Its not getting any better.

2.5 “Niche Applications” means an application developed by
Licensee (i) using the SDK; and/or (ii) including the Software
Components (and any Updates, modifications and/or patches or hot
fixes thereto that Tobii may make generally available from time to
time) that is or is intended to be licensed, sold, or otherwise
disposed of, separately or as part of a system, application or other
technical device, for a price of more than US$800 or for more than
US$400 per year if licensed or sold per subscription, lease or
similar.

$800 or $400 subscription… uh… there is nothing in there about end-users, so if I develop an application that uses the SDK and sell it to some company for 801$ I am not legally allowed to according to that.

801$ does not even pay for food for one month, so I doubt I will ever pick up developing with the SDK if it requires me to have a commercial license for earning small change. How about putting some sensible values in there, so that single developers can actually SURVIVE programming something specifically for your hardware?

For example:

If revenue for an application exceeds 2000$ a month or 15000$ a year a commercial license has to be bought.

Or:

You have to pay 5% of any revenues to Tobii.

Have you looked at other SDKs/engines? I can pretty much get the Unity engine for free without having to pay anything, even if I develop a 1 million$ topseller.

Why do you think it makes sense to restrict devs with a commercial license when you really should be trying to get as many people as possible programming for your hardware? It should be obvious that your hardware is worth next to nothing if there is no high quality software out there that uses it.

I would be interested to create software, but only with a liberal license. The risk that your hardware totally fails on the market is much too high for me to mess with a commercial license.

Just some personal thoughts from me. 😉

Well, that depends on where you put the “or” and where you put the “more than one time” and where you put the comma. 😉

If you make it…

“A niche application is an application that is licensed or sold to more than one customer, either for a price of more than US$800 or for a subscription price of more than US$400 per year.”

Then it is generally better and very clear.

If you make it:

“A niche application is an application that is licensed or sold, to more than one customer for a price of more than US$800 or for a price of more than US$400 per year.”

Then it is bad, because the “to more than one customer” only belongs to the 800$. Unless you want that of course.

In any case, I think 800$ and 400$ are much too low values. I do not understand why you want to do this.

What is your idea behind it?

Do you not want to enable software developers to actually earn money with their projects? What you are doing is to stop developers from programming with your SDK, especially indie developers.

If I was selling hardware, I would make sure that everyone and his grandmother wants to develop software for my hardware to boost it. Hell, if someone can sell his software for 2000$ a piece I would congratulate him and give him a price.

Eye-X is pretty much an unknown product with no decent software developed for it, let alone any good games.

Shouldn’t you like…. give people money to develop good games? Instead of putting license restrictions on them? How about…. no license restrictions, but instead a software development contest with prices?

I don’t know… it is not my company, but I definitely would do the opposite of what you are doing.

That’s cool, then maybe mention what applies in the case of niche applications and what your idea behind it is. And be upfront about the costs?

Right now it sounds more like a threat: -> If you develop a niche application, you cannot publish it and will have to get in contact with us so we can tell you that you need to pay 50% of your profit to us!

How about you just state some figures for niche applications and then mention that if the developer contacts you, he may get special rates?

Do it like this:

Indie License
————-

Any application that sells for less than x $$ or x $$ a year to end-users falls under the indie category. In this case you do not have to pay anything.

Commercial License
——————

Any application that sells for more than x $$ or x $$ a year to end-users is considered to be a commercial application and requires commercial licensing. Any released app falling under the commercial license costs either xx $$ one time fee or xx % of the profit. Special license rates and help on marketing can be negotiated on a one-by-one basis, please contact our support department for help.

–
And then just delete the whole “niche application” nonsense.

You have two licenses, everyone can see them and knows what to expect, no shady “we wont tell you before you contact us personally”, everything easy, painless and transparent.

How does that sound?

Seriously… it does not look like they even want anyone to develop a decent application using their hardware. I pretty much put the thing on my shelf and never looked back.

They do not seem to have any understanding of licensing software to developers, so it is better to stay clear. The risk developing for this is much too high and there is no financial incentive to do it. I mean, they even punish you if your application is too “good”.

Also the still completely intransparent licensing. You have to contact them to even find out, nothing is written clearly on the website.

So… I am staying well clear.

Good luck with your project. 😛

And for them.. this is how you do licensing:

https://store.unity.com/
https://www.unrealengine.com/faq