Comments
59 comments
-
They should do what Quest did with TOAD. Have a free version http://www.toadworld.com/DOWNLOADS/Freeware/ToadforOracleFreeware/tabid/558/Default.aspx with cut down functionality. -
Looking back at the simple-talk blog post where this was all discussed, the following statement was made by James Moore:
"The first thing we are doing is continuing to offer the software to the community for free downloading."
I guess a lot of commercial software can be downloaded for free, but not used after some kind of time bomb or need for a product key.
This was spotted by an alert commenter, who wrote:
"I notice that Red Gate '... will continue to offer the software to the community for free downloading'. I have seen that cleaver [sic] tease before. How about continued use for free? What about a basic version for free and a 'Pro' or 'Enterprise' version?"
Some who had a profile name of James (I guess supposed to be James Moore, but who knows since the profile is incomplete) says:
"@webooth
As stated in the introduction we will continue to provide a free version of Reflector."
and later:
"I understand that people will be sceptical of our motives and are concerned about the future of a great tool. I hope that we can win over those who are sceptical, through our actions not words, that we can be as good custodians of Reflector as we have been of SQLServerCentral.com."
Oh well, you failed to win us over with actions.
Continuing to improve Reflector is fine, and you have the right to be paid for those efforts, but the sneaky announcement doesn't carry much goodwill. At this point, the right thing to do is give away the current version for free and charge for your newer versions.
C# 5 is around the corner and eventually your free version wouldn't work in a lot of situations anymore. -
Any company that is willing to play adolescent Clinton-esque word games about whether they "promised" to keep their product free ("for downloading") is not worth trusting. Period.
Either they truly intended to keep it free (as in beer) and went back on their word, or they intended from the start to deceive the developer community, and use this deceit to keep their potential competitors from jumping into the market. I give them the benefit of the doubt, and think that they intended to keep it free. However, that means that the current decision-makers have made a very poor decision that calls into question their credibility. You have to evaluate Red Gate based upon what they have done lately, and I think it is clear what they have done. Jet Brains didn't pull a stunt like this.
I no longer trust Red Gate to keep their plainly stated promises. I don't buy products from companies I don't trust. I feel bad, because in the end this will cost developers jobs. The people that were working on Reflector may have their jobs at risk. The executives who made the decision to act like kids and play with words will have to answer to their board of directors.
How much they want to charge for Reflector is completely irrelevant. Get off it. Those that matter don't care, and those that care don't matter.
They have lost my business, and had this not happened, I definitely would have bought the SQL Compare bundle for use in the software company I am launching next month. This is no exaggeration.
So sad. -
jeremy.parsons wrote:There really isn't anything there that's a promise that Reflector was going to be free forever.
It seems to me there are two groups of complaints here:
People who thought Reflector would be free forever, including new versions
You (RedGate) are consistently responding to this by trying to weasel out of your commitment, pretending that things you said didn't mean what we all thought they meant. Whilst I wouldn't say I'm happy that you're going to charge for v7, I can understand why you're doing it, and I'm not particularly surprised.
People who expect that existing versions of free tools won't be taken away from them
So far, your only response to this has been, "Lutz done it! It's not our fault! Buy v7 and it won't ever expire, honest guv!" You have completely ignored the huge difference between forcing users of a free program to upgrade to the latest free version, and forcing users of a free program to upgrade to a paid-for version. What you are doing here can only be compared to extortion.
Try to imagine the reaction if Microsoft announced that SQL Express wasn't making them enough money, so the next version would cost $10, and buried in the FAQ was a note that existing installations of any previous version of SQL Express would stop working and delete themselves if you didn't upgrade.
Or if that's too difficult, try this: a girl you had sex with at university tracks you down and announces that, as she's now a prostitute, you need to pay her for sleeping with you; if you don't, she'll claim you raped her.
That's how we all feel right now.RedGate Ransomware Ltd
Screwing our customers for money since 2011
"We cn haz munny nao?!" -
jeremy.parsons wrote:We worked hard to make that viable. It just wasn't. So now we're asking people to pay $35 for Reflector.
Complete garbage. How possibly could "it not be viable"? You're saying that support and maintenance costs are too high internally to be able to continue to put bits up on a website that you host?
