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[Lucas]

Yeah, sorry, but I am leaving then.

I really don't see why everyone want's to go to licenses.  I really never saw the main idea of that, nor will I find the idea.

I think that it should be free.  Just knowing that people downloads components, modules, etc makes me feel happy.  No need for me to try and protect my work.  Let's face it, when I die, someone else will eventually take over my work.  So, I really don't see the point of it all.  But hey, it's your business, your company, you can do whatever.

Laters All
-Lucas

[Roger Davis]

I support the licensing change. Reason is, you'll have fewer users, but they'll be people who are more serious about their website. They'll be more knowledgeable regarding Joomla, CB, HTML, CSS, etc., and they'll generate fewer support requests. That means more time spent on development, and a better end product.

Every open source developer sooner or later runs into the problem where he'd like to add features or fix bugs, but can't, because doing so requires development time that could be spent on paying projects, thus taking money out of his own pocket.

As you can see, then, no software is free. Somebody always pays, either the developer or the customer.

Open source is good at the beginning of a huge project that needs contributions from many different individuals in order to reach a "critical mass." Afterwards, commercial ventures can flourish, and they should, because the R&D of money and time can now be paid for. Joomla has reached critical mass.

The fact is, a donation model doesn't work. Nobody donates except the developer, who donated his time and intellectual resources, and continues to do so by answering support requests. Developers step forward in good faith and release an open source project, and typically make nothing or next to nothing. If people want open source to work, they should donate. But they don't. In an ideal world, there would be open source from developers and open pockets from customers, a kind of "reciprocity of altruism." The fact, however, is that while open source has worked, open pockets has failed. 

I wish there was a commercial version of Community Builder. Not that CB isn't good...CB is awesome. But I'd like to see what the developers could do if it was their full time project. As it is, I'll never know. Kind of sad.

I don't think the encryption needs to be perfect. Just needs to be good enough to keep people honest. You might check http://www.codelock.co.nz/tracker.html . I think this can encrypt parts of your source , and it can lock plug ins to domains, and it allows users to pay by paypal. That said, I've never used it.

Raj

[p9939068]

At this point of time, I'd want to clarify a few things with the following:

Addenda
Some users have expressed concerns that they may have to repurchase the licenses. The possibility of that happening is zero. I'll like to assure everyone that if licensing is to be implemented as I suggested, every existing user will receive an updated and working release, complete with the required license key. I remain committed to the policy that once you purchase an extension, all and any future updates will be provided at no costs.

I would also like to re-emphasize here that encryption will not occur for the whole part of the extension, but only the part(s) required to enforce the license. As a user myself, I understand the need to modify the sourcecodes for various reasons, and that need will not be compromised.

Another important thing I wish to clarify is that the licensing issues going on at Joomla.org has nothing to do with the decisions I am about to make. I received feedback from some users that I may be taking advantage of the situation for personal gains using the issues as an excuse. Let me point out 2 facts:

#1) The licensing issue is what triggered (like i mentioned earlier) me to rethink my current policies and practices, and how these have left me vulnerable in many areas. It is not, and I do not even pretend it does, the cause or reason for my decisions.

#2) The only thing I stand to gain is protection for my creations. Users will not be penalized in any way, certainly not in monetary terms. It will pretty much be business as usual.

[shinkendo]

Mike,

I'm completely comfortable with change in the licensing/encryption as long as I can use the plugins on multiple sites vs 1 site only.

Nice work on quality addons!

Shin

[p9939068]

@Lucas
All free extensions will still remain as they are. All paid extensions will receive a working copy with no extra charges. I don't know what you mean by you're leaving, but assuming you're a paying customer, you will, too, receive a working licensed copy, so i'm not sure why you will be "leaving"..?

I would just like to take this chance to debunk 2 popular notions, which Lucas has pointed out incidentally.

