I have considered and purchased a number of commercial libraries and development tools over the years (in particular, some Lisp implementations/compilers and databases, and some libraries), so I'll drop in a few notes on the subject:
* Price does not necessarily correspond to quality/capabilities. I have seen very expensive software that was disappointing, and very cheap (or free) software that was impressive.
* Paying a lot for software does not mean you will get the support you expect. You will get the attention, but your problems will not necessarily get fixed. This is just a business reality: some problems are too expensive to fix.
* A commercial licensing agreement you enter into is usually a huge problem that crops up later. It's baggage that you will carry along and will need to look into regularly: when you make a huge new sale, when you sign an escrow agreement with a customer, when you go through due diligence, or when you sell your company.
* A licensing agreement with revenue sharing is an even bigger problem. Setting apart the management costs, it is something that not all of your investors/partners/buyers will approve of.
* Commercial software, in general, has fewer users than free software. Which means you are more likely to end up the first or the only user of certain functionality. Not a good place to be in when you have systems to ship.
* If a company does not have a clear pricing structure, the negotiations might take too long to be worthwile. Just hearing a price is sometimes difficult and requires exchanging multiple E-mails („let us assess your needs so that we can provide you with a custom quote”).
* If you build your product on top of a commercial library, take into account that you are now dependent on the company you bought it from. Unless you have the source code and the rights to modify it — but even then, if the company goes under or gets bought, you might end up holding the bag and having to develop and support the code you bought.
Put another way, when I make a decision to use a commercial library, in general I will avoid it, unless:
* the pricing is transparent and immediately available,
* there is no revenue sharing, quarterly reporting, etc,
* there are few licensing restrictions,
* there are enough users I know of that I can assume the library has been used and tested,
* I get the source code,
* I get the rights to use the code after the company goes under or gets sold.
* Price does not necessarily correspond to quality/capabilities. I have seen very expensive software that was disappointing, and very cheap (or free) software that was impressive.
* Paying a lot for software does not mean you will get the support you expect. You will get the attention, but your problems will not necessarily get fixed. This is just a business reality: some problems are too expensive to fix.
* A commercial licensing agreement you enter into is usually a huge problem that crops up later. It's baggage that you will carry along and will need to look into regularly: when you make a huge new sale, when you sign an escrow agreement with a customer, when you go through due diligence, or when you sell your company.
* A licensing agreement with revenue sharing is an even bigger problem. Setting apart the management costs, it is something that not all of your investors/partners/buyers will approve of.
* Commercial software, in general, has fewer users than free software. Which means you are more likely to end up the first or the only user of certain functionality. Not a good place to be in when you have systems to ship.
* If a company does not have a clear pricing structure, the negotiations might take too long to be worthwile. Just hearing a price is sometimes difficult and requires exchanging multiple E-mails („let us assess your needs so that we can provide you with a custom quote”).
* If you build your product on top of a commercial library, take into account that you are now dependent on the company you bought it from. Unless you have the source code and the rights to modify it — but even then, if the company goes under or gets bought, you might end up holding the bag and having to develop and support the code you bought.
Put another way, when I make a decision to use a commercial library, in general I will avoid it, unless:
* the pricing is transparent and immediately available,
* there is no revenue sharing, quarterly reporting, etc,
* there are few licensing restrictions,
* there are enough users I know of that I can assume the library has been used and tested,
* I get the source code,
* I get the rights to use the code after the company goes under or gets sold.