Fine - put it up on Codeplex then, that reduces any hosting cost.
Maintenance is too high? Same argument - don't dedicate resources to support updates.
The simple train of logic is not too hard to follow. Lutz for some reason did not open source Reflector. So you, or some other investment made a management decision to purchase the intellectual property, and obviously the thinking is that it would drive more traffic to Red Gate. Then the decision was made to invest development resources into it to add some features - like the Visual Studio integration. Now someone wants to see ROI.
The .NET community is becoming more and more an open source community and first class citizen.
This decision demonstrates that Red Gate has no interest in aligning themselves with the overall interests of the .NET community and has zero intention of becoming a first class open source citizen.
Obviously there is a myopic viewpoint somewhere in management, so let me spell this out for you in ROI terms. By first giving the appearance of interest in becoming a first class open source citizen, and now reversing that decision, the overall long term effect on ROI is that now you are branding your company as anti open source. This will drive the larger percentage of the .NET community away from Red Gate and have a far greater negative impact on both ROI and public perception than the original decision to acquire Reflector had.
If the original decision was too short-sighted to be a good one financially, the right direction is not to make another poor decision. Public perception of this nature literally could table the sales and interest of ANY .NET related product RedGate offers or is interested in.
I'd strongly suggest that you rethink this decision. -
So far, your only response to this has been, "Lutz done it! It's not our fault! Buy v7 and it won't ever expire, honest guv!" You have completely ignored the huge difference between forcing users of a free program to upgrade to the latest free version, and forcing users of a free program to upgrade to a paid-for version. What you are doing here can only be compared to extortion.
I completely agree. The fact that Lutz put the time bomb does not mean that you can't or shouldn't remove it when you releasing a new paid version. You just do not want to remove it and are blaming Lutz for it. He was not selling the product but you changed that. Why don't you make another change and remove the time bomb?
Anyway, a new decompiler is being developed by Mono.Cecil author so I believe it will be enough for developers so that they will not have to by it from you. -
RichardD wrote:jeremy.parsons wrote:There really isn't anything there that's a promise that Reflector was going to be free forever.
It seems to me there are two groups of complaints here:
People who thought Reflector would be free forever, including new versions
You (RedGate) are consistently responding to this by trying to weasel out of your commitment, pretending that things you said didn't mean what we all thought they meant. Whilst I wouldn't say I'm happy that you're going to charge for v7, I can understand why you're doing it, and I'm not particularly surprised.
People who expect that existing versions of free tools won't be taken away from them
So far, your only response to this has been, "Lutz done it! It's not our fault! Buy v7 and it won't ever expire, honest guv!" You have completely ignored the huge difference between forcing users of a free program to upgrade to the latest free version, and forcing users of a free program to upgrade to a paid-for version. What you are doing here can only be compared to extortion.
Try to imagine the reaction if Microsoft announced that SQL Express wasn't making them enough money, so the next version would cost $10, and buried in the FAQ was a note that existing installations of any previous version of SQL Express would stop working and delete themselves if you didn't upgrade.
Or if that's too difficult, try this: a girl you had sex with at university tracks you down and announces that, as she's now a prostitute, you need to pay her for sleeping with you; if you don't, she'll claim you raped her.
That's how we all feel right now.RedGate Ransomware Ltd
Screwing our customers for money since 2011
"We cn haz munny nao?!"
This has hit the nail on the head completely. "Promise" or not (what makes something a promise? The presence of the word "promise"?), the implication was that there would "continue to be" (with no qualification, if we're going to split hairs) a version of Reflector that was free, as it had always been in the past.
As with Richard, I can certainly see how future updates could be a pay-to-play deal, but (as has been expressed by many people and thought by many more) being passive about the time bomb in V6 and throwing up your hands and saying "It's always done that!" is pretty slimy. As if switching to the 6.5 branch, commenting out the time bomb, then publishing a new final build of 6.5 would require some sort of heroic effort. If you're going to try to force people to pay for the product (or abandon it, which doesn't get you any more money than if they continue to use the free version, but does get you a load of bad reputation), then at least be honest about it. -
Hi,There really isn't anything there that's a promise that Reflector was going to be free forever.
yes there was. It was an unconditional and unequivocal declaration that they "will continue to offer the tool for free to the community".
http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/opinion-pieces/the-future-of-reflector-/ No if's or but's. No "we will try to" or anything like that.