Notion 1) "Just knowing that people downloads components, modules, etc makes me feel happy."
Unfortunately, happiness does not pay the bills. Some people may release free software because they have other bigger projects, and the free software is just a sideline, nothing something they do full time. Unfortunately this is not the case for everyone. Also, many people, because of the whole Joomla ecosystem (whereby many good functionality comes free or cheaply), the majority of users have developed a warped/unrealistic concept of what software developement means. Lets take CB as an example. If you run an organization, and require a commercial equivalent of CB, with all its functionality and features identical to it, suffice to say that the price will be somewhat close to $50,000. Virtuemart will be even higher, if you ask me. That is reality, but most open source users will never understand that.

Notion #2) "Let's face it, when I die, someone else will eventually take over my work."
That's a very good point. There is the constant worry with regards to the "Hit by bus" syndrome. However, how many projects do we see that actually has someone else eventually taking over the previous owner's work. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any. The truth is, there is too much work and technical skills involved in taking over a project, and people who has that time and skill will be doing the same things themselves, and have no time for another major project.


@Roger
Thanks for the input of reality You should really make those thoughts heard in Joomla. And thanks for the link, I'll be sure to check it out.

[gahlord]

Hi Mike,

I understand your desire to be compensated and support your move.

Though I really enjoy the multi-site license I haven't actually used it yet (I use your video plugin on a site that is in development). Also, your prices are reasonable enough that it wouldn't pain me to pay each time I want to use your plug in on a site.

I would prefer to have a pay-once scenario as it is now rather than a subscription. But if you went subscription I'd still probably use your product, assuming it was being constantly developed.

Which brings me to the point of.... It's be great if the CSS was a little easier to get at for developers. That section of the product I'm constantly tweaking and redo-ing. When I finally get around to launching the site I'm working on I'll send you the template I'm using and I hope you roll it into future releases (much more developer/css friendly).

Keep up the good work. I've been very happy with your product so far.

Gahlord Dewald

[Nilsy]

Hi Mike
As far as I am concerned, I don't really care if things cost money or not... I will choose between products according to what they offer compared to its price.

In the case of this URL plug, I am afraid I had to Uninstall it, as we could not get it to work on the IIS Server.
We believe it is possible, but it is not worth the attention for our use.

For us it is a handy "gadget" in a way, and pretty cool etc, but not essential.
But, if it had cost money to start with, we probably would not have bought it.

But as someone previously mentioned, it all boils down to price.
If the price is acceptable for a "gadget" like this, and of course assuming it works, then fine.

[p9939068]

Thank you for all your input so far, especially gahlord (I think i will stay with the multi-site policy simply just based on your post )

@Nilsy
The free extensions will remain free even after the implementation of the licensing management system. As for the commercial extensions, the implementation of said system will not affect the price at all. As for the Profile URL plugin, i chose to release it free because too much customization is involved to make it work, and I dont think it'll be fair to the user to put a price on it. I may be putting it through a complete revamp to make it much more user friendly, but I'm inclined (even committed) to let it remain free.

[sunny]

I would only consider a commercial plugin if it was either extremely well priced, or had a one-purchase for multiple sites licence.

[accxess]

Mike,

First just let me say i have enjoyed the plugins so far and the support where needed has been excellent.

Many Plugins are site gadgets, just little tools to add value to a site and its the cost/value/roi that is the deciding factor in using or not using a plugin that's important.

I build websites... mainly for me, however I do the odd one or two for clients, using Joomla mostly. If i were to add all the gadgets on a site licence approach then the cost benefit makes using a supported commercial CMS look very favourable.

I know all the plugin builders want to be compensated for their work however for some I see that its way over priced, software relies on quantity and quality to keep pricing affordable. The low quantity high price doesn't make sense for me or as a business approach especially in the very price sensitive Joomla marketplace.

I am a fan of your open site licence, that was the decider for me and for the price and it really was a simple decision for additional plugins which i have bought... i have them all now.

If you were to add per site licence then reducing the cost to keep quantity of sales up would be the only way i could see it surviving.

