kakadu has been unresponsive to our queries.