I'm not so sure this is a good thing. In fact my initial gut reaction is this is the end of xlobby. If you've used it you know it is quite complex, but powerful. The learning curve is very steep. So in order to pay for itself I'd think one of 2 things will have to happen. The first being that it is redesigned to make it more beginner friendly, in order to increase sales. But I fear this will make it more limited. The second option I could envision would be that the licensing cost be high enough to off set the more limited sales. Either way I'm not particularly thrilled with the prospects. I hope I'm wrong and I'm willing to wait around a little while to see how everything shakes out, but I'm definitely worried. The anouncement was just made today and there aren't a lot of detail available (like expected pricing) yet so well see.
One other thing to consider is although xlobby is very powerful, much of that power comes from the flexibility and extensibilty of the program. The program gets much of this from plugins and the skins that others have developed. Will those others continue to develop and provide these once the product becomes a commercial endevour? Or will these 3rd parties also want in and begin charging for their labors? At that point will it become a situation where every little add-on will cost you another $30-$50. I think I'm in the minority here on this point, but I'm not a fan of this type of pricing structure. I'm a homeseer user, but refuse to use any paid plug-ins. Although there are surely many useful ones, I don't want to get into the habit of buying this plugin at $20 here and that one at $40. Before you know it you've invested hundreds if not thousands of dollars in software alone. For me money is an issue and I'd rather spend the money on hardware, something I cannot produce on my own. Just my $.02, and in reality worth even less.
Aaron