That IS a promise.
I can understand why Lutz used the expiration mechanism (easier support). Even if it was annoying the tool was free. It isn't a bomb if it does no harm.
For redgate it is a way to extort money. You should make a last release of version 6 without a time bomb and hope to rescue what is left of your reputation.
The smart time would have been close to the release of a new framework version. Any one who needs to analyse something compiled with that would have returned from the free version and paid money voluntarily. Now you are seen as the bad guys and rightly so.
Hope you change your mind. -
I vote for the open source idea. If Red Gate cannot come up for the cost, let SourceForge do it.
-
Umm. Excuse my ignorance in this matter, but was Reflector ever open source? Correct me if I am wrong, I don't think so. I never came across the source code repository for Reflector. Free to download and run: yes. Open source: no.
And for those referring to Lutz statement in 2008: he has already charged his license fee for it. He sold it to Redgate, remember? He didn't do all of this for free, he just happened to charge Redgate instead of each individual user. It is just a different licensing model, but still he didn't give away his work/blood/sweat/tears etc for free.
After he sold Reflector, it is Redgate's product. They paid for it, they own it, they can do whatever they want with it. (That said without me knowing of course what the agreement(s) between Mr Roeder and Redgate are...)
I don't know any of the details of the deal, but I would imagine that Redgate has invested:
a) whatever they paid Lutz to take it over
b) the costs of keeping a development team dedicated to maintaining and evolving it
c) marketing costs
...etc... Isn't it fair that they can recover those investments?
Redgate is not a non-profit charity. They're a normal for-profit company, just like the ones most of you whiners work for. They need to pay their bills, employee salaries etc. Their employees don't work for free. Their suppliers don't supply electricity, network access, computers, etc for free. Do each and every one of you that are so upset over this work for free? Do you get free food in your local supermarket too? Free gasoline at your local gas station? Can you please tell me where that is so I can go there and live for free too?
So what if the freemium model didn't work out? They tried (for several years), and obviously not enough people bought the premium versions so they now need to charge a small fee for the more popular base version. Get over it.
JMHO -
First of all as some has pointed out, this project was never intended to be open-sourced by Mr Lutz or Red Gate.
Second, as a programmer and a contractor, I would expect my work to be paid.. in real money, not a pat in the back or a thank you card. Mr Lutz sold the IP to Red Gate, Red Gate is a business, and business runs on money which otherwise it would be called charity organization.
Releasing the product as open source is akin to giving away an investment, it does not make any business sense at all.
I reckon charging $35 is hardly a dent on most organization/individual wallets.
Having said that, IMHO, having a free "lite" version could be a good gesture from Red Gate, whether a feature stricken and/or ad-supported model. -
I vote for RedGateForge.net :-)gooch wrote:Red-GatePlex.com? -
We license the .NET developer bundle, so of course we have Reflector as part of that package, but our relationship with tool providers requires some trust, so that we know we're not going to be screwed in the future.
As others have said, it's not the going-paid-for itself that's important, or the price, it's the lack of principle. At the time Red Gate took over, I reassured other developers who were worried about just this occurring, saying that Red Gate were trustworthy and wouldn't do such a thing. How foolish of me.
I suggest that the only way for Red Gate to mitigate the harm to their reputation will be to make very visible apologies and declarations that this latest announcement was a mistake and open source version 6.
Why open source? The promise was to continue offering a free version for the community. As Red Gate no longer see it as viable to do gratis community work (and this is perfectly fine) the only way they can ensure that a free version is perpetually available is to make it open source. If a closed version of 6, without expiry, is the last free release, then when it stops working due to changes in Windows/.NET, it stops working and the promise is again broken.
While we like Performance Profiler and Memory Profiler, and until now have recommended them, next time we're up for renewal, we'll be looking into competing products. This is not some fit of pique: We simply have to be pragmatic and ensure that our tool support is reliable. -
sergiopereira wrote:Right now I'm hoping MS wakes up to the importance of Reflector in .NET and realizes they have a severe gap in the SDK without Reflector. I hope they either acquire this software and include in the SDK or create something similar.
