Six licences, not sixty
Sellers wanted custom licence text. We said no, and buyer disputes fell.
Every marketplace eventually gets the request: let me write my own licence terms. It sounds reasonable, and it is how you end up with four thousand licences that nobody reads and a support queue full of "am I allowed to do this".
DevMall has six. Personal, Commercial, Extended, SaaS, Developer, Agency. A seller chooses which to offer and sets the price, the activation count and the support window. They cannot change what the licence means.
Two rules are invariant. Modification is always permitted, because a source marketplace whose licences forbid editing the source is selling nothing. Redistribution is never permitted, because that term is the only thing standing between a marketplace and a file-sharing site.
More from the blog
Why every balance on DevMall is derived, not stored
A seller balance column is a bug waiting for a concurrent refund. Here is what we do instead.
What we check before a listing goes live
Eight automated stages, then a human. Here is what each one is actually looking for.
How to price a licence ladder that people actually climb
Extended should be a multiple of Commercial, not a surcharge on it. Here is why.