10 years ago
11
Topic

Good day all,

It has recently come to light that there is a forum post in French where people / persons are expressing their unhappiness that SD Field Concat is now a commercial extension when it used to be free.

Here is my 2 cents worth:

I have taken 3 years of my SEBLOD knowledge and experience and bundled it into a plugin that was initially for me, but it soon became apparent that this plugin was immensely useful for all members of the community. The more people downloaded it, the more requests came in to add 'x' and 'y' to the plugin. And so I did, slowly making the plugin what it is today.

Eventually, with the downloads if SD Field Concat in the tens of thousands, I started to receive a LOT of support queries, for the plugin and for SEBLOD in general. After investing hours of my time to make the plugin what it is today, I decided I would add a DONATE button in the plugin settings screen.

With 1000's of people using SD Field Concat, would you guess how many donated to keep development active? Three. Yes, THREE.

I completely hear the argument that users of SEBLOD 2.x must now pay to use the same plugin after they migrate to SEBLOD 3.x but here's my questions to those people:

You're using this plugin because it's useful and it serves a purpose for your web application, correct?
Are you using my plugin(s) in a web application that you are being paid to create?
Does your web application depend on my plugin to get the functionality you want?

If you answer yes to any of the above questions, why do I not deserve some type of renumeration for my efforts and work? 

I have given countless hours of support and advise to 1000's of people with regards to my plugins and SEBLOD in general. It is only fair that I receive something in return, don't you think?

--

Google Apps used to be free for a basic account for many years. In December 2012 Google revoked the free account option, and now you pay a premium fee to use their service. Companies grow, people grow, business grow and time shrinks. Support those who are producing indispensable products for the betterment of YOUR work.

Regards,
Simon Dowdles - SD Plugins Author

Get a Book for SEBLOD
148 Posts
pixelneco
10 years ago
0
Level 1

Come on guys, we are talking about 25 € for both plugins. In comparison to what these plugins can do 25 € is a joke. Free Updates, Lifetime license, adding huuuuge value to our projects...No offense but it is just not right to complain. We are not talking about hundreds of €, again we are talking about 25 €! I assume that most of us here get paid for our projects which we create with seblod. Therefore it should be not difficult to get along with it. Anyway i am sure that most of the community members don`t have any problems with SD Plugins going commercial. So there should be no need for a further (long long) thread complaining about it. And definitely not in French which becomes more torture if you use google translator :)


@Simon

you are doing great work and i believe that great work will always be rewarded anyway. It makes me a little sad that only three "idiots" (including me) donated, but maybe the donate button was too small ahahaha :)

38 Posts
amitomj
10 years ago
0
Level 1

I think it fair that those who want to use the sd field concat pay.
Good job Saimon.
Continues to innovate.
greetings
,


13 Posts
Formul
10 years ago
0
Level 1

Ok , ja vais vous expliquer pourquoi cette décision est stupide :

1/ combien pensez vous que de personnes utilisaient les plugins gratuits ?
2/ combien pensez vous que cela même iront payer pour actualiser ?

3/ moins de 10% très certainement !!!!

4/ Donc vous avez contribué à stopper les 90% dans leur projet en changeant la donne  

et pire encore en ouvrant cette voie vous avez aussi contribué à fermer toute participation des développeurs dans de futurs échange d'idées et de développements pour seblod dans le monde du gratuit .

Alors que Joomla est Gratuit , Jquery est Gratuit , Seblod est gratuit et 98% des plugin Seblod sont gratuits . votre travail à côté ne represente qu'une infime goutte d'eau !

Donc moralité vous n'exercez pas de travaille communautaire pour aider les utilisateurs Seblod , vous exercez votre travail dans le but de tirer profit et vous stoppez toute chance de maintenir le libre.

Ma déception n'est pas envers vous , car j'estime que vous avez le droit de faire ce que bon vous semble , mais je suis déçu que la direction Seblod ait accepté cela sans ce soucier des conséquences que cela pourrait occasionner dans la divulgation et usage du CCK et surtout dans la participation des développements futurs.

maintenant les dés sont jetés , on verra bien à qui l'avenir donnera raison !

Ce qui me dérange le plus c'est justement de voir qu'on va perdre énormement pour la communauté , ça va devenir un bien petit monde de commerce !

