The Official ExpressionEngine Add-on Store
News and General
We understand the issue Rob brought up but one of our biggest concerns as a third-party add-on developer is exactly what Rob called out with regard to EE:
Yes you could roll back, pre update, but if the earlier version of EE(x) has security issues which need attending to that’s not good.
If we made it so you could download the “most recent previous release”, there very well could be a security issue or bug that could cause data loss that might have been fixed and if left to continue to install after we fixed it, that could be an “issue” for the add-on developer.
And I’m absolutely not calling Rob out, but he made some points I’m going to quote and comment on just because I think they do echo the sentiment of a lot of our customers:
It’s always handy to have a previous version available. Sometimes you may be stuck on the previous EE version which the latest addon version doesn’t support. So if you need to update, because of say a bug fix, then not offering them can delay fixing a broken site.
Software development is an odd duck. Rarely in other industries can you just get the latest thing for free. I think the fact we’ve acquired so many other developers add-ons is an indicator that the “buy a license, get free updates forever” model just doesn’t work. Customers have a year to download the software and I think that should be sufficient for them to get updates for a reasonable amount of time, especially now that EE is moving at a faster pace.
I understand the desire to get updates to software within the major version for free but each minor and patch update takes time, effort, money, etc, to create so whether it’s on 1.0.3 or 1.79.25, someone had to make that happen and I don’t think that just because I bought it two years ago that I’m entitled to that developers work forever more. But in our industry, that has been the standard for so long and why so much software has been abandoned. A lot of companies are switching to the subscription model because purchase once, update and support forever is just not sustainable.
If you go to an eatery that sells you an empty cup and has a machine where you can fill it with whatever drink you want with free refills, that doesn’t mean you can just bring the cup back with you every time you come back for the rest of time and fill it up. Well, I suppose you can but that’s probably considered stealing and we have enough of that already to deal with.
That being said, most of us add-on devs have mentioned that we usually don’t have an issue helping out a customer who’s actually stuck, we just don’t want this decision made for us.
I’ve recently been approached by a company who want to update their EE2 site (yes, they’re still out there). I don’t think I could do with this without having access to previous versions of Modules and Extensions etc. Thankfully I keep my own library of previous versions, but only for Modules I’ve paid for myself.
@obfuscode yes am totally with you. I’m not suggesting previous versions of addons should always be “free”, just saying we need them on occasion.
For commercial addons I’m perfectly happy to pay for an upgrade to the latest version to get the previous version, or renew support as applicable. At the end of the day I just need a way to get that addon if I haven’t got the version I need. Of course it should be down to the individual developer to charge or not to charge in cases like these.
That then raises the question of a similar need for free addons, some might have older versions available on Github, but it’d be handy to get them directly from the Store (as we often can with Devot-ee currently).
Another aspect of the versioning available in the store, building on Rob and obfuscode’s discussion, for example I have one account at EEHarbor that has an Add-on whose license has expired. But I cannot retrieve the latest version of the Add-on that was available within my subscription period. I only have access to a legacy version of the last major point update (that is over three years old). From a customer standpoint it would be nice to have, besides access to the legacy version, access to the latest release that was available during the subscription period. Particularly if a bug fixed or feature added in that period does the trick. That seems fair to me.
I think I understand the developer’s point of view, and how they want to deal with it, and it seems fair from their viewpoint. Their license clearly states that they are licensing “access” to Add-on during the subscription period. But as a customer, unless I pay attention to all the different accounts I manage, and the expiration date of Add-ons, I may miss the opportunity to download the latest version inside my subscription period. So, I understand that different developers deal with this differently, and some even continue to provide updates to licenses purchased long ago (Expresso purchased at devot-ee comes to mind) during a different era of add-on dev and sales philosophy. But I think my point is worth looking in to, and maybe licenses could be a bit more explicit in explaining that after the subscription expires, access to any version released during it is no longer available.
But I do like EEHarbor’s subscription model of reduced renewals in the one year period after subscription expires. And it is fair to ask for a repurchase after the one year renewal period expires, if not renewed – 2 years after original purchase or a renewal, i.e.
@wildrock - yes sometimes you just miss addon licences expiring when you have 100’s of licences spread across multiple sites.
A possible solution is for a timed email telling you that an addon licence is about to expire, add a renewal link in the email and it’s a prompt to take action if necessary. Perhaps as an incentive the renewal link in the email could be offered at a preferential rate if renewed within a certain time period, e.g. renew within 30 days and get 20% off. That might have a small increase in renewals for developers?
A possible solution is for a timed email telling you that an addon licence is about to expire, add a renewal link in the email and it’s a prompt to take action if necessary. Perhaps as an incentive the renewal link in the email could be offered at a preferential rate if renewed within a certain time period, e.g. renew within 30 days and get 20% off. That might have a small increase in renewals for developers?
I like the email reminder, but the discount for renewing within 30 days… not a fan. Developers selling within the store already lose 25% of the sale price, adding an additional % off on top of renewals is simply not feasible.
I just wanted to clarify that a very important feature to us would be the ability to have optional renewals for purchases. I would see it working in the following way:
- Customer purchases a license to Addon
- They receive 1 year of updates (and support) for that Addon
- After 1 year, the version they had access to on the last day pauses at that version and no longer allows further updates.
- The customer can continue to use that Addon without needing to purchase any renewal, but they cannot access further updates or support (obviously, we can manually make exceptions on a case-by-case basis as we usually do).
- If the customer wishes to continue receiving updates and/or support after the 1 year has passed, at any time after expiry (or if they want to proactively renew before expiry) they can purchase a renewal for an additional year. Renewals would be something like 50% of the regular price (though perhaps it’s nicest to allow the option to simply set a renewal price per plugin).
I get that you need to make this all be something that works for everyone, but this would be Solspace’s preferred approach, for what it’s worth. It’s a model that has so far been seeming to work well for us in other markets. 😊
That is basically the same model I use too.
Yep that works for me - I get 1 years access + updates for the addon, after 1 year I can then renew the subscription to get the latest version.
If the customer wishes to continue receiving updates and/or support after the 1 year has passed, at any time after expiry (or if they want to proactively renew before expiry) they can purchase a renewal for an additional year.
Our license policy does not allow purchasing a discounted renewal after 1 year from expiration; they would have to purchase a full-price license.
Renewals would be something like 50% of the regular price (though perhaps it’s nicest to allow the option to simply set a renewal price per plugin).
This would have to be set per-addon as our renewal pricing is not 50%.
The obvious way to sort that is to allow a variable renewal fee per addon? That way you could charge 100% of the addon price, or 50%, whatever suits.
Yes, it would make the most sense to allow the developer to set the renewal fee amount. That way if one developer wanted $19 from a $59 plugin, and another wanted $29 and another wanted the full price… $59, they could just specify whatever. 😊