Ten days of trial — yours, not the calendar's

Monday evening, you install RideComposer. You point it at your music folder, the analysis starts — several hours on a large library, often the whole night. Tuesday, you glance at the result between two other things.

Wednesday, you teach. With your usual ride, the one you know by heart: nobody tests new software in front of forty people on day one.

Thursday, Friday: nothing. Saturday, class — still with the old ride. Sunday, at last a free moment: you start building. Monday, you leave for three days.

The following Thursday, you reopen the software to pick up where you left off.

Your trial is over.

Ten days have passed. You opened RideComposer four times. You never taught a single class built with it.

The calendar was the wrong unit

An instructor doesn't prepare classes every day. They teach two or three times a week, and they prepare when there's an hour free — Sunday morning, late at night, on the train. In between, the software stays closed.

Our trial, meanwhile, counted the days it was closed. A weekend with the family cost two days. A work trip cost three. A busy week could take half of it.

And nobody complained. You don't claim back days you never saw go by: you simply tell yourself you didn't get round to it, and you move on. That is exactly what makes this kind of defect last — it makes no noise for anyone.

What changes today

A trial day is spent only when you open RideComposer. Ten real days of use, to be taken within a one-month window.

What you do	Before	Now
You go away for the weekend	Two days gone	Nothing
You open it three times on Saturday	One day	One day
You only open it every third day	Cut off on day ten	You get the month
You work ten days straight	Ten days	Ten days

Anyone who uses it daily sees no difference. Anyone who uses it when they prepare — which is very nearly everyone — gets to live their week.

Why a month, and not longer

Because a trial with no deadline isn't a trial.

Thirty days is long enough to analyse your library, build two or three classes, teach them, and know what you think. And it's short enough that the question actually gets asked. We'd rather tell you that plainly than leave a vague duration hanging.

If your trial has already ended, just open the software

The new rule doesn't only apply to new installations. It has been applied to every existing trial.

If you installed RideComposer less than thirty days ago and your ten days ran out before you had a chance to use it, you have days left. Open it and see.

Nothing to download, nothing to reinstall, nothing to ask for.

A word on "nothing to update"

For those interested in the mechanism: the application doesn't decide your trial. It asks our server at startup, and displays the answer.

Changing the rule therefore meant changing one thing, in one place — and it applies immediately to everyone, including versions installed last month. It's also what lets us give you time back without asking anything of you.

What a trial should really measure

A trial isn't there to check that software launches, or that the buttons respond. Ten minutes covers that.

It exists to answer one question: will my classes be better with it? And that answer isn't found in front of a screen. It's found in the room, on the day the block lands right, the transition goes unnoticed, and the class follows without you having to shout.

Ten days of screen time was too short to get there. Ten days of work leaves you the time.