Ask HN: How should I sell my HTML5 X11/remote desktop app?

2 points

13 years ago

I'm nearing beta-quality in my X11 app for Gate One (https://github.com/liftoff/GateOne). It is fast/efficient enough that you could open VLC in your browser and play back a video (proof: http://youtu.be/6zJ8TNcWTyo). Just like terminals you'll be able to embed it into your own site/app and open/host X11 applications (e.g. LibreOffice, RDP/VNC clients, web browsers, etc etc).

Right now Gate One (and its Terminal app) are open source (AGPLv3) with a commercial license available. It's not making much money with that business model--despite hundreds of thousands of devices shipped with Gate One and several SaaS platforms using it. So I've come to HN to ask for advice: How should I license the X11 app?

Something like a free trial with reminders that you need to pay (like Sublime Text 2)? If I do that how much should I charge? How do I differentiate the pricing for businesses that just want to show off their application on their website from businesses that want to use it as a replacement for Citrix?

I have my own ideas for all these things but I want to see what the HN community thinks.

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