I buy based on value and I don't see to much value in many Joomla commercial components. Yours in multisite licence has great value for me.

[p9939068]

@ accxess
Thanks for the reply Just a quick note: my multisite license (at this juncture) allows the customer to install and use the extensions in any site he explicitly owns, so building a website for another client will require an additional license for that client. That is the reason why i created a developer's board on the forums. Right now I'm "enforcing" that mostly through faith

[art10080]

NO!
All commercial components should be GPL licensed and free, and they must use a GPL-compatible business model.

[p9939068]

NO!
All commercial components should be GPL licensed and free, and they must use a GPL-compatible business model.

Lol I think you should be echoing your thoughts on GPL on joomla's forums, not here. My stand on this is pretty simple: it's either non-GPL extensions, or no extensions at all.

[goliatone]

well, not extensions at all...
i don't even look at commercial license products for joomla. Make the decision you feel better about, and then ppl will make their own decision.

By no means I'm saying that you shouldn't do the license revision or change.

Any how, good luck and thanks for what you did contribute in the past.

[wm.unionpyme.org]

Greetings everyone,

I own a 10 year old accounting software company for latin american small businesses. I released a 100% free single user version and sell a multi-user version, my site gets 900+ daily visits and the software itself has been downloaded 300,000+ times since july 2006, so I can assure you that giving free stuff is a valid business model. In my experience, How do you make enough money to be willing to give professional support to costumers while still having the benefits that a free/open community provides? all this with the people´s blessing.

After reading all the previous posts I get the same feeling that I had with similar discussions, (Joomla.org vs Clexus). Let me picture the panorama for you:

Although online products are virtual, real people with a real agenda makes them work, so we´ve got two premises that most of the time   get together in a unethical or rushed way.

1) Serious customers deserve no less than professional support. Professional support cannot be full filled by checking mail complaints at night.

2) Successful online ventures highly depend in unbiased mouth 2 mouth or post 2 post marketing and search engine ranking.

The first premise depends on money or a guy who doesn´t like The World of Warcraft but still has absolutely no life and parents with a fat wallet.

The second is achieved with lots of marketing money, or something awesome with an awesome price or license (free/open). Now, back to the case.

Pricing

Mike offers awesome extensions with an awesome license and price. I give testimony that $90+ for something that saves you thousands in marketing its a fair deal. While Mike´s work is 6 times more expensive than the average joomla extension, most of the stuff out there works as eye candy whether it slides, fades, pop-ups or rounds some corner.

It´s all about more visits, costumers, users and/or members so, a $50 professional template alone won´t be as effective as a free template and parainvite together. Even here in South America, something similar costs no less than $4000.

Encoding

Mike´s decision to encode his work obligates me to upgrade to a more expensive hosting package since inmotionhosting.com offers ioncube or zend only to dedicated servers, so this will cost me $600 more a year. I can´t afford downtime so moving to a cheaper host is not an option, also I receive support that is second to none from inmotion. Still, I agree with Mike about encoding, I wouldn´t be making money if my software was open source.

I think encoding a script its the only practical option and necessary evil for both small developers and costumers. Donations work only for big organizations like joomla or wikipedia, (even those receive less than they deserve). Performance hit is minimal at a millisecond level.

Piracy

A previous non working copy of Mike´s extension is available in warez sites, so the spiral of an abandoned dot com its already running.

Piracy is here and the best thing you can do is work with it. While encoding a script offers some protection and assures income in the medium term, it also makes your work more tempting to nulling groups, these organizations have very high reach and propagation speed. A well known practice is to make important version releases big and loud but semi broken then wait for the nulled release and counter with a silent automatic upgrade patch. It works since these groups motivation is fame that gives them visits and adsense money, so 1 week to null some new script is acceptable while micromanaging patches isn´t.

Greets to Mike

Such an awesome extension deserves praise, so go here and let the community read your experience.

http://extensions.joomla.org/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,1520/Itemid,35/