If you think this capability would be more affordable under MS, please keep in mind that IntelliTrace, one of the cooler features of VS2010, is only available in the $11,899 Ultimate SKU. That's more than double the premium price, and almost 15x the professional price. I definitely don't see them buying Reflector and giving it away for free in the SDK.
-Scott -
scottt732 wrote:sergiopereira wrote:Right now I'm hoping MS wakes up to the importance of Reflector in .NET and realizes they have a severe gap in the SDK without Reflector. I hope they either acquire this software and include in the SDK or create something similar.
If you think this capability would be more affordable under MS, please keep in mind that IntelliTrace, one of the cooler features of VS2010, is only available in the $11,899 Ultimate SKU. That's more than double the premium price, and almost 15x the professional price. I definitely don't see them buying Reflector and giving it away for free in the SDK.
-Scott
Not to get off-topic here, but I think a more reasonable comparison would be what MS did with the SysInternals tools (Process Explorer, et. al.), which are still free and have actually improved under MS' oversight. -
There is a subtle difference. Mark Russinovich went with SysInternals to Microsoft with the intention of continuing development on the suite. In my opinion, this is why the quality of SysInternals is still as high as it is. While Lutz Roeder works for Microsoft, he's moved on to other projects.
SysInternals is a very good analogy though. SysInternals is an indispensable tool for the TechNet crowd while Reflector is indispensable for the MSDN crowd. I would imagine that if SysInternals became commercial, it would have taken a major popularity hit. Judging by what I've been reading here & elsewhere, I think it's safe to assume that Red Gate will be looking at the same situation with Reflector.
I think Red Gate has an outstanding reputation of improving the MS toolset. The quality of their products is second to none. Working on SQL Server without the SQL Toolbelt suite is like getting root canal without novicaine, but I think their pricing puts their tools out of reach for hobbyists and small development shops. Unfortunately, I think the announcement is going to do them more harm than good in the long run.
-Scott -
AvonWyss wrote:
Well, the thing is that Canon doesn't forcefully take away your camera just to force you buying a new one. And that's what is happening here.tlhintoq wrote:I'm a hobbyist photographer. I don't expect all of my tools to be free. I had to pay (dearly) for my 1000mm supertelephoto lens, and my Canon 7D DSLR. I just have to decide what is important to my hobby. Every couple of years it means selling one camera body if I am to buy a newer one.
That said, it's not about getting everything for free. But the community providing free tools and open source software lives from this give-and-take. And such a decision of actually revoking a free tool from the community is not the same as asking for money for new stuff.
AvonWyss, a Photographer's main 'tool' is their camera --a Developer's main 'tool' is their Development Studio. How is Reflector the main tool for a developer's trade? Clue me in! -
You're completely missing the point. Nobody was talking of the "main tool" for anything. In fact, the photography example was brought up by tlhintoq in the context of a hobby and therefore I replied to it.JDelekto wrote:AvonWyss, a Photographer's main 'tool' is their camera --a Developer's main 'tool' is their Development Studio. How is Reflector the main tool for a developer's trade? Clue me in!
The point is that users of Reflector V6, which actually did obtain a license to use it (whether it was free or not is unimportant - I had to agree to certain conditions in order to use Reflector), are being prevented to use their properly licensed software starting on May 30, 2011. -
AvonWyss wrote:
You're completely missing the point. Nobody was talking of the "main tool" for anything. In fact, the photography example was brought up by tlhintoq in the context of a hobby and therefore I replied to it.JDelekto wrote:AvonWyss, a Photographer's main 'tool' is their camera --a Developer's main 'tool' is their Development Studio. How is Reflector the main tool for a developer's trade? Clue me in!
The point is that users of Reflector V6, which actually did obtain a license to use it (whether it was free or not is unimportant - I had to agree to certain conditions in order to use Reflector), are being prevented to use their properly licensed software starting on May 30, 2011.
No, I was addressing the point of your response to the 'Photographer', I think it was right in line. You were comparing apples to oranges. Second of all, this entire thread about "open source" is rediculous, since Reflector was a free application at the time it was handed over to RedGate, not open source. -
Looking back, on how James Moore the General Manager of Red Gate acquired such a very popular tool. Where this tool was running for years for "FREE" where donations have been fuelling the said utility, imagine how many users this utility have and then after 2 years of acquisition fully commercialized the software... is this a joke?
