Livecode Subscription

[oldummy]

How does a livecode subscription work?
If I buy an annual license, and decide that it is too much expense for someone who does not use it to generate any income, what happens if after a year I drop the subscription? Does the program simply stop working, or does it stop getting updates? I have never used a program via subscription, so I really have no idea.

[richmond62]

If you do not keep paying the subscription the LC IDE expires = stops working.

[oldummy]

Well, that clarifies that. Thank you.

[dunbarx]

oldDummy.

There is still the community version available, I believe, which is free and permanent, and I wager has all the power that you will ever need.

It would for me.

Someone will supply a link. I am pretty sure that Scotland indulges this still, which is very nice of them.

Craig

[richmond62]

"Scotland" (by which I take you to mean LC, and not my calf country) doesn't have to 'indulge' anything as the Open Source versions of LC are up for grabs whether "Scotland" likes it or not.

[jacque]

Well, that clarifies that. Thank you.

Also, at the very lowest tier, any standalones you've built stop working. Higher tiers don't have that restriction. That tier is suitable for students who are learning LC in the classroom.

[stam]

Starter plan is intended for 'learning' and is the full product on monthly subscription, but with an important limitation as Jacque points out. Standalones stopping working if your subscription lapses may or may not be a showstopper, but certainly puts people off the starter plan, which is obviously the intention. The other limitations are that you are restricted to max 2 platforms and you can't add the 'pro features' option.

But let me post something contentious
The difference in price with the 'standard' subscription can be staggering in some cases - but less than you think in others. If, like many here, the decision is to stick with LC longer term/indefinitely, there are some interesting options cost-wise, owing to the strange pricing structure LC has elected to employ. The information below is taken from LC's website, prices are in GBP, excluding VAT:

Starter plan
Starter plan with 1 platform is £10.22/month (£122.64 annually). This is about the same as buying an (overpriced, I know) Starbucks coffe weekly.
Weirdly adding a second platform (the max allowed with starter plan) triples the cost at £31.98/month (or £383.76 annually)

So if sticking with starter plan, really you're better off paying 2 separate 1-plarform starter licences for £20.44/mon (£245.28 annually) - this in no way makes sense, but this apparently is their policy. And doing this scales for any number of platforms, so the silly limitation of only allowing 2 platforms doesn't apply: For example, subscribe for 3 licences (1 platform per licence): £30.66/month (£367.92/year).
The only downsides with this approach is that you would need different accounts and separate installations for each platform - but that does not hinder cross-platform development as really you would always have a main platform to develop and the other licensing options for to build the standalone.

Compare with the standard plan:
1 platform £305.92/year, 2 platforms £510.72/year (yes, in Standard there is cost reduction with 2nd platform) but then a bizarre rise to £921.6/year for 3 platforms (nearly double that of 2 platforms!).

So if your sweet spot is 2 platforms, the difference between the two is smallest and probably worth the price of non-expiring binaries:
£383.76/year for starter, £510.72/year for standard -> difference = £126.96 (ie the starter is only about 25% cheaper than standard). But for any other configuration the difference between the two is markedly higher.

So, from the point of view of minimising cost: the best option if licensing 2 platforms is to go with 'Standard', as while 25% more expensive this configuration produces the smallest differences between the two (unless of course you opt for the multi-licence approach) and you won't be constricted by the limitations of the Starter plan.
With any other configuration, the most cost effective option is to get multiple single-platform starter plans (accepting that you will commit indefinitely if you want to keep standalones alive indefinitely). It's a pricing structure that never made sense and is counterproductive as far as I'm concerned and I've voiced this multiple times...

If LC want to convert customers from starter to standard, they really need to make it financially attractive for the purchaser...
Having said that, LC has previously offered occasional discounts that were substantial, so the other option is to wait until such a discount and go for a discounted standard plan.

Disclaimer
I post the above purely theoretically (I am subscribed to the full standard licence) and with no intention of encouraging mis-use of software or causing disruption - and an important caveat is that I have not read the EULA in a long time, so don't know if multiple Starter plans is permissible, but checking the website does not mention this anywhere, so I presume this is not 'against the rules'...

Ultimately I do hope that LC will consider more consumer-friendly pricing structure in the future as this is a non-trivial barrier to new adopters...