Parce que dites vous bien que vous n'êtes pas le seul à avoir des idées et pouvoir créer quelque chose d'intérêt pour ce CKK , vous seriez très surpris de savoir qu'il existe d'exellents plugins gardés bien au chaud dans les chaumières.

bon courage pour la suite 

14 Posts
cardin
10 years ago
4
Level 1

Dear extension developers,

Everyone should be paid for his work. Having said that, my Joomla website is now becoming expensive for me. I've been paying a 'small' amount for many extensions which finally makes up a 'big' amount. There are many good samaritans who give their extensions for free and make money through their web designing services or premium support. I am sure almost all the extension developers use their extension when creating websites for their paid clients.

A small amount like $1 or € 1, in my opinion is still profitable for small specific extensions. Since many extensions are used by 1000's of users the developer still makes good profit. Eg. 10000 users = 10000 € is substantial profit amount for a 1 € extension. I think, a maximum of $5 is reasonable for any extension.

I am building a community website using joomla where I don't expect to make money but buying paid extensions (+ webhosting/domain charges)  is taking a toll on my finance and I am discourage to build my website any more. I am sure there are many salaried people like me who are building websites using Joomla for personal use or small profit and cannot afford to spend a lot.

I sometime build small websites for others for a small profit out of which I donate some amount to Joomla. The balance amount is used to pay for my webhosting/domain fees.

I hope developers don't become too greedy and take advantage of the popularity of their extension and make Joomla too expensive.

Thanks for Seblod developers and the seblod-specific plugins developers who are giving their extensions for free or charge a small amount. Long live Joomla!!

Best Regards,

Cardin



10 years ago
3
Level 2

@cardin - I think you are missing a VERY important point about the SEBLOD plugins. It is a LIFETIME licence giving you LIFETIME access to updates to the plugin, and you want to pay EUR5.00 for that!?? It's not as if the plugin author is making money off of every site developed for SEBLOD.


Let's assume developer 'A' is using a SEBLOD plugin that costs EUR 20.00 and let's also assume that developer 'A' is creating 10 SEBLOD based sites a year. Assuming this developer makes EUR 100.00 PROFIT off of each site (and that is LOW), he has made EUR 1000.00 profit for the year.


Now, had developer 'A' NOT used the plugin he bought for SEBLOD, let's assume he would have spent at LEAST 10 hours per project adding custom code to achieve what the plugin did. That is 100 hours in total the developer has spent for all projects. Assuming the developer works at a rate of EUR 30.00 / hour, he has just lost EUR 300.00 for the 10 projects (in time).


That means that developer 'A' is potentially saving EUR 300.00 for the year for a plugin he spent EUR 20.00 on ONCE OFF. That is almost 65% saving of his loss. Run that over two years and he's "saved" 130% in losses... and so it goes on.


Also, considering that the developer is potentially saving EUR 300.00 for the year because he IS using the plugin, the fact that he paid EUR 20.00 to start with means that (in theory) the plugin author has lost EUR 280 because he chosen to licence his product as a LIFETIME licence and not a single domain licence, just to use an example of how a lot of plugin licence models work.


Developers can NOT sell their extensions for almost nothing simply because a handful of people are using them to make sites that they are not making money on. It's akin to me going to Ford and saying "But hang on, it is unacceptable that I must pay the same price for this car that the gardening service man down the road is using, because he is making money from using his car and I am only using it to go to the shops"


Do you get my point? Have a look at most of the plugin licences. They usually cost xxx for ONE developer or ONE domain or ONE year etc. You cannot look me in the eye and say that spending 5,10 or even EUR 30 on a plugin for life, with unlimited updates when new features are added etc, is expensive... People are SO quick to take, take and take some more, but the moment a little is asked in return for continusou hard work, that claws come out. 


And this is NOT a personal attack on YOU, this is a response to everyone who fails to see the value that SEBLOD has bought to the table over the last 4 years...

14 Posts
cardin
10 years ago
2
Level 3

Hi,

We all know the value of SEBLOD which is FREE and appreciate their time and effort. It's a BIG extension and still FREE FOR LIFETIME!!! and as promised it will be - ALWAYS FREE.  Hope you get my point.

Many extension developers like SEBLOD gives back  freely to Joomla community. Your Seblod-plugin was free before for so many years. Were you making financial 'loss' before? I am sure you have other source of income and hence you could devote your time and effort to develop your plugins. Have that changed now??. 

Your SD concat plugin cost 15 €. If 10000 users buys it then you make 150,000€. That's a huge amount for a extension-specific plugins. Plus Joomla is growing and SEBLOD is used by more and more people every month which means more chances of new clients for you. (Lifetime upgrade is a joke. Who can guarantee how long a person will live or when he will support this work). It's better to charge $1 or little more for 1 year upgrade instead of charging big amount for lifetime support.

