very few things in life are free - mostly 'free' just implies
that somebody else is covering the expenses...

Why pay for a full license...? Students licenses - Providing seqtools version 8.4 to users free of charge has the dual advantage that users all over the world get free access to a fairly comprehensive software package for sequence handling and analysis. In return I get information about bugs and receive useful user input in the form of suggestions and comments from a large number of users. Renewing registration - The difficult economic situation of many students and scientist in third world countries is an additional argument for making the use of seqtools free of charge. The only condition for the free access to seqtools is that users are requested to register after a testing period of 60 days and there after to keep their registration alive by renewing their license every 60 days. Senior scientists - To ensure a moderate income to cover my own investments in pc equipment, web hosting etc, I expect senior scientists to invest in a full license to seqtools when they use the program regularly in their professional work. In addition to the benefits associated with a full license, paying the license fee to seqtools contributes to the continued existence of the program and thus help making seqtools available to the scientific community in the future. Active users - In a number of cases individual users have contributed significantly to the development of seqtools either by suggesting and testing new functions or by assisting me in bug identification and killing. Such users normally receive a free full license as modest compensation for their involvement. Teachers license - In rare cases a teachers license is issued to scientists using seqtools for teaching purposes. A free full teachers license covering an unlimited number of students is issued after successful evaluation of a detailed application. Benefits of a full license - Users with full licenses have access to the new version 8.4 of the program, do not have to worry about renewing their registration nor do they have to fear that data created with seqtools in seqtools-specific formats become unusable in the event that their free license is no longer renewed. Seqtools is developed, supported and made available on the internet by a single person. If I for some reason become unable to renew free license, users will experience that seqtools refuse to start when the 60 days period expires. Alternatives to seqtools - The price of a full seqtools license of € 29.00 is rather modest compared to many commercial software packages for sequence analysis and handling. For comparison I have listed some free and commercial alternatives to seqtools available on the internet on thealternativespage. The list only includes applications running on win32 operating systems and is probably far from complete. Seqtools updates - Old users of seqtools already know that seqtools is updated frequently. Unlike most other authors of software packages I prefer to correct bugs right away and upload the corrected version. This used to create the problem that users often complained about bugs that were already corrected but not yet downloaded on their pc. Recently I have included an "update-tester" in seqtools. Every time you start seqtools it visits the download page to see if new updates are available - and notifies you if there are.