What is commercial?
Matt Hall
Just another beautiful geomorphological locality in Google's virtual globe software, a powerful teaching aid and just downright fun to play withAt one of my past jobs, we were not allowed to use Google Earth: 'unlicensed business use is not permitted'. So to use it we had to get permission from a manager, then buy the $400 Professional license. This came about because an early End-User License Agreement (EULA) had stipulated 'not for business use'. However, by the time the company had figured out how to enforce this stipulation with an auto-delete from PCs every Tuesday, the EULA had changed. The free version was allowed to be used in a business context (my interpretation: for casual use, learning, or illustration), but not for direct commercial gain (like selling a service). Too late: it was verboten. A game-changing geoscience tool was neutered, all because of greyness around what commercial means.
Last week I was chastised for posting a note on a LinkedIn discussion about our AVO* mobile app. I posted it to an existing discussion in a highly relevant technical group, Rock Physics. Now, this app costs $2, in recognition of the fact that it is useful and worth something. It will not be profitable, simply because the total market is probably well under 500 people. The discussion was moved to Promotions, where it will likely never be seen. I can see that people don't want blatant commeriality in technical discussion groups. But maybe we need to apply some common sense occasionally: a $2 mobile app is different from a $20k software package being sold for real profit. Maybe that's too complicated and 'commercial means commercial'. What do you think?
But then again, really? Is everyone in applied science not ultimately acting for commercial gain? Is that not the whole point of applied science? Applied to real problems... more often than not for commercial gain, at some point and by somebody. It's hopelessly idealistic, or naïve, to think otherwise. Come to think of it, who of us can really say that what we do is pure academy? Even universities make substantial profits—from their students, licensing patents, or spinning off businesses. Certainly most research in our field (hydrocarbons and energy) is paid for by commercial interests in some way.
I'm not saying that the reason we do our work is for commercial gain. Most of us are lucky enough to love what we do. But more often than not, it's the reason we are gainfully employed to do them. It's when we try to draw that line dividing commercial from non-commercial that I, for one, only see greyness.
Reader Comments (4)
I don't hang out on LinkedIn (I'm on there but don't really "use" it) so I'm not sure what the culture and etiquette is like. This is a grey area. Because I kind of know you guys now -- at least virtually -- I wouldn't put you in the category of people simply after followers, links, etc. for the sake of profit. But, as you say, we all want to be successful -- even if that success isn't grounded in profit, those who are creative and innovative tend to be the ones who are also successful financially. Yeah ... so I don't know. I'm not much help here.
@Brian: You've hit on a point that Evan and I talk about a lot: non-monetary gain. In a way, I guess it's what drives the social web too at least for users (not so much for its providers, Facebook, etc). There are other kinds of profit than dollars: things like credibility, trust, relevance, fun, and fame (or notoriety!) count too. So on those grounds, with that expanded definition of profit, I guess I was being commercial!
Since you are planning to sell geophysical software at $2, which I think is ridiculous in the first place (not that I've checked it out yet to see if it actually works, but I am sure that it does and took some time and effort to build), I might take a copy before you realize that the least you could do is charge a $10K yearly maintenance fee or boost the cost. Either way, that might make it alright again! (my first comment on Agile...how do you like that for attitude!!)
@Char: I like it for attitude! And yeah, I hadn't thought of yearly maintenance... I wonder what our user would think of that? :)