And this is NOT a personal attack on YOU, this is a response to all extensions developers who try to convince us that they are making huge loss if they don't charge for an extension or if they don't charge a big amount for their extensions.

I thank SEBLOD developers for the value that their SEBLOD has brought to the table over the last 4 years...for FREE!!

Thanks,

Cardin

251 Posts
Viktor Iwan
10 years ago
1
Level 4

@cardin, you make me want to join into this discussion

"Were you making financial 'loss' before? "....... i don't think simon need to justify it... the same as i give you question "How couldn't you afford 15 €.. what happened with you ?"

You should think of 'free' as in 'free speech', not as in 'free beer'"... this principle has been in open source community for a long time... 

Even simon would like to charge for 247€.. that's his right.... if i want to build a seblod plugin that only echo "Hello World" for $999, that's my right ?

I just want the community here to respect others people right.. yeah, we used to have SD concat plugin for free.. but having it commercial you can ask for his support right...

Why don't you support the developer that try to bring goods stuff.. beside its a reasonable 15€ , its less than a man hour-rate in US and Euro...i think its cheaper than your lunch. In Indonesia with 15€ you can at least having lunch 3 times. But compare with times and effort that i need to create similiar plugin, i'll better buy SD's plugin.

"Your SD concat plugin cost 15 €. If 10000 users buys it then you make 150,000€. That's a huge amount for a extension-specific plugins." .. isn't that feels good ? why don't you create a 'must-have' seblod plugin.. something that most seblod developer want it so bad... sell it for 15 €... it will be sell like mad..no one will complain since you build more values than money spent to their project

i give you another example.. see this: http://codecanyon.net/item/simple-php-contact-form/46679  a simple PHP contact form ..  tons of tutorials everywhere for FREE .. and this guy charge for $4.. seriously ?

But look how many purchases he has made... 3307 Purchase !..That's $13.228 for something that even already exist for FREE... are you angry with this kind of author ?  i think this author smart enough to look for the needs...

Want the plugin for free ? try to contribute.... most devs require beta tester before public release.... be a supportive person you might, be a friend.. if you got one for free.. consider its a bonus.. i got few commercial octopoos product for free because they're kind enough to appreciate my contribution.. i ask you to become one.. a trust is something you must earn ! let's contribute...

PS: If you think simon gives his concat plugin to me.. you're wrong.. i bought his plugin !

14 Posts
cardin
10 years ago
0
Level 5

Dear Viktor,

You did not get my point. Anyways, all the best to you.

Best Regards,

Cardin


10 years ago
2
Level 1

@cardin - You are missin the point. No one is charging BIG amounts... And what the plugin developer makes profit wise is NO ONE's business but that of the developer himself. If a developer creates something that 10,000 people download, then hat's off to him for such an achievement...


I pose a challenge to you: Develop a SEBLOD plugin that results in high demand and usage with regards to it's usefulness (it will take a good few months to refine it). Wait for the emails to come flowing in etc, and then ask yourself the question, "Am I really willing to sell this for EUR 1.00 or even EUR 5.00?" I GUARANTEE you the answer will be no.


And in terms of people ever contributing code to my plugin (something raised in the old thread), ONE person pointed out a slight issue in it, ONE person gave the improvement, so there is no argument anywhere for keeping it free and letting people contribute to the core. Heck, my plugins were on Github for 2 years. One person forked it, and I never heard a word... There was (and still is) PLENTY of opportunity to contribute.


If you can hack my plugin and make it 10x more useful, by all means do! Rebrand it, resell it for less. I honestly cannot be bothered to expend another dime of energy on these petty arguments.


That is the last I say on this topic. Closed.

43 Posts
Mime
10 years ago
0
Level 2

I just wanted to say that I am totally in for charging well made plugins. I have to give my support to Simon here. That's because I see the value he adds to the project, and we need contributors like him.

I'm glad you're back on the scene. Keep coding those gems!=)

14 Posts
cardin
10 years ago
0
Level 2

Dear Simon,

The point is you were readily giving it for free before and it did not hurt your business in South Africa or elsewhere. I am not asking you to give it free but since you are a 'Joomla Worshipper; (this is what I read somewhere) the price should be less than what you are selling for for the 'Love of Joomla'.

It's very kiddish to tell someone  'You do what I do and show'.

Anyways, it's your plugin and you have the right to make as much profit as you want. So, all the best and may you make more plugins and lots of money.

Best Regards,

Cardin


Get a Book for SEBLOD