Developers Lose With Proprietary Software

An anonymous reader writes "Appgen looked like a nice cross-platform accounting program independent software developers could use as a base for custom applications, and lots of them paid $2000 or more for the company's development kits. Then Appgen went out of business and left all those developers stranded. They can't even generate license keys, and their support has disappeared. Nobody knows who now owns Appgen's code, so it looks like all those developers and their clients are screwed. This couldn't happen if Appgen was Open Source. There's a strong lesson in this story for those who choose to listen." Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.

Comments

... news at eleven.

[ultrabot]

Don't be a Sharecropper.

The Appgen product is expected to continue...

[Deviate_X]

For those looking for insight on this might look here:

http://www.aaxnet.com/product/appgn.html

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10-Oct-03 - the Appgen company has closed - the Appgen product is expected to continue. There are groups currently working on acquiring rights to license the product and this issue should be resolved soon. Nothing is yet resolved about terms, pricing or VAR support.

18-Oct-03 - people are still working to put together a deal, but the process has apparently been stalled a bit by the volume of badmouthing and threats (legal and physical) against those who were involved with the Appgen company. Cooperation would seem to be a much better tactic right now.

You may contact me by email at aax@aaxnet.com and I will keep you updated on whatever I learn about this matter.- or just watch this space

For people with licensing problems with Mybooks purchased directly from Appgen, this temporary solution has been proposed by an Appgen VAR.

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