Sharing you the conversation took placed after the acquisition of Reflector.
http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/opin ... eflector-/
BC: “How did this deal come about?â€
JM: “I’ve used .NET Reflector for years and it’s at the top of my list of great .NET tools. It’s also one of the few tools every developer here uses, so I knew I was not alone. A few months ago, I dropped Lutz an email introducing myself and it just kind of went from there.â€
LR: “When James emailed me and we spoke about the future of Reflector and the resources Red Gate could make available to the project, it made the decision easy for me.â€
BC: “How can it be good news that a commercial software company is taking ownership of a free community tool?â€
JM: “I think we can provide a level of resources that will move the tool forward in a big way. The first thing we are doing is continuing to offer the software to the community for free downloading. The second thing is giving our product management and usability teams the task of going out into the community to get suggestions on how we can make this amazing tool even better.
We accept the fact that there will be scepticism, but we can point to a good track record of support for the community. People were wary a couple of years ago when we purchased the SQL Server Central community site, but over time we have won over many of our critics by investing heavily in the site and boosting its readership, while allowing it to maintain editorial independence. I’m hoping I will be able to sit here in a few years time and claim the same level of success with Reflector.â€
Also stumbled upon reading LZ's blog right here:
http://blog.lutzroeder.com/2008/08/futu ... ector.html
Where LZ wrote: Red Gate will continue to provide the free community version and is looking for your feedback and ideas for future versions.
My few thoughts on this.
If RedGate have the guts to commercialize this type of software, why didn't they create a new tool instead of acquiring Reflector? Is it because RedGate developers are incompetent with regards to creating this kind of tool?
The only reason I can think if is because... competition. If RedGate created a new tool, would they profit? If they acquire Reflector instead, they would also bring the users already using it for years. I could just imagine the number of users of this tool and convicing them that "oh $35 won't cost much". A very good business strategy don't you think? The heck, this utility would even give them a more profit than their existing tools.
The heck RedGate? Why did you even bother acquiring this tool if you can't even maintain the "free" features attached with this utility. Shame on you RedGate! Better create your own and sell them to whatever price you can think of!
@... Roeder, if you are reading this, it would have been better to have this tool been turned over to open source. The open source community would have offered a lot to the improvement of this utility.
RedGateâ„¢
We acquire free softwares and convince the community its for a good cause.
We improve these utilities and sell them later.
We need more utilities, to all those free tools out there, sell them to us, we pay you big time but you must have millions of users before you sell them to us
-
kenro wrote:@... Roeder, if you are reading this, it would have been better to have this tool been turned over to open source. The open source community would have offered a lot to the improvement of this utility.
...and how would mr Roeder have been compensated for spending years and years on this tool if he had turned it 'open source'?
Or do you really think he should give away his investment (time, money, etc) for free?
I presume you work for free, kenro, but the reality is that most of the rest of the world don't. Bills don't pay themselves, supermarkets and gas stations don't give away their goods for free. Please explain to me why you think that Lutz Roeder or Redgate should give away their time/money/investment/IP for free, because I really don't get it... -
Right, let me rephrase:
it would HAD been better if this tool WAS turned over to open source. The open source community would have a lot to offer to the improvement of this utility.
KristoferA, in reality, RedGate has a lot of tools that are NOT offered for free. And in reality, not all softwares are being offered with a price. These people offering for free just know HOW TO CHANNEL TO NEW MARKETS TO COMPENSATE THE LOSS. That is why google chrome is free, thunderbird is free, Open Office and so on... Heck, Firefox has even a lot of users than RedGate and its still free. Get it? Have you really woken up to reality Bro?
They can even put ads or something on the free version or whatever... JUST THINK!
This reminds me of what happened to netscape, how its started as a free version and they turn to selling the product instead and how it went kapooch after a few years burned down by IE. Only difference is that, the browser was their idea, for RG, bought from someone else... -
kenro wrote:KristoferA, in reality, RedGate has a lot of tools that are NOT offered for free. And in reality, not all softwares are being offered with a price.
Right. And I think farmers should stop charging for potatoes since they already make money from other crops.
