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Comment by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF | Hacker News Reader

A perpetual fallback license model is the most customer-friendly I've encountered. It's effectively a subscription model which doesn't have the customer losing access to the software when they stop paying their subscription. They would simply have access to the most updated version at the time of their subscription lapsing.

Having features locked behind a paid subscription in software that's otherwise free is probably next best but I find myself being frustrated by this more often than not.

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> have access to the most updated version at the time of their subscription lapsing.

Since JetBrains has been mentioned multiple times here, it's worth pointing out that they do not do this. If you do not renew, the fallback license applies to the version on the day you purchased, not the version at the time the license lapsed.

> If you do not renew, the fallback license applies to the version on the day you purchased, not the version at the time the license lapsed.

It's not as bad as that. Your fallback license is updated every 12 consecutive months. If you do not renew after a 12 month period, your fallback license will be for the version from 12 months ago. [1]

[1]: https://sales.jetbrains.com/hc/en-gb/articles/207240845-What...

That seems hard to manage if you have data upgrades. For example, a new version adds new data fields, obsoleting old ones. If you don't renew, you have to revert to a version from 12 months ago? That version doesn't support the new data fields, only the old ones, which no longer exist. Or maybe I don't get it.

If you pay the subscription yearly, it makes sense, though it's not completely ideal. You get a fallback license for the version at the time you paid for the year. The monthly subscription complicates this because someone could game the fallback license scheme if you were immediately granted a fallback license (e.g., you only subscribe for 1 month every year). This is why I think JetBrains updates the fallback license every 12 consecutive months. The monthly subscription acts equivalent to that of the yearly. Ideally, yes, it would be nice if the fallback license was effective from when your subscription ended rather than the last yearly renewal.

JetBrains may not, but others that implement a perpetual fallback license do what the OP is expecting [0..3]. I also run a software licensing API that supports a perpetual fallback license model like this via a RESTRICT_ACCESS expiration strategy on the license policy [4], so a lot of my customers use the same model for their applications.

[0]: https://help.panic.com/nova/purchase-faq/

[1]: https://devutils.com/perpetual_license/

[2]: https://www.sublimehq.com/sales_faq

[3]: https://proxyman.io/pricing

[4]: https://keygen.sh/docs/api/policies/#policies-object-attrs-e...

Just to provide another data point in addition to JetBrains, the license for NCrunch (which I very much recommend) is similar. Being a paid user of both of them I find that kind of option pretty ideal. The main difference between them is that NCrunch allow the latest version available in the qualifying period as the fallback one and JetBrains use the earliest.

I came to suggest exactly this, though I'm not sure I've ever seen it in the wild.

Set a flat minimum amount you need to collect for the software and allow your customer to either pay that out in subscription payments (and then continue paying if she wants to keep receiving updates) or, if she decides to cancel her subscription early, allow her to pay any remaining difference between the sum of her subscription payments and your flat price.

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