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by James Robertson.
Original Post: What to do with ElastoLab
Feed Title: David Buck - Blog
Feed URL: http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/rssBlog/buck-rss.xml
Feed Description: Smalltalk can do that
Many people know me as the author of ElastoLab - a physics playground for kids. Although this project was technologically successful, it wasn't a commercial success. The level of sales I was able to generate was extremely low. I attribute this to the unusual nature of the product and poor tailoring to the target market. It's hard to sell something that presents you with a white screen surrounded by lots of buttons and invites you to create something. It's not a game, not a simulation (in the sense of SimCity), and it's not directly an educational package. It's hard to sell that way.
I've taken ElastoLab off the market because the costs were higher than the revenues. I've now had a request to release it in some other way. For me, any sort of commercial release is hard. If I receive any revenues from it, I'd have to worry about charging sales taxes, getting vending permits, handling credit card transactions, tracking sales, sending out CD-ROMS, and paying Cincom minimum royalty fees for a VAR license. This is all more painful than it's worth for the amount of revenue I expect to receive (i.e., very little).
I am interested, however, in letting it live in some way. My options are:
Open source it under a Creative Commons license (no commercial use, no derived works)
Release a fully operational executable but without source
I'll likely go the open source route since it may help promote Smalltalk better. That way, I may be able to get my name out and sell more of my "Introduction to Smalltalk" courses. I have to make some changes to ElastoLab before I can do this, though (to remove the registration, trial mode, etc.) and it may take me a few weeks to get it all ready.
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