I think it is very kind of all those who spend their own time and money on providing free software with no strings attached, but the reality is that most people [and companies] do need to make money on things they spend a significant amount of time and/or money on.
Redgate showed their goodwill by providing Reflector for free for several years after their initial investment. Without knowing any details, I would expect that they were out (at least) a few hundred thousand from day one and that amount has probably grown if the premium version didn't sell enough copies to cover the cost of the support/maintenance/dev team.
If they have determined that they can not recover their costs without charging a nominal fee to end users then that is their decision. I have zero understanding for those who are up in arms over that decision, because making that decision is entirely up to the owner of the IP involved...
...and why should they suddenly change their business model from a per-user-fee to some fuzzy google-adwords-like thing? If they are set up to operate one way and that works, then it probably makes zero sense for them to change the way they operate. -
KristoferA: I wonder what you feel if all browsers all of a sudden charge you with a nominal fee. You should even charge them for your support
on them making so much revenue.
Read between the lines:
KNOW HOW TO CHANNEL TO NEW MARKETS TO COMPENSATE THE LOSS.
I never expected them to have such novice Sales Executives or whatever. And by the way, it was free before RedGate contacted Mr Roeder to claim this tool for benefits and sh**. RG bought this on 2008 just THREE YEARS AGO, this has been free BEFORE 2008. Version 4 was released on 2004: http://blog.lutzroeder.com/2004/05/net- ... or-40.html. The heck, all the basic functionalities in reflector are already working before they acquired this tool. from 2008 to 2011, what have they done? VS integration and some language improvements? the heck, add-ins are much more useful than this.
However, yes, it is still their decision since they have the right, it's just that, THIS IS ALREADY LEAVING A BAD IMAGE TO THE COMPANY. What is the effect? Open source community "might" just create another tool same as this. The customers lost due to this move will be more willingly to support the open source instead. (Like what happen to NetScape Navigator). And guess who will be making more revenue? The open source my boy! OPEN YOUR EYES MAN! This is what made IE and firefox so successful.
But as you said... it is still up to the owner. I'm just another person who is against it. Good luck!
-
kenro wrote:KristoferA: I wonder what you feel if all browsers all of a sudden charge you with a nominal fee. You should even charge them for your support
on them making so much revenue.
Redgate is a [relatively] small company in a vertical industry (SQL & .net tools). Comparing them (around 200 employees or something?) to Microsoft (90k+) or Google (30k+?), or their products to browsers is a bit like comparing apples to aircraft carriers IMO. Two completely different things.
They already do a lot more community freebie stuff than most other comparable software companies. They provided Reflector for free for three years, they run community websites, they sponsor .net/SQL user groups and conferences etc. -
Right. Founded since 1999... hmmm... I guess the open source community is much more successful than them eh?
Couldn't even maintain the reputation of Reflector being free for more than seven (7) years. We'll, I guess this is what to expect for selling Reflector off to a "commercial and relatively small company".
As again. Good luck!
-
KristoferA wrote:I think farmers should stop charging for potatoes since they already make money from other crops.
Fair point. But if a farmer did give you a sack of potatoes for free, you wouldn't expect him to turn up on your doorstep six months later demanding that you either pay him or return the potatoes.
Once you've given something away for free, I don't see a problem with charging for future updates, but if you try to stop anyone from using the free version and force them to pay for the new version, you're only going to p!ss people off. -
well, guys @ SharpDevelop already started to work on open-source alternative.
Feel free to look/help
http://wiki.sharpdevelop.net/ilspy.ashx -
RichardD wrote:KristoferA wrote:I think farmers should stop charging for potatoes since they already make money from other crops.
Fair point. But if a farmer did give you a sack of potatoes for free, you wouldn't expect him to turn up on your doorstep six months later demanding that you either pay him or return the potatoes.
Once you've given something away for free, I don't see a problem with charging for future updates, but if you try to stop anyone from using the free version and force them to pay for the new version, you're only going to p!ss people off.
Agreed!
Add comment
Please sign in to leave a comment.
This makes everyone wonder if the point of acquiring the rights to it was to monetize the product to begin with, even if it was not the intention.
How about asking to have folks pay for support rather than to use ? This is more in line with the open source model.
Not interested in flame war, just wanting to float the balloon.