Revenue to Lutz Roeder / Loss of goodwill to RedGate

• 

  codputer wrote:

  I believe Lutz provided this tool for free to the community, and reached an agreement with Lutz to continue development of the product in exchange for the exposure to the community for all of Red Gate's tools.
  
  Sounds like the honeymoon euphoria has worn off, and now that RedGate is into the marriage, its a lot more work than the dating.
  
  I wondering however if Red Gate attempt at fee revenue will be shared back to the original author of the software? Or did you get the software on one premise, and now are attempting to switch to a more profitable arrangement while cutting out the person that had the orginal idea?
  
  Redgate also states that it cannot continue to make the free model work, yet there are many companies that are able to! MS beign one fo them with their flagship product of Visual Studio...
  
  To be frank, I'm calling BS. Some exec wants his/her bonus to be better, and his/her University education and greed are kicking in to find more revenue...
  
  Interesting to see if the community will accept the argument - or put up a voice that makes RedGate understand what is fair. My bet is that this is a very bad move for Red Gate, and the ill feelings and bad press this will recieve will take away any good will that was recieved when the product was taken over.
  
  Of course, the exec will not think that the lost of good will have a negatie effect on their salary. They will just shrug their shoulders and say, "I was trying to do it for the good of the company!". Better put the the duck, weave and spin control on high...

  
  Greets,
  
  Even Simon noted in his YouTube presentation that one of the ideas of acquiring Reflector was to try and expose developers to some of their other offerings (which, to be honest, I had been waffling on for quite some time and decided to purchase).
  
  For many corporations, the 'free' model doesn't always work --and don't quote Microsoft and its free development tools, because, if you read the agreement for those Express Editions, you cannot use your results for commercial purposes.
  
  Times are tight right now, people are slashing budgets and to be honest, working as a developer I have to buy some of my own tools to make my job easier. I look for some of the best deals when I can because software is not inexpensive. For those who provide those tools, I have no qualms in parting with my coin to make my life easier.
  
  If Red Gate only has one or two developers maintaining Reflector and the product isn't bringing in any income (i.e. given away for free) what do you think the company will do? If a project costs a company to maintain in the hopes that it might generate some revenue from other interests and it doesn't, then it needs to refactor. Perhaps the company is now looking at the Reflector team to actually bring some revenue into the company as it should.
  
  Cheers.

  JDelekto February 05, 2011 21:11

  - 0 +
• 

  JDelekto wrote:

  For many corporations, the 'free' model doesn't always work --and don't quote Microsoft and its free development tools, because, if you read the agreement for those Express Editions, you cannot use your results for commercial purposes.

  I'm not sure where you got your info regarding this, JDelekto, but you're flat out wrong. There is nothing in the terms for the express editions that says you can't use them for commercial purposes. In fact, Microsoft encourages this and has done so since the express editions were first released several years ago.

  sirflimflam February 05, 2011 21:17

  - 0 +
• 

  sirflimflam wrote:

  JDelekto wrote:

  For many corporations, the 'free' model doesn't always work --and don't quote Microsoft and its free development tools, because, if you read the agreement for those Express Editions, you cannot use your results for commercial purposes.

  I'm not sure where you got your info regarding this, JDelekto, but you're flat out wrong. There is nothing in the terms for the express editions that says you can't use them for commercial purposes. In fact, Microsoft encourages this and has done so since the express editions were first released several years ago.

  
  I stand corrected! You are absolutely right in that the Visual Studio Express Editions since 2008 allow a developer to create commercial applications. I typically scan over the license agreements and they seem to have particular limitations which would have made me think otherwise; however, even the Microsoft FAQ clarifies this.
  
  Here is the relavent link: http://www.microsoft.com/express/Suppor ... t-faq.aspx
  
  Thank you for the correction.

  JDelekto February 06, 2011 08:13

  - 0 +
• 

  codputer wrote:

  Redgate also states that it cannot continue to make the free model work, yet there are many companies that are able to!

