I'm one of the kickstart backers and I'm OK with this move. In the end of the day, what we all want is the language and its ecosystem to be healthy so we can use it to develop our applications. After eight years of the FOSS version, very few users contributed to the codebase, and many of the customers moved to the FOSS version. LiveCode is still a business, it needs to pay its staff.
I've seen that most of the backers are actually onboard with this move. Many of us have been using this language for more than 20 years, we'd rather pay for our licenses and have a good product, than have a FOSS version that no one is working on.
Keeping a non-VC-backed programming language company alive is not a trivial job. FOSS is not the way towards sustainability for some companies.
I've seen that most of the backers are actually onboard with this move. Many of us have been using this language for more than 20 years, we'd rather pay for our licenses and have a good product, than have a FOSS version that no one is working on.
Keeping a non-VC-backed programming language company alive is not a trivial job. FOSS is not the way towards sustainability for some companies.