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^Indeed true and should be stated, I agree. I just saw that post and was moved to reply to it. Likely went a bit overboard.

First, keeping license selling off your site ... makes sense to me.  And if you guys don't want users splitting bundles on your site, that's fine with me.  It really is.   

However, I'm taking a strong contrarian viewpoint on what you wrote Phill.  A specific "bundle" is nothing more than a thing of your creation.  The "participating developers" don't give a rat's behind about the welfare of other app developers, they do it because it makes sense for their situation.  Perhaps, they are relatively new to the game and want access to 650,000 participants and millions more after tweets.  Perhaps their current app is on its last revenue legs and they want to get a ton of people they can get an upgrade fee from that they wouldn't get without Macheist.   So, as an analogy, Macheist isn't much different from Amazon.  Amazon does these buy 1 get 1 promotions and then consumers buy both and then turn around and sell the one they don't need in Amazon marketplace at a discount rate.  Are manufacturers, software companies and movie studios thrilled that brand new items are being offered at a discount rate through Amazon?  You can bet not.  Do they know that they weren't going to participate in revenue from secondary sales of their products?  Of course.   

To suggest that app developers are getting "exploited" by bundle splitting is comical.  If you Macheist guys are as smart as I think you are, they should be paying YOU to participate in these bundles.  Getting valid lists of folks that spend on Mac applications is invaluable to them. 

One thing that is important, is that a developer gets the correct info on who is using their products.  If they are not set up to do that, shame on them.  I think most users want to give correct info to the software groups so they can be wired in to patches, upgrades and the like. 

Just my viewpoint.  I'd be glad to hear other ideas as to what I'm not considering.

Wow, this has been very interesting to read.... and I think that it is pretty cool that johnred took the time to respond in detail to strangetpwn (however ludicrous his comments and logic). This proves once again that the MacHeist Directorate just so happens to include some thoroughly awesome people.

In my opinion this is a very helpful new set of 'rules', I would much rather go to the little extra effort it requires to divide a bundle away from the forums than to get scammed without a hope of recompense. Obviously this wasn't an arbitrary decision — it was thought through and implemented for our protection. I mean really, what would the Directorate have to gain by randomly making it more difficult for us to use the forums for bundle-splitting/license-tading transactions?

• It's not the fall that kills you; it's the sudden stop at the end.

Not gain, but there is a possibility of losing out on MH bundle sales too. The problem is that it's not easy to quantify any of these - claims of piracy through bundle splits or loss of bundle sales because of bundle splits or loss of time/effort for developers to manage license transfers.

I'm sure I'm not the only one here who didn't buy the nanoBundle2 because I didn't want the whole bundle and there was no (known) way to organize a split with people here. I don't know any Mac users in real life who I can go to for bundle splits.

But does it matter to MH that I didn't buy it just because I couldn't split it? No, it does not, mainly because there are certain policy decisions that just need to be taken and because of the unquantifiable nature of such things, as I mentioned above.

Nevertheless, the decision has been taken and there's no point questioning why.

SpiderOak - get an additional 1GB space for free when you sign up from this link. I'm late to the SpiderOak referral party.

I believe it was acknowledged here that there were only a few MH bundle splits on the forum, which could not significantly impact MH sales. However, other bundles sell far lower numbers and have had more bundle splits on the forums.

In any case, bundle organizers have gone through lots of trouble constructing a bundle, so it must be more than a little disheartening to have it deconstructed by people looking for shortcuts.

avatar is from Penfield & Jasper, 1954

I never liked all the trading on these forums. I'd shudder at the "work" it created for the developers which were kind enough to participate in the bundles, allowing us huge discounts on software.

All bundles include apps I already own. The last one included MacJournal & Rapid Weaver (yup, the biggies). I gifted them when purchasing the bundle, which is an option that I LOVE. I would not have purchased the bundle if not for being able to share two great apps with a friend (for a pittance).

So...I'm in agreement with the change in policy and welcome it.

So I don't get my 1Password license. Anyways, looking forward to get something out of Macheist.

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The Singularity is Near and TicketMaster's sold out! Typical.