  
  I think you have a valid argument here, to some extent. Here's the thing: it seems to me that if Red Gate had simply decided to acquire Reflector in order for good press/publicity, and maintain it as-is, it would be relatively cheap for them to continue development on it as Lutz did. I mean, if Lutz could provide it for free for all of those years and not get one dime for it, surely a company as relatively large as Red Gate could do the same, seeing how they would be getting the marketing by having users visit their website in order to obtain Reflector. I would be interested to know how many hours Lutz put in each year on Reflector. Again, I am willing to bet Red Gate could've absorbed that cost had they simply maintained it in the same way that Lutz did, rather than try to create an additional, for-pay product.
  
  My hypothesis is that had they stuck with the product as-is, they wouldn't find themselves in this position and we wouldn't be discussing this - instead, because of a bad gamble they took, we all have to pay for their mistake - isn't this typical of business? Pass the costs of bad investments on to the customer rather than the investor? Apparently Red Gate can be lumped into that crowd, because that's exactly what this smells like.
  
  Hey Red Gate, maybe you should give a basic version, one on-par with what Lutz maintained, back to the community to develop and maintain - a fork of the code - then, you continue, if you so desire, to develop a for-pay version. I think that may save your reputation a bit, notwithstanding the beating it has already taken.

  JasonBunting February 07, 2011 13:27

  - 0 +
• 

  JasonBunting wrote:

  I mean, if Lutz could provide it for free for all of those years and not get one dime for it,

  
  Are you claiming that Redgate didn't pay Lutz Roeder for Reflector?
  
  I always thought they bought it from him. As in: they got the IP and he got $$$.
  
  My [possibly incorrect] interpretation was that mr Roeder invested his time and money on developing Reflector, and then recovered his investment (and hopefully also made a bit of profit on it) by selling it to Redgate. But maybe I misinterpreted/misunderstood it all...

  KristoferA February 07, 2011 22:44

  - 0 +
• 

  KristoferA wrote:

  JasonBunting wrote:

  I mean, if Lutz could provide it for free for all of those years and not get one dime for it,

  
  Are you claiming that Redgate didn't pay Lutz Roeder for Reflector?

  
  No, that's not what I meant - I mean he worked with no promise of monetary recompense. Besides, if you read it more closely, you will see that the main reason I even mention that is to illustrate the fact that maintaining Reflector in the same way Lutz did all those years shouldn't have caused the problems we are now seeing Red Gate have - i.e. losing money since no one is buying the enhanced versions of Reflector.

  JasonBunting February 08, 2011 02:24

  - 0 +
• 

  JasonBunting wrote:

  No, that's not what I meant - I mean he worked with no promise of monetary recompense.

  
  Maybe mr Roeder's strategy was to build a large enough user base and then cash in by selling it on to someone (e.g. Redgate, Microsoft, or someone else)..?
  
  Lots of "free" or "community" things work that way; websites (e.g. stackoverflow.com ) are free but the investors of course plan to turn a profit somewhere down the line when they have enough userbase/content/reputation to fetch a good enough price.
  
  Selling the entire product to a bigger fish is often the easiest way to cash in, e.g. stackoverflow.com will probably make money by selling the entire company [to MSFT, GOOG, AOL or someone else with a lot of dosh] when they're large enough. Their competitor ( experts-exchange.com ) instead charge access fees per user. Different business models, but the end goal is still the same: to make money, cover the investment and hopefully a bit more on top of that.

  KristoferA February 08, 2011 02:33

  - 0 +
• 

  KristoferA wrote:

  Maybe mr Roeder's strategy was to build a large enough user base and then cash in by selling it on to someone (e.g. Redgate, Microsoft, or someone else)..?

  The user base would have been large enough a long time ago, so I personally doubt that this was the plan.

  AvonWyss February 08, 2011 03:48

  - 0 +

Add comment

Please sign in to leave a comment.