[ebiester]

Sell it like a normal product. This was the way commercial software worked for decades. They buy a license. They download it and register it while connected to the internet. They then take it offsite. Then, have an option to be paid to be on call for support when a meet is happening. That way nobody is surprised if something doesn't work.

[quickthrower2]

Or it could be a subscription still. Like Slack for example who are also a desktop app on Electron* . The advantage with a subscription is you can charge less upfront, and you are being paid for your maintenance and bug-fixing time, rather than supporting a bunch of people who paid you $50 or whatever ten years ago and still expect updates and support.

* Yes they have a mobile and web interface too, but I mostly use the desktop app anyway.

[Eire_Banshee]

I think this is the right answer... not sure why I was so resistive to it. Maybe its the hive mind :p

Thanks.

[mud_dauber]

My father used to run HS & college track meets using a SW package he bought online. Same model - buy a license, get updates once/year. It works.

[benj111]

Yes, as the OP states they don't want to make a business out of it, a subscription model kind of ties you to ongoing maintenance. At least a straight sale can be fire and forget.

[aerojoe23]

When you say normal product, do you mean users will have to buy the next version?

We should be responsible developers with the ability to patch insecurities in the software we sell. You're also going to have feature requests you'd like to publish to your users. As a sole developer one evergreen version seems much easier to maintain for both these concerns. And I think a subscription model or some recurring payment model makes more sense both for you and your users. Explaining this to your users maybe difficult, but if they actually find a product useful they should want the developer behind it to be able to support it.

[Zelmor]

Sure, patch your software, but you can keep accumulated feature requests on a separate branch. Then, as time goes on, decide whether you should rather monetize on an updated and more feature rich version, or just push updates and make people happy. I'd say there is more money in the first option, while the second makes me feel better. It's the developer's choice. Check https://www.holdemmanager.com/ how they do it.

For OP's kind of software, I'd say one time license purchase would be the most user friendly. So yeah, sell it like people did in the good old days, before the cancer that is SaaS took over the world.

[michaelt]

How many insecurities are there going to be in software that doesn't connect to the internet or process input from untrusted users?

[privong]

> How many insecurities are there going to be in software that doesn't connect to the internet or process input from untrusted users?

In principle there are ways this can be exploited, though I know the poster's application is likely a less interesting attack vector than uranium centrifuges (e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet).

But there may still be user-facing bugs that would require fixing.

[NullPrefix]

It's an electron app, what more could you ask for?